When you associate a property with a class, the property propagates to all object instances and subclasses of that class. When you create subclasses, you can ensure that properties are propagated to only that subclass and not all subclasses and object instances of the parent class.
For example, the ElectronicRecordFolder and HybridRecordFolder are subclasses of the RecordFolder class. These subclasses contain all the properties that are associated with the parent class, RecordFolder. However, the HybridRecordFolder class contains additional properties such as Charged Out Status and Barcode that do not apply to the ElectronicRecordFolder class. As a result, these properties are directly associated with the HybridRecordFolder class.
You can create subclasses of the following IBM InfoSphere Enterprise Records classes:
Although you can logically subclass other IBM InfoSphere Enterprise Records classes not specifically mentioned above, subclassing them will have no impact on the IBM InfoSphere Enterprise Records user interface. For example, using Enterprise Manager you can logically create a new subclass of the Record, RecordFolder, or RecordCategory class and associate various properties with the subclass. However, the newly-created subclass will not be visible in the IBM InfoSphere Enterprise Records user interface.
To create a subclass
When the subclass has been successfully created, it will appear in the Enterprise Manager tree under the node of the class that is its superclass.