What is typical usage of property a_status in documents?

Every SysObject has property a_status (string). In Documentum_System_66_Object_Reference.pdf I see about it: 'Reserved for use by Documentum products'; and this is all. Can someone tell me typical scenarios of its usage in real documents of real Documentum systems?

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DCTM_Guru

I think it may have been used by Web Publisher to store the lifecycle status (eg Draft, Under Review, Approved) of web page.

Francois Dauberlieu

Johnny is right. (There might be other products using it too though)

To add to his answer, note that since it's reserved for Documentum products usage, it shouldn't really matter to you as you shouldn't use it. If you do use it and set your own stuff, it's at your own risks, you won't get support for any problems encountered...

GlenLantz

I am asking because of I want to export Documentum documents into another document management system. Documents of this ‘another document management system’ have, partially, fields named Discipline (typical values are Administration, Commercial, Landscape, Mechanical, …) and Status (typical values are Draft, For Approval, For Information, For Use, ….)

So I have to find out: when a Documentum document is being exported, which Documentum properties correspond to these fields? Judging by property names I think that Documentum’s a_status corresponds to the Status. As for the Discipline, the closest Documentum property I see is a_application_type. But I never saw a ‘real’ Documentum Content Server (all I have is Developer Edition). So I would like to check out: is this my conclusion correct enough? And what are typical scenarios of using these properties by the ‘Documentum products’ (which ones, BTW?)

DCTM_Guru

Keep in mind, when you are "migrating" content/data from one system to another, there is no guarantee that there is 1 to 1 mapping from old to new. If your Documentum content was using default dm_document type, then there is not really that much "custom" data that you can map from Documentum to your new system.

If I were you, I would do a random sample of documents (around 10) and perform dump API for each object. From dump of each object, you might be able to determine if any custom metadata was stored in the default attributes that might map to "discipline" and any other fields in your new system.

a_status and a_application_type is specific to Documentum applications (not content), so I doubt the values in those objects are applicable to your new system. Subject, title, and author is more suitable.

GlenLantz

'I would do a random sample of documents (around 10) and perform dump API for each object' - correct. The problem is, as I said, I have no real Documentum Server with content of some real enterprise yet.

This is why I appreciate any scenarios of usage of a_status and a_application_type. Anf or examples of their possible values.

I see it is possible to change them using WebTop. Is a user supposed to do this?

DCTM_Guru

So you are basically designing a migration strategy in a vacuum? - Good luck

Do you have a valid powerlink acct? If so, you can do search against the Documentum knowledge base to see how those attributes have been referenced over time.