Define new metadata profiles

You may extend the metadata profiles provided by the system according to your needs and define your own profiles. A user-defined metadata profile is always intended for a certain BSCW object type (e.g. folder, document, contact). When defining a metadata profile, you start from the system profile of the object type and may delete existing attributes in any way and define your own attributes or groups of attributes.

When you create a custom metadata profile of a container object (folder, contact list or similar), you can specify not only the attributes of the container object, but also specify the metadata profiles of contained objects. For example, you can define a metadata profile "Association" based on the contact list and having additional attributes such as address and association number, specifying that the contained contacts should have the metadata profile "Association member", deleting certain contact attributes that are not needed and defining additional attributes related to membership such as membership number or membership fee.

You can create new metadata profiles in two ways. You explicitly create a new metadata profile by

•      Select  Assign metadata profile in the context menu of your personal templates or a template folder and determine the desired object type, e.g. for documents, in the submenu.

Metadata profiles from your personal templates are available everywhere, metadata profiles from the template folder of a workspace are available to you (and the other members of the workspace) only there.

You create a new metadata profile ad hoc when assigning a profile if you find that the available profiles are not sufficient for your purpose.

•      Select  Assign metadata profile in the context menu of an object. If the profiles available for selection in the 'Metadata Profile' action form are not sufficient for you, click [New Metadata Profile] to define a new metadata profile for the object type of the current object.

Such ad hoc defined metadata profiles are stored in your personal templates and are then ready for assignment.

The subsequent interaction to define a new metadata profile is the same in both cases.

•      In the 'New metadata profile' action form, the system profile of the selected object type or the object type of the current object is displayed, which you can now edit as follows. Note that a system profile like that of a folder can also be empty.

•      Enter a name for your new metadata profile and possibly a description that explains the purpose of the new profile.

•      In the "Attributes and Groups" tab of the form, use the [Add] drop-down menu to add individual metadata attributes or entire groups of attributes to your profile. You can choose from attributes and attribute groups of existing metadata profiles.

Added groups can be edited afterwards. You can also add an empty group to your new profile with the 'Empty group' selection, which you then fill with attributes. Do not forget to give your new attribute group a name. Groups are used to structure profiles and can also be nested.

With the selection 'New attribute' you define your own attribute with name and data type; tick if the attribute can have multiple values.

•      You remove an attribute or group by clicking the icon on the right edge of an attribute or group.

•      You can rearrange attributes and groups by holding down the mouse button and dragging them to the desired location using the icon (left of ). In this way, you can also move an attribute or group to the inside of another group or from another group to the top level.

•      If you define a new metadata profile for a container object type (folder, contact list or similar), the action form has another tab "Metadata profile for new objects". There you can define metadata profiles for the objects that will be created in the container, if they should differ from the system profiles.

o  Select an object type from the 'Add' drop-down menu for which you want to specify a custom metadata profile.

o  In the assignment line that now appears, you can select the metadata profile that you want to assign to the object type and that will be automatically assigned to all objects of this type that are created in the current container. All metadata profiles for this object type that are available to you are offered.

You can delete and reassign these assignments in the same way as in the Attributes and Groups tab. You can also make the assignment of contained objects to metadata profiles later by changing the metadata profile itself (see below).

•      Click [OK] to save the new metadata profile to your personal templates or a template folder.

•      If you have defined the new metadata profile ad hoc, you return to the 'Metadata Profile' action form and the name of the new metadata profile appears as a selection in the 'Select' drop-down menu. Click [OK] to assign this profile to the current object as a metadata profile.