About editing a document class

Something that is technically feasible but should be avoided if possible is to edit a document class after the class has been put into production. For example, you might have created and made available a document class that users have assigned to potentially thousands of documents, only to find that a change to the class is needed.

Adding properties to an existing document class

An added property means, among other things, an additional column to the database table that contains that document class' description. The documents already assigned to that class will remain as rows in that table, but there will be no value in the new column. Content Engine's own property sheets display the new property for the old versions of the document. Thereafter, you can use Enterprise Manager's Search and bulk operations to find and populate those empty columns. You could also, using your own database tools, populate those columns, but FileNet does not support this kind of action because doing so overrides its own internal validation methods. Documents checked in under that class after the new property is added will have values for the new column in the database table, provided a value was assigned either by the system or by the user.