A custom item subtype is an item type based on an existing item type. You could create a subtype called product bundle that associates a group of products together, in a way that’s analogous to how SKU bundles collect SKUs. A product bundle would be a subtype of the item type product. Another custom item subtype would be an external user called a representative who acts on behalf of a company to sell items in specialty parties.
To use a custom item subtype in Asset Manager applications:
Create your custom item subtype based on instructions provided in the SQL Content Repository chapter of the ATG Repository Guide.
Configure the subtype for the versioned database by adding new properties to the repository, adding columns for those properties in the appropriate database tables, and informing the versioning system about the new item type.
See the Configure Repository Asset Support section of the Setting Up an Asset Management Server chapter in the ATG Content Administration Programming Guide for instructions.
Add the new subtype to the searchable list of item types in the Search tab. This step is optional because, by default, a search on a parent type returns sub-typed values as well. Perform this task if you want the subtype to be visible in the item types list and you want users to be able to locate only items of this subtype. See Creating and Defining a Task Configuration File.
Create new item mappings for the item subtype, if you don’t want to use the item mappings defined for the item’s parent type. See Custom Item Subtypes and View Mappings.
If you created new item mappings or made any other changes that affect which item mapping should be used for an item of this type, be sure to represent those changes in the task configuration file. See Updating View Mapping Settings in a Task Configuration File.
Create property groups so that you can use the Multi Edit tab to edit items in bulk. See Creating and Defining Multi Edit Property Groups.
By default, the icon provided to items of the parent item type is also used by items of a custom subtype. If you prefer a different icon, see the Implementing a Custom Icon section for instructions.
Items of a custom subtype are automatically visible in the Project tab, Multi Edit tab, and all relevant dialog boxes.
