Methods, computer program products, and computer systems for configuration management are disclosed. Such methods, computer program products, and computer systems include determining whether unstructured data or structured data is available for use as a basis to define an associative template, and in response to a determination that unstructured data is available for use as the basis to define the associative template, determining whether the unstructured data is hierarchically organized. In response to a determination that the unstructured data is hierarchically organized, an associative template can then be defined using the hierarchical organization of the unstructured data, where the unstructured data is hierarchically-organized unstructured data (HOUD).