What is the purpose of the Document Type field?

[asiderop]

I understand the need for organizing the documents list in a hierarchical fashion, but I don't really understand the need for the Document Type field. If we have the Document Category and the Document Sub-Category, why do we need the type field? Maybe I am just ignorant of some great example use cases...

Could someone help me better understand (and use) these document classification and organization fields?! Thanks!

[tbragg]

We have been using SugarCRM for over a year, and I think this is a very good question. I'm surprised there was no response. In our case, we are a software house that specializes in legacy modernization, the redevelopment of old software written in COBOL or ADABAS / Natural to Java or .NET for the web. We encounter many kinds of documents -- contracts, requests for proposals, powerpoint presentations, user guides, you name it -- and figuring out how to tag them in Sugar has proven surprisingly difficult.

One thing that might help guide you is to note that only document type displays by default when you browse the documents attached to an account. So maybe document type is the most meaningful distinction to you (for us it might be whether the document is public, confidential, or whatever) and then categories have to do with content such as sales material, rfp, etc.) and then subcategory might be where it came from or some further distinction. I'd like to know how others use these attributes, too.