7.1. Overview of Custom Types

Engineering Knowledge Manager

Administration Guide | Chapter 7: Defining Custom Types |

Chapter 7: Defining Custom Types |  | 7.1.1. About Built-in Types
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## 7.1. Overview of Custom Types

EKM provides you with the capability to define new custom types for a workspace that are either new object types or extensions to built-in types. There are numerous scenarios for which you may want to create new data types or extend a built-in type in EKM:

- Creating a New Object Type:

  - Custom File Formats: If you have proprietary files for which EKM does not provide off-the-shelf support for, you can easily create custom data types that support these file formats. Custom data types can be used to define metadata (properties) that are extracted by an application after a file is uploaded. You can also define properties that users must input when a file is uploaded. These “user-defined” properties can be useful for defining attributes that cannot be automatically extracted from files but are relevant to your business process. A Project ID attribute is an example of a user-defined attribute. A custom file format definition can also specify applications for extracting images and reports from files. See Custom File Formats for more details.

  - Custom Folder Structures: By default, EKM organizes data in files and folders in a way that is similar to Windows and Linux file systems. The hierarchical structure is easy to understand. You may, however, want to have more control over how data is organized in EKM, and you may want to be able to enforce a standard way of naming or organizing files and folders. This can be done by creating custom folder structures. Custom folder structures are data types that specify the name, type, and occurrence (single or multiple) of child objects. They enable you to control how new objects can be added to a particular type in EKM. See Custom Folder Structures for more details.

  - Custom Analysis Project: `Analysis Project` is specific type of container that can be used to manage all data that is associated with an analysis. Apart from data, it also manages inputs and outputs of the analysis and enables it to be automatically re-executed if the project becomes out-of-date. Users can create new instances of `Analysis Project` objects in EKM and provide information on where inputs and outputs are located and how to execute the analysis. If you do not want users to manually enter this information every time they create a project, you can define a custom Analysis Project that specifies this information in the type definition. See Custom Analysis Projects for more details.

- Extending a Built-In Type: Built-in types come with a standard list of properties that are created by EKM (for example, Date Modified, Modified By, and so on) and metadata that are extracted automatically after upload (for example, physical model data used in a simulation). However, you may also want users to specify additional attributes at upload time that are relevant to your business requirements or extract additional metadata. This can be done by extending a built-in type and adding more properties. See Extending Built-in Types for more details.

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