Custom types

The entity and link types in the palettes that are governed by an i2 Analyze server might not always closely represent the entities and links in your data. You can create, import, and manage custom item types, and create custom property types for both schema-aligned and custom item types.

If your investigation involves the charting of items that are not available from the palette, you can create your own item types and define properties that are appropriate for them. For example, you might be analyzing the illegal trafficking of wildlife commodities, but you cannot find suitable types that represent species of interest. To enhance the visualization of your analysis, you can create new entity types for each species, along with new link types to the trafficking gangs involved.

You can choose to add your custom types to other open charts, and to charts that you open or create in future. When you save custom types to charts and import specifications, other analysts can use them too. However, you cannot upload unaligned records to the Information Store, or distribute them using the Share Records function.

When you upload or share schema-aligned records, custom property types are not saved to the record.

Note: i2 Analyze users with the correct permissions can create custom types and properties. If you are unable to access the palette options, contact your system administrator. Users working with a Chart Store only, or with an i2 Online deployment, are not able to create custom types.