The creation of new project schemas requires initial planning. The following is a suggested workflow that may be helpful to get you started.

1. Define Geometry Types: Point, Line, or Polygon: Geometry can be one of three geometry types: Points, Lines, or Polygons. Review your data requirements and ensure that each feature can be defined as one of these geometry types
2. Define Categories to organize the features (Optional): Categories can help organize the features for ease of use and navigation. Review your features and create categories to organize your features.
3. Define domains: A domain is a list of pre-defined values for feature properties that can be defined manually or be queried from a database.
4. Create Feature definitions: Each feature in your project can be defined in the Features node found under All Users which makes them available to every workspace in the project. The feature definition will contain the name, geometry type, display name, an optional category and an optional description. Other settings such as Zoom Min and Max can be specified at this time.
5. Define Feature properties (Optional): At this point, the foundation of your project has been created. The next step is to define feature properties which are used to store your business attributes. In addition to determining each property, its unique details need defining. This includes the property type and its associated settings which are found in the property definition tab.
   Note: Defining feature properties should be done with thought and care. In some cases, it may not be possible to change property details after the property has been created and used in an OpenCities Map project. This is especially true for the data type and database properties.
6. Define Criteria (Optional)
   • Criteria are used to test property values and take the appropriate action if the criteria evaluate to TRUE. For example, a criterion would be used to satisfy this statement:
   • If the ModelNum is ABC-1234, then set the Cell Name to MH_LARGE.
7. Define symbology settings (Optional): Your CAD standards can be incorporated into your mapping schema by defining feature symbology. Criteria defined in Step 6 can be used to define which symbology settings to apply. This is referred to as Property Based Symbology.
8. Define feature placement metadata: In order to place selected features in a design file, custom placement tools must be created for each feature. Insert feature placement metadata from the features right-click menu.
9. Create Command Manager: The Command Manager contains the list of features with associated placement and promote tools.
10. Create User workspace: Workspaces are created from the User Workspace node and Multiple workspaces can be defined on a single project. If desired, features can be defined for use with a specific workspace.
    Note: If features are created for use with a specific workspace, be sure to update the Command Manager list for the workspace.
11. Export Workspace metadata: Once the project definition is complete, export the project and workspace metadata. This creates the workspace folder and accompanying OpenCities Map XML folders. It copies resource files such as cell libraries and seed files. XMF resource files are exported for various definitions such as the features, domains, criteria and more. And finally, it creates the necessary configuration files.
12. Testing: The last step is testing your schema and answering these questions:
    • Does the workspace run and open Work.dgn?
    • Are all features listed in the Command Manager ?
    • Are they organized in the correct category as defined in the feature definition?
    • Do the features place correctly and are the properties correct?
    • Is the symbology correct and does reflect any criteria used for property based symbology?
    • Are the cells and text the correct size?
    • Are domain lists available for those properties that require them?