The Document Modeling Workbench (DMWB) is a tool for maintaining document administration models in the Knowledge Provider infrastructure. The Knowledge Provider (KPro) is a component of the SAP Web Application Server and is the central service for administrating and storing documents and document-like objects.

The DMWB is used to create metadata models for the different types of interrelated documents that you use. These models are called content models. Content models are used to create a structure and an architecture for processing documents within an application-specific context.

The characteristics of the individual content objects are described on an abstract level in the content model. The various types of content are mapped to the documents in the content model. Possible types of content are documents (text, graphic), and document-like objects (such as video sequences and websites).

A content model can handle all the requirements of an application that uses Knowledge Provider with regard to document versioning, administration of relationships between documents, assignment of characteristics to documents, and so on.

• The uppermost structure level of the content model is the document area. This could be an area for, for example, training documentation, marketing material, or Internet objects. Document areas are mainly intended to help you separate documents belonging to different application or application areas.
• Document classes, which in the DMWB are known as info objects classes (IO classes), are the next level down. They help you structure the various possible documents. IO classes are differentiated from each other by means of special characteristics. IO classes can be, for example, multimedia objects, sound files, documents, and structures.
• You can connect IO classes to each other using relationship classes. A relationship class can be, for example, a hyperlink, a reference, or a translation reference.

For versioning to be possible, every class must have its own characteristic. Characteristics can be, for example, format, author, ‘last changed by’, and language.