Creating Models › Creating a Logical Model › User-Defined Properties

User-Defined Properties

You can define custom properties and assign them to the different classes of model objects. These user-defined properties (UDPs) are properties that you create to document and notate the logical and physical object classes.

A user-defined property can be anything that you consider useful and important with respect to managing the specific object class. For example, consider a situation where you are a DBA in a workgroup setting where different developers have the responsibility for maintaining many tables. You can design a user-defined property within the Table Editor that would allow each developer to select their name to specify that they are responsible for the selected table.

You can assign UDPs for any object class from within its respective editor. All object editors have a UDP tab that lets you assign UDPs. The UDP tab in all editors works the same way. You can view each UDP name and add the property values.

From the User Defined Properties option on the Model menu, or from any UDP tab, you can also open the User Defined Properties editor to define the properties for the selected object class. In the User Defined Properties editor, you can assign a name, data type, default value, and description for any UDP. You can then use the UDP tab in an object editor to enter property values for the UDP.

Class

Lets you select the object class for which you want to view/create UDPs.

New

Creates a new UDP that becomes the current object in the editor.

Delete

Deletes the selected UDP.

Delete All

Deletes all the existing UDPs for the selected Class.

Move UDPs

Moves the selected UDP to the top of list, bottom of list,up, and down respectively.

While you cannot share user-defined properties between logical and physical model objects (for example, entities and tables cannot share UDPs), you can share UDPs between logical and physical models for the Models, Relationships, Diagrams, and Subject Areas Editors.

UDPs are not generated into your database; you use them as a tool to manage the details of your model. You can, however, use UDPs for UDP macros and include UDPs in model object reports and reports on UDP definitions.

More information:

Create a User-Defined Property