Metadata schemas metadata-schemas

Organizations come up with a metadata model that enhances the asset discovery, usage, interoperability, and so on. Correct metadata application is sacrosanct to maintain metadata-driven workflows and processes. To adhere to organization-wide metadata strategy and standards, you can use metadata schemas that help DAM users to align. Adobe Experience Manager allows easy and flexible methods to create, maintain, and apply metadata schemas.

In Adobe Experience Manager Assets, schemas contain specific fields for specific information to be filled in. It also contains layout information to display metadata fields in a user-friendly way. Metadata properties include title, description, MIME types, tags, and more. You can use the Metadata Schema Forms editor to modify the existing schemas or add custom metadata schemas.

To view and edit the properties page for an asset, follow these steps:

Metadata Schema forms default-metadata-schema-forms

To view a list of forms or templates, in Experience Manager interface navigate to Tools > Assets > Metadata Schemas.

Experience Manager provides the following Metadata Schema Form templates.

Add a metadata schema form add-a-metadata-schema-form

To add a metadata schema form, follow these steps:

Edit metadata schema forms edit-metadata-schema-forms

You can edit a newly added or existing metadata schema form. The metadata schema form includes tabs and form items within tabs. You can map/configure these form items to a field within a metadata node in the CRX repository. You can add tabs or form items to the metadata schema form. The tabs and form items derived from the parent are in the locked state. You cannot alter them at the child level.

Components within the Build Form tab components-within-the-build-form-tab

The Build Form tab lists form items that you use in your schema form. The Settings tab provides the attributes of each item that you select in the Build Form tab. The following table lists the form items available in the Build Form tab:

Edit the metadata component edit-the-metadata-component

To edit the properties of a metadata component on the form, click the component to edit all or a subset of the following properties in the Settings tab. It is recommended to map only one field to a given property in the metadata schema. Otherwise, the latest added field mapped to the property is picked by the system.

Field Label: The name of the metadata property that is displayed on the properties page for the asset.

Map to Property: This property specifies the relative path to or name of the asset node where it is saved in the CRX repository. It starts with ./ to indicate that the path is under the asset’s node.

The following are examples of valid values for a property:

To ensure that the component is displayed properly in the metadata schema form, the property path should not include any spaces.

If you select the Required option, you can search for assets missing mandatory metadata. From the Filters panel, expand the Metadata Validation predicate and select the Invalid option. The search results display assets missing mandatory metadata that you configured through the schema form.

If you add the Contextual Metadata component to any tab of any schema form, the component appears as a list in the properties page of assets to which the particular schema is applied. The list includes all other tabs except the tab to which you applied the Contextual Metadata component. Currently, this feature provides basic functionality to control the display of metadata based on the context.

To display any tab in the properties page in addition to the tab where the Contextual Metadata component is applied, select the tab from the list. The tab is added to the properties page.

Figure: Contextual metadata in asset properties page.

Specify properties in JSON file specify-properties-in-json-file

Instead of specifying properties for the options in the Settings tab, you can define the options in a JSON file by specifying corresponding key-value pairs. Specify the path of the JSON file in the JSON Path field.

Add or delete a tab in the schema form adding-deleting-a-tab-in-the-schema-form

The schema editor lets you add or delete a tab. The default schema form includes the Basic, Advanced , IPTC, and IPTC Extension tabs.

Click + to add a tab on a schema form. By default, the new tab has the name Unnamed-1. You can modify the name from the Settings tab. Click X to delete a tab.

Cascading metadata cascading-metadata

When capturing the metadata information of an asset, users provide information in the various available fields. You can display specific metadata fields or field values that are dependent on the options selected in the other fields. Such conditional display of metadata is called cascading metadata. In other words, you can create a dependency between a particular metadata field/value and one or more fields and/or their values.

Use metadata schemas to define rules for displaying cascading metadata. For example, if your metadata schema includes an asset type field, you can define a pertinent set of fields to be displayed based on the type of asset a user selects.

Here are some use cases for which you can define cascading metadata:

Configure cascading metadata in Experience Manager configure-cascading-metadata-in-aem

Consider a scenario where you want to display cascading metadata based on the type of asset that is selected. Some examples

Irrespective of the asset type chosen, display the copyright information as a required field.

Delete metadata schema forms delete-metadata-schema-forms

Experience Manager lets you delete custom schema forms only. It does not let you delete the default schema forms/templates. However, you can delete any custom changes in these forms.

To delete a form, select a form and click delete.

Schema forms for MIME types schema-forms-for-mime-types

Experience Manager provides default forms for various MIME types out of the box. However, you can add custom forms for assets of various MIME types.

Add new forms for MIME types add-new-forms-for-mime-types

Create a form under the appropriate form type. For example, to add a template for the image/png subtype, create the form under the “image” forms. The title for the schema form is the subtype name. In this case, the title is png.

Use an existing schema template for various MIME types use-an-existing-schema-template-for-various-mime-types

You can use an existing template for a different MIME type. For example, use the image/jpeg form for assets of MIME type image/png.

In this case, create a node at /etc/dam/metadataeditor/mimetypemappings in the CRX repository. Specify a name for the node and define the following properties:

Assets maps the following MIME types and schema forms:

Grant access to metadata schemas grant-access-to-metadata-schemas

The Metadata Schema feature is available to administrators only. However, administrators can provide access to non-administrators by modifying some permissions. Provide the non-administrator users create, modify, and delete permissions on the /conf folder.

Apply folder-specific metadata apply-folder-specific-metadata

Assets lets you define a variant of a metadata schema and apply it to a specific folder.

For example, you can define a variant of the default metadata schema and apply it to a folder. When you apply the modified schema, it overrides the original default metadata schema that is applied to assets within the folder.

Only assets uploaded to the folder to which this schema is applied conform to the modified metadata defined in the variant metadata schema. Assets in other folders where the original schema is applied continue to conform to metadata defined in the original schema.

Metadata inheritance by assets is based on the schema that is applied to the top-level folder in the hierarchy. The same schema is applied to or inherited by the subfolders. If a different schema is applied at the subfolder level, the inheritance stops.

Define mandatory metadata define-mandatory-metadata

You can define mandatory fields at a folder level, which is enforced on assets that are uploaded to the folder. If you upload assets with missing metadata for the mandatory fields defined earlier, a visual indication for missing metadata appears on the assets in the card view.