Content Type Inheritance in SharePoint

Content Type Inheritance allows creation of a new content type from an existing one. This allows reuse of an existing content type and metadata columns.

Advantages

The following are the advantages of Content Type Inheritance:

1. Reusability
2. Maintainability

Base Content Type

The Base Content Type is the System of ID 0x. All the content types will be inheriting from System as the ultimate parent.

Creating an Inherited Content Type

Now we can try creating an inherited content type. In this expense submission scenario, we are trying to create a content type that inherits from Document. We will be adding additional metadata columns for capturing Amount.

Choose Site Settings > Site content types page > Create.

Enter the Name for the content type and select the Parent Content Type as Document. Click the OK button to continue. In the page that appears choose Add from new site column.



Enter the name of the column as Amount and type as Currency.


Click the OK button to continue. Now you can attach the content type to a document library.

Create a Document Library and choose Library Settings > Advanced Settings > Allow management of content types > Yes > Click Ok.


Again choose the Library Settings page and you should be able to see the content types section. Choose the following option.



In the page choose Custom Content Types and add our Expense Content Type to the add box. Click the OK button to continue.


Now try to add a new document to the library. Choose the Expense Content Type from the drop down and you will be able to see the Amount column as shown below.

References

Inherit Content Types.

Summary

In this article we explored content type inheritance, its advantages and some examples.