About Types

The data model of Library Central is defines hiearchical structures for parts and documents, or for general items. The data model focuses on the storage of libraries and classes, and classified items.

Base Types

The Library Central base business object types are listed in this section.


  • Libraries
  • Document Family
  • Generic Document
  • Document Sheet
  • Version Document
  • Workspace Vault
  • Publish Subscribe
  • Event
  • Person

The business types use inheritance to extend specific definitions of the types. Refer to the Schema Reference Guide for information about data models and type inheritance.

Base Type Usage

The schema can be extended to include more business types. To add more business types, create subtypes of the base types. These subtypes can have the same definition through inheritance, or further additions can be added to the subtypes.

Libraries and Document Families are designed to create structure. Libraries contain Document Families, which can contain additional document families, and so on. The types have attributes that store metadata about the objects. The attributes and governing policy are the same for the types out-of-the-box. These types are often referred to as containers because they are for structural purposes. No files are checked into these objects since the types do not have any formats defined.

Generic Documents are a business type used to store files and metadata information. Documents are contained in document families.

Document Sheets are a business type similar to Generic Documents. A Document Sheet can contain files and has fewer attributes than the Document type. A Document Sheet is a specialized object type that is used to store a subset of the information that makes up the document. Document Sheet objects are generally connected to a document.

Version Documents are a business type that stores history versions of a specific file that was checked into a document. Each time a user checks in a file, a version document is created with the new file. The Version Document is connected to the document object.

Workspace Vault is a business type that is shared by several ENOVIA products. It is used essentially as a folder. It has a very basic lifecycle and can contain other business objects.

Publish Subscribe, Event and Person are business types that are used to support the subscription functionality. Users generally do not work directly with these types.

Refer to the Schema Reference Guide for details about the relationships and policies used with these object types.