Information container
The named, managed unit of information in the CDE — tracked by status and revision.
An information container is the discrete, named unit of information managed in the common data environment under ISO 19650: a persistent set of information identified by a unique ID and tracked by status and revision. It can be a whole file — a model, document, table or schedule — or a distinct subset of one (a layer, a section).
What makes it a container is that it is a named entity in the CDE. ISO 19650 requires each container to have a unique ID enabled by the CDE, built on an agreed, documented naming convention whose fields are separated by a delimiter — so any container can be found, sorted and referenced unambiguously across the whole project.
Crucially, the container carries metadata: a status (suitability), a revision, and a classification. The CDE enables it to move between the controlled CDE states (Work in Progress → Shared → Published → Archive) through those status codes and revisions, leaving an audit trail. The basis is ISO 19650-1 (the definition) and ISO 19650-2 (the CDE-enabled ID, revision, status and transitions). In Italian it is the contenitore informativo.
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