Categories and attributes#
A category is a group of related fields on an object, General, Location, IP networking, Contracts, DHCP scopes, and so on. The fields inside a category are called attributes.
Each class defines which categories an object exposes. A Server has Form factor, CPU, Memory, IP networking, Network device; a Person has Address and contact, Employee; a Network has Network definition, IP addresses, DHCP scopes, Subnets.
Single-value vs multi-value categories#
A single-value category holds exactly one set of attribute values per object, for example General. A multi-value category holds many entries per object, for example IP networking lists every IP address assigned to a server.
The two render differently on the object details page: single-value categories show a stacked form; multi-value categories show a table you can sort, filter, and add rows to.
Custom categories#
Administrators can create their own categories to capture data the standard model does not cover, see Category Builder and Creating custom categories. Custom categories follow the same rules as built-in ones; the Category Builder lets you pick attribute types from a list (text, number, date, boolean, single-select, object reference, …).
Choosing which attributes you see#
In the Finder, the active column preset decides which attributes show as columns. On an object's details page, the gear icon next to Overview in the sidebar lets you hide or show entire categories per user.