Practical difference between Document Collection Members and Documents?

Question

Hi, new to the Forum and it has been super helpful! I couldn't find an andwer to my question though: 
 We use Document Collections quite a bit, but it is unclear what the practial difference is between the Document Collection Members and Document Collection Documents? 
 I guess the relationship is different depending on how documents are linked to the Collection (drag & drop vs. metadata property), but I struggle to understand why sometimes the document metadata shows the Collection (if as a Document) and sometimes it doesn't (if as a Member). 
 I hope to have this crystal clear in my mind, so that I can train our users efficiently and not confuse them too much. 
 Any insights?

Craig Hawker · Accepted Answer

The simple practical difference is to do with how the relationships are maintained. 
 The "Collection Members" are literally held on the Document Collection object itself as a built-in multi-select property (ID46). i.e. there's an property on the Document Collection that points to the documents. 
 The others ("Documents") could be held a couple of different ways depending on which direction the relationship is pointing, but they are either documents that have the "Document Collection" property pointing at this object, or they are the default Document property on the Document Collection that points to other objects. 
 When working with Document Collections I have almost always used the Collection Members approach. I can see why the other approach may look a little awkward when combined with collection members but, equally, I am struggling to think whether I have ever actually encountered this "in the wild". 
 Complicating this is also "multi-file-documents" which may also be (ab?)used to achieve similar things. 
 If the above isn't clear enough then maybe could you show a screenshot or two (blurring anything sensitive) that gives me an idea of exactly what setup you have?

Practical difference between Document Collection Members and Documents?

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