IBM FileNet P8, Version 5.2.1            

Selected property descriptions

This topic presents information about the following selected properties and property-related information.

Date Content Last Accessed and Content Access Recording Level
The Content Access Recording Level property specifies the default value for an object store for how often the Date Content Last Accessed property is recorded. Content Access Recording Level is a settable property of the object store. Date Content Last Accessed is a read-only document property. Both properties are displayed in the administration console on the object store's General tab.
To update the Date Content Last Accessed property, select one of the following options:
  • Daily: set Content Access Recording Level to 86400 (the number of seconds in a day)
  • Hourly: set Content Access Recording Level to 3600 (the number of seconds in an hour)
  • Immediately: set Content Access Recording Level to 0.
  • None: set Content Access Recording Level to -1.
Date Content Last Accessed is updated when all three following situations are fulfilled:
  • Content Access Recording Level is not set to None.
  • The time difference between the current and last access exceeds Content Access Recording Level, or the Date Content Last Accessed was not set previously.
  • The content of the document or annotation is accessed by the client application, including any of the following actions: create a document with content, create an annotation, open the document content, or annotation to view, copy the content to local.
This property is different from Date Last Modified, which records any change to the properties of the object. If an operation to a document or annotation does not affect the content of that document or annotation, the Date Last Modified property is updated and the Date Content Last Accessed is not updated. The Date Content Last Accessed is not updated in the following situations:
  • Any operation performed on a document without content.
  • Any operation performed on a document with content where the operation does not affect the content, for example, checking out a document without getting the content.
  • Canceling a check-out (since the cancellation does not modify the content).
  • Adding a simple annotation of descriptive text only without any content elements.
  • Any operation that updates the Date Last Modified property does not necessarily update the Date Content Last Accessed. For example, changing the document title updates the Date Last Modified property, but does not update Date Content Last Accessed.
Whenever content access date recording is turned on, you can experience an impact on performance, which increases as you increase the recording frequency.
Folders Filed In
The read-only Folders Filed In property returns the names of all folders that a document is filed in. The value is empty if the document is not filed in any folder. This property applies to all document-related classes and is displayed in the administration console on the document's Property tab.
Short or long custom string properties
You can define a custom string property to be stored in either a "short" or "long" database column. "Short" corresponds to vargraphic for IBM® DB2® (with a maximum length of 4000 characters), nvarchar for SQL Server (with a maximum length of 4000 characters), or varchar2 for Oracle (with a maximum length of 1333 characters). "Long" corresponds to dbclob for DB2, ntext for SQL Server, or clob for Oracle (with a maximum length of 1073741823 characters for both).
Besides the maximum lengths permitted, the following differences exist between short and long strings:
  • A short string can be queried using any of the normal operators (=, >, <, >=, and so on). A long string can be queried only with LIKE andIBM FileNet® Image Services(NOT) NULL.
  • If content-based retrieval (CBR) is enabled for the property, both short and long strings can also be queried with the CONTAINS and FREETEXT operators. (CBR queries do not typically perform as efficiently as "database indexed" queries.)
  • A long string column cannot be specified in a database index, but a short string can be, therefore, queries on short strings return quick query responses.
  • A long string consumes a minimal number of bytes from the row size limit, regardless of the actual length of the value. A short string consumes a number of bytes equal to twice the character length of the string value. Thus, for databases that have a maximum row size limit, there is definite space advantage to using a long string column for a property with limited query requirements, even if its maximum length does not demand a long column.
  • There is an unquantified performance disadvantage to using long strings, because the actual text data is stored off-page (not with the rest of the row data). Queries for long strings require an additional read, all internal to the database processing, to retrieve the text data. However, there is some overall gain to system performance from reducing the overall row size for every document (or custom string property) in the system by using the long string columns and thus reducing the row size for each document fetched or stored.
The following additional operation-type restrictions exist for long columns (for full details see the DB2, Oracle, or SQL Server documentation):
  • IBM DB2
    • You cannot specify LOB columns in the ORDER BY clause of a query, or in the GROUP BY clause of a query, or in an aggregate function.
    • You cannot specify a LOB column in a SELECT ... DISTINCT or SELECT ... UNIQUE statement OR in a join.
  • Oracle
    • You cannot specify LOB columns in the ORDER BY clause of a query, or in the GROUP BY clause of a query, or in an aggregate function.
    • You cannot specify a LOB column in a SELECT ... DISTINCT or SELECT ... UNIQUE statement OR in a join.
  • SQL Server
    • NTEXT [,TEXT, and image] columns cannot be compared, sorted, or used in a GROUP BY clause. The only exception is when usingIBM FileNet Image Services NULL or LIKE. (An easy workaround is to use CONVERT or user-defined functions that would return other data types.)
    • NTEXT [,TEXT, and image] columns cannot participate in a UNION clause. This type of UNION is equivalent to a DISTINCT clause and would cause an error because text, ntext, and image data types cannot be sorted.

      The type of column to use for a property is determined by metaproperty UsesLongColumn, introduced (as set-only-on-create) to PropertyTemplateString and (as read-only, copied from template) to PropertyDefinitionString.

Hidden (Is Hidden) and Is Hidden Container
The Is Hidden system property indicates whether a class or property should be hidden from non-administrative users. This attribute provides a hint to the client application to not display the class property; the property is not in fact a security permission. If the application ignores the value of Is Hidden, the property is displayed the same as any other property. This property is displayed in the administration console on the Property tab of the class or property template.
The Is Hidden Container custom property is added to the Folder class (and all its subclasses) if you install the Base Content Engine Extensions add-on feature. This property is used to hide a folder from the user in an application that reads and respects the value that set for this property. This property is displayed in the administration console on the folder's Property tab and on the Property Definitions tab of folder classes.
For more information about using this property, see Hiding a folder.
Expression
This field enables you to define property-based conditions for launching a workflow. This field accepts SQL expressions that use workflow properties, operators, and values.
For example, you can launch a workflow only if a document is created by a specific user and contains specific words in the title. You want to launch an approval workflow for documents in the selected class added by Tammy Smith containing "Sales Analysis" in the title. Assume that Tammy adds a document to the class that does not contain "Sales Analysis" in the title. The subscription can launch the workflow, based on the operator used:
  • If you used "and" to join the two conditions, the workflow is launched.
  • If you used "or" to join these two conditions, the workflow is not launched.
The Expression field is evaluated to determine whether to launch a workflow automatically. When the value is True, the workflow is launched.
For manual workflows, use the following guidelines:
  • Use the following operators: and, or, < > (for not equal), >, <, >=, <=, contains, not contain.
    Note: The contains and noncontain operators are used for string properties only. An expression that uses the contains operator is true if one string contains another. An expression that uses the notcontain operator is true if one string does not contain another.
  • The expression is case sensitive for operators.
  • If the expression includes a date, use the format MM/DD/YYYY hh :mm: ss zzz.
  • Do not use wildcards with operators.
  • Enclose string and date values in single or double quotation marks. The processor accepts both kinds of quotation marks.
  • Boolean data types are case sensitive. Use "true" rather than "True".
  • Multiple values are allowed. For example, MV_INT has two values, 1 and 2, and is from a choice list of 1, 2, and 3. So MV_INT=2 and MV_INT=1 are true. MV_INT=3 is true. MV_INT=0 returns an error.
Note: The Expression property, although still valid, has been replaced by the more recent properties Filter Expression and Filter Property in the New Subscription wizard and on the Configuration tab of the Event Subscription. If you have already assigned values to this property, you can access and edit it by using the property grid on the object's Properties tab or by using search and bulk operations.
Using alias IDs to enable multiple object store searches
If you plan to support searches that span multiple object stores for FileNet P8 clients, create alias IDs for the properties users can search on before assigning the property templates to a class. The alias IDs automatically propagate to the class. For more information about creating and working with alias IDs, see Create alias IDs and Multiple object store search.
Allows Foreign Object
This Boolean property indicates whether the property supports references to objects in another object store (referred to as a "foreign" object). When this property is set to true, an object belonging to any object store to which the user has access can be set as the value for defined property. The required class specified for the property must be defined in the object store of the target object. This property can be set only from the property template and is read-only on the actual property definition.
Settable system properties (Creator, DateCreated, DateLastModified, LastModifier)
Select users who run system-level tools, such as import and migration tools, can set these four properties to Read/Write. For example, consider a federated document where the document is updated after its metadata on the original system was changed. Federation utilities must be able to set some of these properties after the document is created.


Last updated: October 2015
pr_select_property_descriptions.htm

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