Creating a New Attribute

Specialized Administration > Tailoring Business Objects > Type and Attribute Management > Working with the Type and Attribute Management Utility > Managing Types > Type Information Page > Attributes Tab > Creating a New Attribute

To create a new attribute for a type, select Edit from the Actions menu for the type to enter edit mode, and click the new attribute icon

on the Attributes tab.

The New Attribute window is composed of three steps:

1. Define Attributes

2. Choose Data Type or Choose Reusable Attribute

3. Set Properties

Enter the information on each step, and click Next. When finished, click OK to create the new attribute. You are returned to the Manage Types window, with the information page for the attribute displaying in the right pane. (Click Apply to create the new attribute, but remain in the New Attribute window to create additional attributes.)

Define Attributes

1. Specify an Internal Name for the attribute. The value specified for the internal name is case-sensitive, and must be unique on all subtypes and parent types of this type. This is a required field.

2. Select the attribute Type. Not every type of attribute can be created on every type. Only those attribute types that can be created on the type are displayed.

◦ Local—Local attributes can have only zero or one value for an attribute. Local attributes are stored in columns directly on the underlying object class. Because of this, a local attribute has better performance than a global attribute with a Single-Valued constraint. If there are no additional columns available on the class for new local attributes, an error message displays when you attempt to complete the creation of a new local attribute. Out-of-the-box, there are no additional columns on any object class for local attributes. For information on adding columns for local attributes, see Adding Columns to Types.

◦ Global—Global attributes can have zero or more values for an attribute. In previous releases, global attributes were known as instance-based attributes. The reusable attribute set is created using Manage Reusable Attributes.

◦ Alias—Alias attributes map to an attribute on a related object for their value. They can have zero to many values.

◦ Calculated—Calculated attributes are derived from the values of other attributes using formulas. They can have zero to many values.

◦ Translated Text—(Windchill Service Information Manager and Windchill Service Parts only) Translated text attributes display the translated values for their associated source text attributes. For more information, see Setting Up Translated Text Attributes.

Choose Data Type

For local, alias, and calculated attribute types, select the data type from the Data Type list.

The data type of an attribute cannot be changed after the attribute has been created.

The available data types are dependent on the attribute type selected in the previous step:

• Boolean

• Date and Time (local and alias attributes, only)

• Double (alias and calculated attributes, only)

• Hyperlink (local and alias attributes, only)

• Integer Number

• Object Reference (local and alias attributes, only)

• Real Number (local and alias attributes, only)

• Real Number with Units

• String

For more information, see Supported Data Types.

Choose Reusable Attribute

For global attribute types, select from the Reusable Attributes table the reusable attribute definition on which you want to base the new attribute. The reusable attribute set is made up of the attributes defined in the Manage Reusable Attributes window. The data type of the selected reusable attribute determines the data type of the new attribute.

Choose Source Text Attribute

For translated text attribute types, select the String data type attribute to be used as the source text attribute for the translated text attribute. All String data type attributes on the type that are not already referenced by a translated text attribute are available for selection. For more information, see Setting Up Translated Text Attributes.

Set Properties

Enter the property values for the attribute. The available properties can differ depending on the combination of attribute type and data type, or on the reusable attribute definition. Certain properties are required and must be specified before the attribute can be created. Most properties on an attribute can be specified or edited after the attribute is created, on the attribute information page. For descriptions of each property, see Attribute Properties Reference

For additional information on how attributes are displayed in the Windchill user interface, see the help topics in the section titled Presenting Information in the UI.

For information on moving an attribute to another type, see Using the TypeAttributeMoveTool Utility.