Documentum Compliance Manager (DCM) provides the ability to control documents using document classes, at its heart, to merge other configuration objects such as business applications, lifecycles, relationships, and auto-naming schemes, needed to control formatting and naming of documents checked into a DCM managed repository.
A business application must be defined and assigned to each document class created. The business application assigned to a document class determines what actions can or can not be taken against a particular document, identifies members in the coordinator and contributor roles that can access the document, and which templates and workflows that can be used to manage the document. The more items added to each of the Coordinators, Contributors, Template, and Workflow tabs, the greater the pick list in the list boxes when a controlled document is created against a particular document class.
A document class is created based on a document type selected and the business application selected. You can create a document class associated to a particular business application so that documents of the type selected are processed against the values specified for the attributes on the Info tab. Values specified for the attributes across each of the tabs match the values of the business application selected and are all inherited by default. Deselecting the Inherit option against an attribute allows you to make the necessary modifications.
Document classes provide the flexibility to create a controlled document type required for a particular business process, and to associate a set of default behavior and characteristics with that type. You can base a document class on any Documentum object type. Using the custom properties associated with a document class, you can define specific kinds of behavior, such as the document class’s versioning behavior, associated auto-naming scheme, and an associated lifecycle.
DCM provides the ability to route uncontrolled documents using standard workflows and the ability to route controlled documents using controlled workflows.
Documents managed by DCM are called controlled documents. Controlled documents advance through a series of lifecycle states and typically undergo some form of review and signoff before advancing to the Approved or Effective state in their lifecycle. The document class for a controlled document is configured by your administrator.
In DCM, a document is considered the main or active document if it is in a dcm_effective state.