XFM Features and Operations can both contain properties. Property definitions are defined in Bentley Geospatial Administrator and maintained as XML metadata. During a Bentley Map session, XFM maintains properties in XML DOMs (Document Object Models). XML DOMs store XML data in a format that can be easily queried and modified by programmers. The type and size specifications defined for a property are currently enforced at the user interface level. This means as the user inputs property values only valid data is accepted and stored back to the DOM. The items that a property can use to gather its data are described in the section Property Based Annotations.

Properties are referred to by name. If a property needs to be referred to outside the context of its owner the following naming convention should be used.

• Feature property - The syntax is the feature alias name and property name separated by a colon [feature_instance_alias:property_name]. The "feature_instance_alias" is almost always the same as the feature name and "property_name" is the name of a property defined for the feature. If a user configures the system to place two of the same type of features simultaneously, then each feature alias needs to be unique. An example feature property name is "TelcoCable:YEAR_INSTALLED".

• Operation property - The syntax is the operation name and property name separated by a forward slash [operation_name/property_name]. An example would be "Tree/Spin"; where Tree is the node name used to store operation data for the Tree feature, and Spin is the name of the property to set.