Identifying the Types of Document Entities You Need
You need to identify whether operational documents need to be uploaded under document subtypes or whether one type of document entity is enough.
You'll need to select a high-level category for document subtypes, for example Operational Documents.
You can create a new miscellaneous entity for each document subtype. The miscellaneous entity inherits the high-level design features of the document entity (title, description, browse, and upload capability).
This approach has the following benefits:
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Each document subtype has a separate Document-Type search screen.
If you don't specify document subtypes, you must use the generic Document Search screen. The attribute parameter for document type must be specified as part of the search criteria.
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A separate tree structure is created for each document subtype. Individual documents of that subtype are listed under this. The tree structure is used in the Navigator and on each Search to Add entity screen.
This is often useful because it's the same as having a separate, defined directory for each document subtype. This is instead of one document directory that lists all documents regardless of subtype.
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You can define different attributes for each document subtype.
This means you don't have to use conditional attributes on the document entity to cater for different document subtypes.
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You can specify an icon to represent each document subtype.
This makes the document subtype easier to see in a diagram and other screens in ICM.
We recommend you deactivate the predefined document entity. This will prevent you from accidentally selecting and creating a document entity instead of the specified document subtype.
Once you create a document based on a subtype, you can't change that subtype.
You'll need to delete the document and then recreate it as the correct subtype. For example, you can't change a correspondence document to a statement document.
The alternative to creating separate miscellaneous entities for each document subtype is to set up an attribute for the predefined document and select the document subtype from it.
For example, you can set up the Type attribute for the document entity. The code list for the Type attribute field could include the Correspondence, Statement, Legal Document, Plan, and General Miscellaneous document types.
This setup could be enough for your agency. But the benefits described in the previous list don't apply.