Relationship Classes

Definition

Dependencies between documents are described in relationships. A relationship links two documents according to specific criteria. Depending on these criteria various types of relationships - relationship classes - are differentiated. As well as the predefined relationship classes in Knowledge Provider, each application can define their own relationship classes.

The predefined relationship classes can be found in the document area System under Relationship Classes.

Relationship Classes Provided with the System

Use

In order to define relationship classes, you must first consider what kinds of relationships may occur. For example, answer the following questions:

  • Are there hyperlinks between documents?

  • Are there documents that are used as templates for other documents?

  • Are logical or physical objects, or both, involved?

With the DMWB you can create virtual relationship classes, which serve as models or templates for real relationship classes. The real relationship classes inherit their instance attributes from the virtual relationship classes.

If the content of a document is changed and a new content version of the document created, a relationship of the type Content Versioning (VERSIONREF) is created between the physical info objects of both documents. This relationship represents a record of the creation of the new content version.

If a document is translated from German into English, a language relationship exists between the two documents. This relationship likewise represents a record of the creation of the English document. The criterion for the creation of the relationship in this case is the language. The creation and administration of this kind of Language Relationship is called language versioning (TRANSLREF).

The most commonly used types of relationships or relationship classes are as follows:

  • Collection relationship

    The collection relationship (LOGOBJECT) models this behavior. A particular physical document belongs exclusively to one logical document. This relationship connects 1 logical document with n physical documents.

  • Template relationship

    A template relationship (EXPORTMDL) exists between two physical documents. In a template relationship, a particular document serves as the template for the creation of a new document or several new documents. This relationship is activated when new documents are created.

  • Version relationship

    The version relationships for content, format, and language (VERSIONREF, FORMATREF, TRANSLREF) between document A and document B (also within one info object class) show that, for example, document A was created as a version of document B. This means that document A could be one of the following:

    • An updated version of the document

    • A backup copy in a different format

    • A translation

  • Description relationship

    The description relationship (DESCOBJECT) tells us that an info object is actually a description of another info object. This type of relationship can be useful if the content in question is an image, for example.

  • Structure relationship

    A structure relationship (STRUCTLINK) models a hierarchical relationship between the contents of two documents. The relationship could be, for example, that between chapters and paragraphs in a book.

  • Hyperlink relationship

A hyperlink relationship (HYPERLINK) is used to represent hyperlinks between documents. If a hyperlink points to a logical document, the Knowledge Provider’s context resolution function is used.

For more information on relationship classes, see the section Relationships in the Knowledge Provider documentation.