Metadata is the information used to describe an asset and the primary driver of search. It not only enhances searchability, but can also track key pieces of information such as copyright, location, image source and more.
It’s important that your metadata is consistent. There are several tools to assist with this, including creating picklists and a keyword taxonomy. (Read more about best practices for building a metadata strategy.)
Watch our short video to learn why metadata matters.
This article covers the following topics:
- Configure the metadata schema
- Helpful information
Configure the metadata schema
Admins can configure the metadata schema.
- Log into the core application.
- Click
in the top navigation and select Metadata Schema.
XMP is metadata that can be edited by admins and contributors. Some examples include photographer, copyright information, caption/description and configurable custom fields.
Webdam supports XMP and IPTC Core metadata standards, so information that is added to an asset in a program like Bridge or Photoshop will be available in Webdam.
The following section outlines configuring the XMP:
Status: Metadata fields must be active to display in the asset details panel. This means that admins and contributors with asset-editing permissions may apply metadata values to the active metadata fields. (Read more about editing metadata.) The active metadata will display in the center window of the XMP tab. Inactive metadata will be listed in the Inactive XMP Fields dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen. To activate or deactivate a metadata field:
- Activate: Click + Add a field in the Inactive Metadata dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Search or navigate the list and then click the field that you want to activate.
- Deactivate: Click
next to the Field ID in the active metadata panel.
- Click Save changes.
Order: Refers to the order of the active metadata fields in the asset details panel. Usually, the most important or most commonly used metadata fields appear at the top of the asset details panel.
To reorder:
- Hover your mouse over the order number.
- When the
pointer appears, click and hold.
- Drag and drop the row to the desired location.
- Click Save changes.
Field ID: Refers to the metadata field name displayed in programs like Adobe Bridge or Photoshop.
Field Name: Refers to the name that displays in the asset details panel. Typically, the Field ID and the Field Name will be the same, but you might want to rename a field name for clarification purposes or to use internal verbiage. In addition, you can rename custom fields to track custom information like product, event name, campaign, etc.
To rename:
- Click in the Field name box.
- Enter the new field name.
- Click Save changes.
Brand Connect: Allows the metadata field to display in the asset details section of Brand Connect. You can disable this option if there are any fields that should not be viewable or searchable by users in Brand Connect.
Searchable: Allows the metadata fields to be returned in search results. Typically the metadata should be searchable; however, there might be certain use cases where you do not want a specific field to be searchable.
Example: Your copyright notice probably includes your company name. Since your company name is a term that users will often search for, you might want to make the copyright metadata field unsearchable so that assets with the copyright notice won’t be returned every time a user searches for the company name.
To allow assets to be searchable, check the box under the Searchable column, then click Save changes.
Field Type: Refers to whether users will be able to add metadata to a field by typing in information or choosing from a picklist or multi-select. Metadata fields are text fields by default, but admins can create a picklist or multi-select.
To create a picklist or multi-select:
- Click
under the Field Type column.
- Type or paste the picklist values – one value per line.
- Check the box next to Allow multi-select if you would like to allow users to choose more than one value in the picklist.
- Click Save.
Metadata Groups: Enterprise admins can restrict access to certain metadata fields based on user groups. (Read more about metadata permissions.)
Required (Enterprise and Professional Editions only): Makes an entry for the metadata field mandatory, it cannot be left blank. Any fields set as required will be viewable to all users, although who can edit metadata options will still be controlled through Group Permissions.
- To make a field required, check the box in the Required column and click Yes when you see the confirmation prompt. Click Save changes to apply your changes.
Enabling required metadata adds a new status, Holding, to newly uploaded assets. You will also need to manage the Purge settings related to this status.
- Holding: If a user uploads assets to the DAM without completing the required metadata field(s), the asset(s) will be placed on hold. Assets on hold are only viewable by the uploader and admins. When the required metadata is added requirements are fulfilled, the asset will be removed from holding and become available to other users as defined in the permissions.
- To view the assets currently on hold, log in to Webdam. Run an empty/blank search to view all assets in your library - you can do so by leaving the search box blank and clicking search
. Click the Status filters in the left-hand navigation and select Holding. Assets in Holding will display an 
icon next to their file name.
Special note on the Holding status: If you change a required metadata field to no longer be required, assets that were missing that required metadata field value will be removed from holding and will therefore be released to their intended destination folders. If an asset is still missing other required fields, it will remain on hold.
This does not happen in converse situation. If you add a field to the required list, assets that already exist in your DAM and are not currently in a holding state will not be changed to on hold. However, if you attempt to edit the metadata for an asset and new required metadata fields have been added, the asset will be put on hold if values are not added to those required fields.
- Delete assets still in holding: You have the option to purge assets that are on hold. Any assets that don’t have input for the required fields will be removed from the DAM.
Note: The option to delete assets in holding is not available to customers with Workstream accounts.
- To configure purge settings, navigate to your System Preferences. Under the Assets,section, click the dropdown next to Automatically delete asset still in “Holding state” after to select the desired action.
EXIF is metadata generated from the camera and cannot be edited. Examples includes f-stop, exposure and flash.
The following section outlines configuring the EXIF:
Status: Metadata fields must be active to display in the asset details panel. The active metadata displays in the center window of the EXIF tab. Inactive metadata is listed in the Inactive EXIF Field dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen.
To activate or deactivate a metadata field:
- Activate: Click + Add a field in the Inactive Metadata dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Search or navigate the list and then click the field that you want to activate.
- Deactivate: Click next to the field name in the active metadata panel.
- Click Save Changes.
Order: Refers to the order of the active metadata fields in the asset details panel.
To reorder:
- Hover your mouse over the order number.
- When the pointer appears, click and hold.
- Drag and drop the row to the desired location.
- Click Save changes.
Watch the following video to learn more about metadata schema in Webdam.
Keywords are a subset of metadata, which display in Webdam as clickable links. Admins can create a keyword taxonomy, or keyword list, to ensure that keywords are being added in a consistent manner. To create the taxonomy, you can either upload a tab-separated TXT file or build the keyword taxonomy in Webdam.
The following section outlines creating a keyword taxonomy:
Add a keyword:
- Click the + add a main keyword button to add a top-level (parent) keyword.
- Right-click a keyword and select Add to add a nested (child) keyword.
- Enter the keyword, then click anywhere on the screen to save.
- Keywords automatically rearrange into alphabetical order.
Rename a keyword:
- Right-click the keyword and select Rename. You can also double-click the keyword to edit.
- Rename the keyword, then click anywhere on the screen to save.
Delete a keyword:
- Right-click the keyword and select Delete.
- Click Delete to confirm. If you delete a keyword with child keywords, the nested keywords will also be deleted.
Move a keyword:
- Click and hold the keyword.
- Drag and drop the keyword to the desired location in the taxonomy.
You can also build a hierarchical keyword taxonomy in Word or Excel, then import it into Webdam. An example taxonomy may be found at the bottom of this article.
- Create a new Microsoft Excel sheet.
- Enter your desired keywords.
- To create main (parent) keywords, press "Enter" or "Return" after each entry
- To create nested (child) keywords, press "Tab" after each entry.
- Save the spreadsheet as a tab delimited text (.txt) file. When prompted, click Continue.
- Open the file in Microsoft Word. Select Mac OS (Default), then click OK.
- When the document opens, click File > Save As and select Plain Text (.txt).
- In the pop up, check the box next to Insert line breaks and choose CR/LF in the End lines with: dropdown.
- From the keywords tab of Webdam, click Select a File to locate and select the created file on your computer.
- Set the toggle to Append to add onto an existing keyword taxonomy or Replace to overwrite an existing keyword taxonomy.
- Click Import.
Export keywords: You can export your keyword taxonomy to a TXT file for auditing purposes or if you plan to make changes to your taxonomy to re-import.
- Log in to the core application.
- Click and select System preferences.
- In the Assets section, there are two keyword taxonomy settings:
- Enable keyword taxonomy: Check this box to make the keyword taxonomy available for use by admins and contributors.
- Enforce keyword taxonomy: Check this box to require admins and contributors to only add keywords from the keyword taxonomy. This will prevent them from typing in new keywords.
(Read more about applying metadata to assets.)
- Click Save.
Facets refer to the metadata search filters that make your assets easy to search in Brand Connect.
The default facets include file type, keywords, date captured, file size and your active XMP metadata fields. In addition to these facets, users will also be able to search by date (including date created, date captured, date expired, and date modified) and by size (including width, height, resolution, and file size). These search options are default and cannot be deactivated.
The following section outlines configuring the facets:
Status: Facets must be active to display in Brand Connect. The active facets will display in the center window of the Facets tab. Inactive facets will be listed in the Inactive facets dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Inactive facets will still be searchable using the basic search in Brand Connect, and the facet’s metadata will still display on the asset details page. Newly added XMP metadata fields will display in the inactive facets dropdown.
To activate or deactivate a facet:
- Activate: Click + Add a field in the inactive facet dropdown at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Search or navigate the list and then click the field that you want to activate.
- Deactivate: Click next to the field name in the active metadata panel. Deactivated XMP metadata fields will be automatically deleted.
- Click Save changes.
Order: Refers to the order of the facets in Brand Connect.
To reorder:
- Hover your mouse over the order number.
- When the pointer appears, click and hold.
- Drag and drop the row to the desired location.
- Click Save changes.
- Webdam does not delete or strip any metadata.
- Metadata applied to assets in Webdam is embedded upon download.
- If a keyword is renamed or deleted from the keyword taxonomy, the change will not update at the asset level. If assets need to be updated by deleting or changing to a new keyword, we recommend batch editing the assets. (Read more about editing metadata.)
Updated
Comments
14 comments
Hi! Can someone please repair the link to the Keyword Taxonomy Builder excel sheet example? I'm interested in importing a set of keywords into WebDAM via this method.
Hi Kevin - Thanks for your post. We have added the example keyword list to this article.
Perfect, thank you!
Is there a way to create picklist category headings for metadata picklists, like what we see in the metadata group admin section?
Hi Matt - Thank you for reviewing your question with me over the phone today! Let us know if you have any additional questions.
Is there a way to get more than 20 custom fields? This limit seems arbitrary and we need additional flexibility. Thanks!
Hi Sam - thanks for the post here. There are a couple ways we can leverage other extensible metadata fields or keywords. I'm going to shoot you an email to find a few minutes for us to share screens and review.
"Export keywords: You can export your keyword taxonomy to a TXT file for auditing purposes or if you plan to make changes to your taxonomy to re-import."
If the browser has been zoomed in, the controls to import and export are not visible, and no scrollbars are present to move the content to see the control.
Thank you for the comment and information, Matt. Can you please submit a request to our support team about this? Thank you!
After I've applied keywords to my assets, can I go back into settings and change the text in an applied keyword? Will this automatically refresh the assets that have the original keyword applied to it? And if not, how can I do this?
Hi guys. Does the "required metadata" option alert the uploader that they are missing required info or is the asset just placed "on hold"?
Will it ever be possible to have certain metadata fields required at the folder and group level?
Also, is the IPTC field, Author/Creator not available?
Hi Christine,
The Author/Creator field in IPTC maps to the field name "By-Line" in Webdam. It should be veiwable when adding that field to the schema. Also, regarding metadata fields, this can be configured on a group level for enterprise accounts. There's a thorough article on it at https://www.damsuccess.com/hc/en-us/articles/208398313-Metadata-Permissions.
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