Document class

Last updated: July 20, 2023

A document class represents for a specific document type, or family of document types, a set of common attributes, permissions, required relationships for the document with other objects including documents, as well as systems actions to be performed during the life cycle of the document.

The document class serves the following purposes:

It depicts the properties that must be specified, as well as the methods for create, maintain and/or control, associated with the document type.
The class acts as the template from which an instance of a document master record is created. The instance contains the actual data associated with the specific document.

Document classes can be represented in a hierarchical form, which may allow complete or selective inheritance of class properties from parent to child.