A content management system (CMS) provides a way to include data from an external source as an object in the repository managed by the CMS. The CMS includes an external data mechanism that processes a document with a query to a data source external to the repository. The external data mechanism executes the query, and creates one or more objects in the repository according to the type of data returned. Each object containing data returned from the query is linked to that query via a formal relationship in the CMS. When an object that has a formal relationship with a query is checked out of the repository, the query corresponding to the object may be executed, and the data returned from the query may be stored in the object. Alternatively, the data may be used directly if a corresponding lifecycle policy indicates the corresponding query should not be executed.