The term "versioning" in the KPro is an umbrella term for different versioning subtypes that are mapped by different relationship classes in versioning. Versioning can be regarded as mapping a derivation relationship between two documents. The relationship is directed from document 2 to document 1, whereby document 2 originated from document 1 on the basis of a specific criterion.

The following versioning relationship classes are predefined in the KPro:

• Content versioning

Independent of these criteria, the KPro supports multiple versioning. The term "multiple versioning" is used to refer to situations where several additional physical documents are derived from one physical document. The derived documents can differ with regard to their format, language, and so on.

The strict versioning principle protects the content of the components of physical documents from being changed. Every change automatically results in a new version with a new ID. This can be lead to an excessive number of versions, particularly in applications where a large number of documents are processed. If you use references to physical documents, you will have to update each individual reference as soon as a new version is created or an existing one deleted. This highly complex procedure, however, is not necessary thanks to the three-level content model (see also Content Models). The three-level content model supports both strict versioning and references between documents: all references refer to logical documents. This means that it is irrelevant whether new versions with new IDs are created for the individual physical documents. Therefore, there is no unnecessary version overhead.

If a new physical document is created when the contents of the components of an existing physical document are changed, content versioning stores and manages this information in the KPro. Content relationships are used to build content versioning.