title: Entity Framework 4.1 Complex Type reuse in different models
body: <p>Here is the senario for which I could not find anything useful. Maybe Im the first person thinking of doing it this way:</p>
  
  <p>Approach: <strong>Database First</strong></p>
  
  <p>Database: <strong>SQL Server 2008 R2</strong></p>
  
  <p>Project : DLL (Data Access) </p>
  
  <p>I have a data access library which encapsulates all the access to database as well as the biz functionality. The database has many tables and all the tables have the following 2 columns:  </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><strong>last_updated_on</strong>: smalldatetime</li>
  <li><strong>last_updated_by</strong>: nvarchar(50)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The project contains several models (or edmx files) which contain only related entities which are mapped to the tables they represent. Since each of the table contain the columns for last_updated_* I <strong>created a complex type in one of the models</strong> that is as follows:</p>
  
  <p>Complex Type: History</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>By (string: <strong>last_updated_by</strong>)</li>
  <li>On (DateTime: <strong>last_updated_on</strong>)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The problem is that it can only be used in the model in which I defined it. </p>
  
  <p>A) If I try to use it in other model it does not show it in the designer 
  B) If i define it in the other models I get error History already defined</p>
  
  <p><strong>Is there any solution so that the History complex type, defined in one model can be reused by other models?</strong></p>