Folder behavior

FileNet P8 Platform folders are based on the Content Engine's folder class. Like other classes, the default behavior of the folder class can be extended through subclassing, and assigning custom properties or changing the security of these subclasses.

Folders are not versionable; only documents are. This means, among other things, that any changes you make to a folder's properties, or to the objects it contains, are not kept in a history or tracked in any way, such as the way that document versions capture what the document was at a particular point in time.

System administrators and end users with sufficient permission can switch a folder's class to a different class after the folder has been created and put into production. The folder immediately takes on the properties and security of the new class. System administrators can also edit the class itself, but such changes do not flow down to the existing folders already based on that class. Only new folders based on the class will get these changes. See Change a folder class for more information.

Some FileNet AddOns and third-party applications use specifically designed subclasses of the base folder class. You can find these subclasses by browsing Enterprise Manager's Other Classes node.

Creating new folders

You can create new folders by running the Create New folder wizard. System administrators can create folders for the use and convenience of the object store's users, much the same way they would do in a tool like Windows Explorer. Or they could leave the creation of folders to the application's users, provided the application lets users create folders. Any folders created in an application like Workplace will show up (following a refresh of metadata across the network) as a subfolder to Enterprise Manager's Root folder, and vice versa. See Create a new subfolder for more information.

Folders and Enterprise Manager

Enterprise Manager contains many nodes titled Choice Lists, File Storage Area, Other Classes, Property templates, and others, that look like folders. But only the Root Folder and its subfolders are based on the folder class and will display their contents (their documents, custom objects, and other folders) to client applications. The other nodes that look like folders nodes are only used internally by Enterprise Manager.

Folders contain by reference

The document, custom object, and folder objects that are contained in a FileNet P8 Platform folder are made to appear by means of a reference to the actual objects that are safely stored in the object store's database. These references are displayed using icons made to look like or suggest those objects.

With Content Engine, you can create multiple references to any single document, custom object or folder. This means that a single document version, for example, could be pointed at by more than one reference. As a result, the document version would appear several times in several folders. A typical use case could be a trip report that would be put in the folder belonging to the employee who wrote the report as well as in a folder containing trip reports. Both references point to the same document. If you were to open the property sheet of both those documents, you would see they were exactly the same. This is why, when you use Enterprise Manager to delete a Folder, you will receive a warning message asking you to choose exactly what you want to delete.

Users and system administrators can create the multiple appearances of documents and custom objects simply by copying in one folder and pasting them into another. See Referential containment of folders to create an additional reference to a folder.

Documents and custom objects do not have to be contained in a folder at all. This can happen when you Unfile a document. Regardless of how many folders a document is contained in, and even if it is not contained by a folder at all, it can always be found by submitting a query which matches its property values.

A technical aside on referential containment

These "reference" objects mentioned here and elsewhere are actually Referential Containment Relationship (RCR) objects. These objects have two pointers, one of which points to a particular folder while the other points to a document, Custom Object or folder.

Most times, RCRs are dynamic, meaning they point dynamically to a document's latest version. What appears in folders? provides a complete explanation of how folders display dynamic RCRs.

Static RCRs point to a specific document version and will not change even when new versions of the document are created. Static RCRs can only be created programmatically and not with Enterprise Manager, although Enterprise Manager will accurately display them. Unless specifically clarified, Content Engine Help always describes dynamic referential containment.

Folders can also be referentially contained.

Root Folder

Each new object store is created with a Root Folder, a system-created folder based on the default folder class. The Root Folder is the parent of all other folders that will be created in the object store. The Root Folder is analogous to the C:\ drive in a Windows system—all folders on that drive would be a child, grandchild, et cetera, of the root.

The Root Folder and the document objects and custom objects it directly contains are not displayed by applications such as Workplace. The folders directly contained by the Root Folder do appear in the application as that application's top level of folders.

Unique names

Content Engine allows only one instance of a specific object name in a single folder. Enterprise Manager appends a numeric designator if a user creates more than one object with the same name. That is why if you create two subfolders beneath a single folder, and accept the default name "New Folder" for each, the second one will in fact be named "New Folder (2)". Other applications may handle this situation differently.