Set up the metadata
In this video, you will learn how to:
- Create a metadata schema in Workfront DAM
- Understand the different types of metadata
- Use existing metadata fields
- Create custom metadata fields
Transcript
So now that we’ve done that review of everything, let’s go ahead and jump back into our system settings area and determine what metadata fields we want to show up every time we look at an asset.
And whether we want them to be a text field that we type into, or if we’re going to make them a pick list. So in order to do that, we’re going to head up here to our system settings icon and pick Metadata Schema.
And this is where we’re going to be doing all of our metadata setups. Now, there’s a strange user interface thing going on here. This little column down here, this inactive field, should actually be over here on the right side, but my screen’s not big enough. So it moves it down there over to the side. But in real life, you should see that right up here next to it.
Well, let’s talk about the first kind of metadata here which is this XMP metadata. An XMP metadata is the most commonly used type of metadata. It’s what you’re going to find across the majority of your applications that you’re going to be working in 'cause it’s the industry standard. And what I’ve learned is that these XMP fields correspond with those ITPC fields that you’re going to find in Photoshop and other places.
We’ll get to the rest of these tabs here in just a minute, but we’re going to start with XMP. The setups are fairly straightforward. Anything in this list under the blue XMP header is going to show up when you look at an asset.
And you can see here, we’ve got some of the basics in here. Headline, credit source, that type of thing. So the field ID is the name of the field in the background, but the field name is what the users are going to see when they look in that details panel on an asset. So you can see here, I’ve done some changes. That byline was hyphenated and I just went in here and typed it in so that it’s all one word.
Date created. I went ahead and just flipped the words around and typed in created date.
So we can change any of these that we want to. Maybe we’re not working out of the country, so maybe we just want that to say state.
Not a problem.
When you make changes you’ll have a little save button up here at the top. So just be sure to hit that periodically to make sure that your changes to the schema gets saved.
Now, if I want to add more XMP fields, I’m going to come over here to this inactive list and decide which ones I want.
So maybe I want to grab a field here called Date Sent.
And I’m going to grab a field here called Creator Email and that’ll add those fields right down here at the bottom of the list.
Now, if I want to move these around, all I’ve got to do is drag and drop them into the order that I want. I’ll move that creator email up there and we’re going to move the dates sent up there also.
And then from there, I can make a couple other decisions. First of all, do I want to rename that field? Second of all, should that field be searchable? All XMP metadata fields are searchable by default, but if for some reason you don’t want somebody to be able to search on that field, just go ahead and uncheck that, and that will exclude that field from any searches that you run.
Now, all fields come in as text fields, meaning that I can go into that field and I can type in my information.
But sometimes that’s not the best option. Sometimes we want to give users a pick list or a list of things that they can choose from. And I’ve actually done that down here on the copyright notice, you’ll see that it says pick list right there. Whoops, sorry about that. Just so you guys know, if you guys are used to using the scroll bar or the scroll wheel on your mouse, it doesn’t work real well in this window. That’s why I keep slipping up and down today.
But let’s go ahead on the image type.
Let’s make that a pick list. So I’m going to click the little edit icon next to my type and you’ll see that it’s giving me a metadata dropdown and having me enter the values one per line.
So image type, let’s say, let’s see, magazine, newsprint, billboard, web, insert.
Whatever needs to be in there. Just one value per line, the pick list, by default, will be just choose one.
But if you want to allow a multi-select, just make sure you click that button. That way people can pick more than one thing from the list if they need to. And then we’re just going to save that.
And you can see here now that it says pick list, it says multi-select, the pick list that’s not multi-select won’t have that after it. So we know that that one’s just a “Choose one and that’s it”, kind of thing.
Now, the final metadata setting here on each field is our metadata group.
Now, you all should have been through the system settings class and know what a group is in Workfront DAM. So for those of you that may have taken that class a while ago, just remember a group is a organization of users or selection of users who all need permissions to the same thing. They need to get into Workfront DAM or they need to get into the brand portal, so they’re going to have the same license type but they also have to be able to access the same information within the DAM.
And we do that access by folders, of course. Well, what a metadata group is going to do is you can limit access to metadata fields by your user groups.
So if I put everyone, the everyone group in here, that means everybody in my Workfront DAM system is going to be able to see that metadata field, edit that metadata field, and export that metadata field.
But if I have a field that I need only specific groups to see. Maybe it’s financial information or maybe it’s like this creator email field, I don’t want everyone to see that. I just want creative group one to be able to see that, So when everybody else looks at their metadata fields they’re not going to see creator email. But if somebody in creative group number one logs in and looks in an asset, they’ll see that email field.
It’s a good way to hide information. Like I said, maybe some financial information or maybe it’s some personal or some business information about a specific vendor that you just don’t want everybody to see.
Now, a thing to keep in mind is that if you limit a field to a certain group, not only are are the people in that group the only ones who can see the field, edit the field, they’re the only one who can export the field, So if somebody who’s in creative group two, or creative group three exports an asset, even if the creator email is filled in, it’s not going to export what the asset. Only the people with creative group one are going to be able to export that information.
So I just want to make you aware of those limitations. Everyone, meaning everybody system-wide, is the default.
But you can limit it field by field if you need to.
If you don’t want anybody to see a field just don’t include it in the metadata.
Now, one more thing that we’re going to talk about here on the metadata is using custom fields.
Now, the XMP doesn’t allow us just to create a new field from scratch. We’ve got to use what’s there, because again, it’s an industry standard. But what that standard is going to allow us to do is to use a custom field. So Workfront DAM comes with 20 custom fields that you can configure, rename, and use the way that you want. So I’m going to add custom field number one.
And you can see I’ve actually used this one before. Oh my gosh, that silly scroll bar there. There we go. I’ve actually used this one before and renamed it the job number.
Or I can put custom field number seven back in. It looks like I had named that one job number earlier but let’s put this one in as the invoice number.
And then I can move those fields around wherever I need to.
The nice thing about those fields, again, use them for what you want and we can actually map information in from other applications into these fields if you need to. I’ll go ahead and save that real quick.
So Nicole’s asking, if we set a pick list and a client’s asset doesn’t fall under any of the categories, is there a “Not available” field automatically included? I don’t think there is, Nicole. We’ll go back and take a look at that in here in just a second. I think it would just… If there’s not anything in the pick list that they want, it would just leave the field blank. So if you wanted something like a not applicable or a none, you would probably want to build that into the pick list.
Yeah, no problem.
Now, I just briefly mentioned that we’re able to map metadata over to these fields. Most of the time it’s just going to come over automatically. There’s an IPTC field called headline. It’ll populate that information. But I do want you to be aware that we are able to map information from Workfront proper, the project management, the work management tool, into Workfront DAM.
So for example, if we have an asset that we’ve put into Workfront, we’re going to send over to DAM, we could have it bring over some of the project information or the task information.
So that ability exists but we’re not going to cover that today for a couple reasons. Number one, not everybody needs it. Number two, it’s something you’re going to work with your consultant with, because it involves using advanced reporting skills as well as some web skills.
So if there is something like that, you want to bring over information from Workfront like maybe the task name or something like that, talk to your consultant, they can help you get that mapping set up and bring it from Workfront into one of these metadata fields.
Well, you know what? Now that we’ve saved this, we’ve put the copyright notice in as a pick list and we’ve got the image type of pick list. Let’s go ahead and test out Nicole’s question here and see what we get when we don’t want any of the choices.
So we’ll pick this one.
So copyright notice.
So no, it doesn’t look like a none shows up. It looks like it’s going to be blank or one of your lists. So if you actually want it to say none or N/A for not applicable then actually build that into your pick list.
Well, this next field won’t take us very long. The EXIF metadata.
Now you’ll notice a little bit of a difference here. I can’t change any of these fields. EXIF metadata comes from the camera that an image comes from or from the application that the asset was created it.
And really a lot of this is camera related information. So what we can do with the EXIF metadata is we can display it, but we can’t make any changes to it because it’s hard coded into the asset. So basically I can say, I can make my choices of what I want to see, but I’m not going to be able to rename the fields or do any pick lists or anything like that.
Metadata best practices
Metadata is the primary driver of asset searches in Workfront DAM. It not only enhances searchability but can be used to track key pieces of information about an asset, such as copyright, location, image source, and more.
Here are some best practices to help get you started in your metadata efforts:
- Always add ownership or credit information to your assets for identification outside of Workfront DAM.
- Add usage terms for rights-managed assets to prevent misuse.
- Add metadata to your assets as soon as you upload them.
- Implement predefined dropdown menus for commonly used data to prevent inconsistencies.
- Educate contributors responsible for adding metadata on your organization’s metadata strategy.
- Communicate your metadata requirements to external vendors (for example, “Photos must be submitted with the usage terms, credit, and location metadata already added”).
- Conduct regular audits to ensure metadata is being added properly.
Develop a metadata strategy
Look at your asset workflow when developing your organization’s metadata strategy. Your Workfront consultant can help you answer the following key questions:
- Who is responsible for adding metadata?
- Which metadata is required? Which is optional?
- When is metadata added?
- How often will assets be checked for proper metadata?
- Who is responsible for the metadata checks?
Adding metadata can be time consuming and tedious. However, structured and consistent metadata is the foundation for building a Workfront DAM that is highly searchable and easily browsed.
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