Create a Metaplate

Video Transcript

In this video we’re going to take a look at creating a new Metadata Thesaurus, creating a new Metadata Element, and then finish off with building a new Metaplate.

While some of these concepts may be foreign to you, the following will walk you through how you can build highly sophisticated data management functionality into your site.

Typically some of the following steps would require a developer to write code if you were using an alternative platform for managing your Intranet, Client Extranet or Website.

CentricMinds allows you to perform the following without writing code.

Something referred to as a ‘no code’ approach.

To begin with, let’s take a look at the existing Change Request form.

This form contains the following fields.

For this example, we want to add a new field called ‘Region Request’.

This will allow the user to choose which ‘region’ the change request has come from.

Let’s go back to the Thesaurus panel, and click on ‘Add’.

We’ll label this new Thesaurus as ‘Region’.

Creating a Thesaurus allows you to add data manually.

Or you can import data from a file, like a spreadsheet.

You can also connect to a third party database and query data to display within the Thesaurus.

In this example, we’re going to manually add Region values.

At the bottom of the panel, click on ‘Add’.

We’re going to start with adding ‘Southern’ as the first Region.

We can leave all of the other fields blank, but you have the option to apply security to this Thesaurus value. Applying security enables you to display this value to only a certain group of users.

You can also notify users within Groups when this value is selected within a form.

Click on ‘Next’.

Now we’re going to add ‘Northern’ as the next Region.

And then ‘Western’ as the third Region.

And finally, ‘Eastern’ as the final Region.

We’ve now created a new Thesaurus of ‘Regions’.

Once a new Thesaurus has been created, the next step is to create an Element.

Within the Element panel, click on ‘Add’.

An Element enables you to define how your data should be presented to the user. Should it be a dropdown list? Or displayed as Radio Buttons? Or as a Mult-select list?

Let’s start with the Name. We’ll enter ‘Regions’.

The same for the Display Name.

You can also enter a Description.

Now we want to choose our new Thesaurus.

We’ll select it from the ‘Controlled Vocabulary’ dropdown.

And we’ll choose to display this data in a Drop down list.

The Advanced Options enable you to apply security to this Element.

We’ll click the ‘Save’ button.

We can now see the new ‘Regions’ Element.

The final step is to create a Metaplate.

A Metaplate is used to manage and present how Thesaurus metadata will be presented to users.

Click on ‘Add’.

Enter a Title for the Metaplate.

Choose the primary site. If you’re managing multiple sites within CentricMinds, you can decide if this Metaplate is available for use within some or all of the sites.

For ‘Content’, choose ‘Custom Data’.

From the Metadata Elements window, locate your new Metadata Element and select it.

Click the arrow to associate your new Element to the new Metaplate.

Then click ‘Next’.

On the next screen you can enforce if the Metaplate is mandatory by Content.

This allows you to configure whether this Metaplate is mandatory for each given type of content is it available for. If mandatory, then this Metaplate will be displayed to the author and will require completion. Otherwise, the Metaplate will be available as optional metadata for them to use.

The ‘Mandatory by Role’ allows you to configure whether this Metaplate is mandatory for chosen roles.

If mandatory, this Metaplate will be displayed to the author's associated with the chosen role and will require completion.

Otherwise, the Metaplate will be available as optional metadata for them to use.

The ‘Mandatory by Element’ allows you to configure each element within the Metaplate. Whether a given element or field will be mandatory, and what its default value will be.

For this Metaplate, leave the fields blank and click on ‘Save’.

The new Metaplate will now be listed within the panel.

To help further understand the Metaplate configuration, let’s take a look at the Default Metaplate.

We’ll choose it and click on ‘Modify’.

This is the default metadata used for establishing any site within CentricMinds.

We can see this Metaplate is applied to most of the Content Types.

And the following Metadata Elements have been associated with the Metaplate.

On the second screen, we can see that the Default Metaplate is Mandatory for all Content Types.

And below, we can see that some of the Elements have the ‘Auto’ check box has been checked, and the Default Value is populated with ‘Auto Complete’ values.

This will Auto Populate these fields with the Date the content was created, the Date the content was modified, and auto populate the Name of the Author who is currently logged in.

Finally, you can set the Element Order in which these fields are displayed to the user.

Yes, there’s a lot to take in, but metadata management within CentricMinds enables you to design and build very granular data capturing tasks.

Now that we’ve completed the creation of a new Metaplate, let’s use it within the site.

Let’s navigate back to the Change Request form and enter edit mode.

Now we’re going to edit the existing form, and we’re going to add in a new drop down field.

We’re going to select the Metadata Element field.

For the Display Name, we’ll enter ‘Choose which Region requested the change’.

For the Field Name, we’ll enter ‘Region’.

Now from the drop down field, we’re going to select our new Metaplate.

You’ll see that it’s now appears here.

Saving the new form field will display a dropdown with your own custom metadata.

Once you’ve created a Metaplate, you can reuse it throughout the site.