16.1 Introduction

A collection is like a folder, but is more suitable for holding a large number of objects or in cases where no internal folder structure is required or appropriate. The contents of a collection cannot be browsed in the usual manner. Instead, items may be found by searching within the collection. The collection search page allows a user to filter out the objects from the collection which they are not interested in.

Collections are often used in conjunction with issues (see section 15 - Document Issuing) and reviews (see section 17 - Reviewing) where a large number of objects may be required but where they do not need to be related to each other in a prescribed manner. Therefore a standard hierarchy would be inappropriate and a collection is a preferable container.
Another instance in which a collection would be appropriate is where a large number of documents with similar attributes need to be kept together. For instance, a secretary uploading documents into Business Collaborator on behalf of their Manager is unlikely to have sufficient understanding of a project to decide where in a project structure to place these documents. However, by requiring the secretary to upload all the documents into a Collection - and to provide additional project-specific metadata (see section 13 - Metadata) - it will be possible to locate the documents easily at a later date by means of a search.