Use property settings to define a relationship type as a copy or link mode. There are two property settings: one controls individual relationship types, and one specifies the default mode for all relationship types in the system that do not have an individual property setting defined. There are two values for this property setting: copy and link.

By default, the system specifies all relationship types as copy relationship types. Out-of-the-box, the system does not link any product options. The out-of-the-box property setting is set to copy.

No relationship types exist out of the box, including link relationships. You must use a property setting to specify an existing relationship type as a link relationship. By default, all relationship types created are copy relationship types.

You can change the system-wide default option for relationship types to function as a link mode, and automatically link the defined product options. To do this, change the value of the property setting to link:

After you create a relationship type, you can then specify whether or not the relationship type is also a link relationship. If you do not enter this property setting, then the relationship type uses the system-wide default property setting, discussed in the previous section, to determine whether the individual relationship type copies or links. The basic form of the property setting used to specify copy or link relationship types is:

<RelationshipTypeName> is an existing relationship type that has already been created, and the default value is copy.

If you wanted the MissyPetite relationship type to be a link relationship, then you would enter the following property setting, where <RelationshipTypeName> is equal to MissyPetite, and the property is set to link: