Promoting and Demoting Attributes 

Use

As the repository taxonomy develops, it may become useful to promote or demote some attributes.

When you use the Promote command to promote a linked attribute, MDM links the attribute to the parent, removes the direct link from the child, and replaces it with indirect links to all of the children through inheritance.

When you use the Demote command to demote a linked attribute, MDM unlinks the attribute from the parent and links it directly to each of the children. In both cases, MDM preserves all of the underlying data values assigned to the attribute.

If you promote to a parent an attribute that had been linked to just some of the children, it would then be indirectly linked through inheritance to all of the children. If you then demote the same attribute, it would then be directly linked to all of the children. If you want to revert to the initial state – where the attribute is linked to just some of the children – you must manually unlink it from the other children.

Procedure

To promote one or more linked attributes:

       1.      In the taxonomy tree, select the category to which the attribute you want to promote is linked.

       2.      In the Attributes pane, select the linked attribute(s) you want to promote.

       3.      Right-click on one of the attributes and choose Promote from the context menu, or choose Attributes ® Promote from the main menu.

MDM links the selected attributes to the parent category, unlinks them from the selected category, and also unlinks them from any other descendants of the parent category.

After the promote, the attribute is inherited not only by the selected category (as indicated by a “1” superscript next to the Linked icon in the Linkedcolumn of the Attributes list) but also all of the other descendants of the parent category.

 

To demote one or more linked attributes:

...

       1.      In the taxonomy tree, select the category to which the attribute you want to demote is linked.

       2.      In the Attributes pane, select the linked attribute(s) you want to promote.

       3.      Right-click on one of the attributes and choose Demote from the context menu, or choose Attributes ® Demote from the main menu.

MDM unlinks the selected attributes from the selected category and links each one directly to each of the children of the selected category.

Operation	Constraints
Promote Attribute	·        Must be in Taxonomy mode ·        Attributes pane must have focus ·        At least one attribute must be selected ·        The selected node cannot be the root ·        The selected node cannot be an alias ·        All of the selected attributes must be linked to the selected node
Demote Attribute	·        Must be in Taxonomy mode ·        Attributes pane must have focus ·        At least one attribute must be selected ·        The selected node cannot be the root ·        The selected node cannot be an alias ·        The selected node must have children ·        All of the selected attributes must be linked to the selected node