Under the present invention, index keys are generated for a set of documents. This is typically accomplished by examining the set of documents, and connecting data values extracted from the set of documents to yield the index keys. Once the index keys are generated, an index view will be generated into which the index keys are populated. Using the index keys in the index view, an agent will automatically obtain the set of documents (i.e., in the background). Then, when a user requests one of the documents, the document will already have been retrieved from storage. As such, it can readily be provided to the user. It should be understood that as used herein, the term “document” is intended to refer to any type of electronically stored data.