item-submission.xml and Entities

[Joanna Lee]

Hello!

We have entities enabled in DSpace 7.6 - still in testing mode. I have a few conceptual questions about entities related to the submission forms.

I'm looking at the <name-map> section in item-submission.xml.

The documentation intro on Configuring Entities says "Normal Items are still the "default" Item, and they are unchanged.  So, not every Item is an Entity." (https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSDOC7x/Configurable+Entities#ConfigurableEntities-Introduction)

So, in terms of the item-submission form, does that mean that the default traditional form is still available for collections that are not assigned as entities and I would leave the following in place:

        <!-- Default submission process -->

        <name-map collection-handle="default" submission-name="traditional"/>

while specifically defining which collections are entities by associating them with the collection-entity-type list:

        <name-map collection-entity-type="Publication" submission-name="Publication"/>

        <name-map collection-entity-type="Person" submission-name="Person"/>

We migrated content from our DSpace 6x. When I edit collections on the UI, I see the drop-down box to assign an entity type. They are currently blank. If I assign a particular collection to an entity type through the UI, will all items in that collection inherit that entity type and be available for relationships? Does entity assignment through the UI impact which submission form is associated with it? Or do you always have to explicitly map collections to entities in item-submission.xml?

I want to add a custom submission form for ETDs. If we use the entity model, does that mean I need to add a custom "ETD" entity type to this file:

[dspace]/config/entities/relationship-types.xml

and then re-run the initialize entities script?

[dspace]/bin/dspace initialize-entities -f [dspace]/config/entities/relationship-types.xml

Thanks for the help!

Joanna

-------------------

Joanna Lee

George Mason University Libraries

[schu...@effective-webwork.de]

Hello Joanna,

I will try to give a first answer to your questions.

> So, in terms of the item-submission form, does that mean that the default traditional form is still available for collections that are not assigned as entities and I would leave the following in place:

i think so, yes.

> They are currently blank. If I assign a particular collection to an entity type through the UI, will all items in that collection inherit that entity type and be available for relationships?

This should be the case for new items in that collection. Setting the entity type to a collection will not change (that is: set "dspace.entity.type") on existing items.

> Does entity assignment through the UI impact which submission form is associated with it? Or do you always have to explicitly map collections to entities in item-submission.xml?

As far as I understand, since version 7.6 the settings you mentioned should be enough to use a special entity-form, without the need to configure all of tem by collection-id.

        <name-map collection-entity-type="Publication" submission-name="Publication"/>

        <name-map collection-entity-type="Person" submission-name="Person"/>

> and then re-run the initialize entities script?

Yes, that should only add the new entity-types to the database.

Regards

Johannes