4.3.1.1. Organizing Areas via Category assignment
In IRM, different object Types are organized via Categories through a tree structure (referred to as the Categories and Types Tree or C&T Tree). A single type or instance object can be in multiple categories at once, for example, an Area (e.g., a university campus building) can be in both a By Nature (e.g., "Building") sub-category and a Site (or a place, e.g., "Campus") sub-category.
The following is an example image screenshot showing Area C&T tree:
Area Categories
are used to help organize and easily locate Area instances
.
By default, the Area Tree includes the By Nature categories which allow the user to group Areas by their general purpose. The user may also create their own Categories and sub-categories to further organize Areas based upon the operational requirements for their organizational structure. This is possible by selecting the Create Category... and Create Root Category... context menu options:
When defining an Area it is possible to assign an area to multiple Categories which allows accessing the same area from within different branches within the Category tree. Some Area Categories (i.e., By Nature) are pre-populated by IRM, but are otherwise fully under user control (i.e., they can be added, deleted, and modified). For more details about the specific properties of Area objects, see the following topic -
Areas
Another specific feature of the Area C&T tree menu and Area organization is the ability to open (and close) multiple Area objects in a single operation.
This is enabled within the C&T tree (Open Areas context menu option on a Category),
or from within the Area tab in the Object Grid (Open context menu option after multiple selection).
Opening multiple Areas via C&T tree can be done at any Category level, and it will open all Areas directly or indirectly under that Category. However, if more than 5 Areas would be open, a warning pop-out dialog opens informing the user that a large number of Areas will be opened and ask if the user really wants to proceed.
In addition to opening multiple areas, it is also possible closing multiple areas in a single operation. This is enabled through drawing world Area tab context menu:
