to set r_creation_date manually?

Question

I am developing a DFS application (on C#) that imports a document from another document management system into Documentum Server. Partially, I have to decide: how to import 'Creation date' (r_creation_date)? I mean: Documentum's ideology supposes that value r_creation_date will be set by the server (as current date/time). WebTop does not allow to set it during documentum creation; or to modify it. In the 'another document management system' the ideology is different: we can set any date as document Creation Date manually. So:

1. Will it be acceptable from Documentum Server ideology if my software sets my own value into the r_creation_date

2. Will be there problems from implementation point of view? I have found out that Create operation ignores 'r_creation_date' I specify. The only way I can set my own value to r_creation_date is to call Update command after the object is already created. I have not found this behaviour described in DFS Reference, so maybe it is undocumented behavior I can rely on? Maybe such ivewrtiting of r_creation_date will lead to some problems in future?

Answer 1

Personally, I wouldn't recommend modifying this date via code.

The way I have dealt with this in the past is to use a custom attribute, for instance "my_creation_date" and to use that value for display purposes.

Are you creating a custom front-end for this application, or using the out-of-the-box Webtop for users? If you are creating a custom front-end then it is trivial to use your own attribute. Otherwise, you will need to do some WDK modifications to display that instead of r_creation_date.

In addition, it can be useful to preserve the actual system creation date, should it come to a question of when this was actually created in the system. Even audit records would not preserve that unless you maintained them permanently.