Catalogs foster collaboration by allowing you to describe the environment in which your projects operate and are essential tools for organising and comprehending an organisation's structure. They provide a structured taxonomy that categorises and explains how projects interact with other components within your organisation.

The benefits of catalogs are significant. They help stakeholders make informed decisions by understanding how a project impacts other organisational entities. Catalogs enable a thorough assessment of the implications of a project by considering its relationships with offices, applications, KPIs, other projects, and strategic drivers.

Catalogs can be utilised in various contexts, acting an asset register to assess the impact of projects on different assets and aligning projects with the organisation's strategic pillars. For example, you can utilise Catalogs to maintain a centralised list of applications used in your organisation, with details logged against them including contractual and licensing details, as well as technical information. When a project directly affects an application, you can tag the corresponding Catalog Item (application) to the project. This allows project managers and stakeholders to understand dependencies and access crucial information essential to project success.

In summary, catalogs are potent tools for organising and comprehending an organisation's structure. They enhance decision-making, foster transparency, and enable effective project management for improved outcomes.

Rendering of catalog types custom properties 

Each custom property is rendered differently based on the data type that it is created as. As a start, let's have a look at what the areas on the catalog type page signify. 

Now, the following points demonstrate catalog being applied to custom properties, how they are created as and how they are rendered when applied. The examples below are based on an application catalog:

• Firstly, the catalog is created for Applications in the Manage Catalog Types page.
  
  
  
  
• Under the custom properties page, select which element to create the custom property that will apply the catalog type. In this example, the custom property created will be for projects to render which applications projects in the organisation relate to.
  
  
  
  The data type is set as the catalog (Applications), with the default value as one of the principals (application name - Raygun).
  
  
  
  
• The application is now applied under a project, displaying the name of the catalog principal with the custom property values.
  
  
  As part of reporting, now on the project workspace the catalog details are displayed for project managers to have a view of how long the application will be utilised for (its licensed start and end dates) and any additional details for that particular application.
  
  

How to Access the Manage Catalog Type Page 

Navigate to the Administration Console page and select Catalog Types in the Data Administration section.

From the Catalog Type page, you can begin creating your catalogs by selecting Add New.

Note: When creating catalog types, you will not be able to create catalog types with the same name as existing custom properties. 

Setting up Catalog Types

Begin by setting up the catalog type custom properties that will be applicable with the newly created catalog type by navigating to the Custom Properties tab. 

From the custom properties page, select the catalog that the custom property will be created from. 

• Click on Add Property to open the dialog to create a new custom property. To edit an existing property, click on the pencil icon next the property name.

• The following dialog will appear where you can capture all the detail relating to the custom property that you're adding. Once complete, click Save. (See below image how to complete the form).

To learn more about the different data type options for custom properties, click here.

Once you have established the custom properties that will be applicable to the catalog, save the custom property and navigate back to the catalog types page to set up the principals using the bulk edit functionality. 

Bulk Edit Catalog Types

Each catalog type requires catalogs to associate to for example, if the main catalog type is based on using different applications in an organisation, the catalogs to be set in the bulk edit file will represent the names of the applications to choose from that organisation will use. 

To create the catalogs, use Bulk Edit option from the left-hand navigation or under the Tools menu. 

The dialog that will be presented will display the download option for the list of catalog types that you can choose from. Once you've select the catalog type, click on Download option to download the file. 

The descriptions of the columns in the extract file are explained below. 

Data File Column Description

It is important to note that the catalog type custom property values that are set in this file will be the value that are applied when a catalog is being associated with a custom property in the system (custom properties that are applied to projects, meetings, resources, boards).