Metadata Fields allow you to collect extra information from your employees when they're submitting a Team Creation Request.
So, when an employee submits a Request, they'll be prompted to fill out the fields you've created and attached to the Template. You can find out more about this process by reading the Create Your First Team Template article.
Once you create your Metadata fields, you'll be able to:
Attach them to specific Templates to collect useful information.
Control which Policy Package will be applied to a specific Team or Space, based on Metadata Fields.
Make them a part of a Naming Convention, allowing you to automatically add responses to Team Names as Prefixes/Suffixes.
Base your Lifecycle Policies on Calendar field values.
Attach specific user profiles to Teams via Person fields and govern their access to the corresponding SharePoint content.
Let's dive deeper into individual Metadata Fields and the associated use cases together to figure out how you can get the most out of them in real-world scenarios.
✅ Creating Metadata Fields
Navigate to Settings > Expert mode > Metadata and click on + Create field to get started.
You'll be directed to the Create a metadata field menu, where you can start specifying the properties of the field.
Name - Describes the purpose of the field to the end-user who's filling it out.
Type - Determines how the user will interact with the future field
Description - Allows you to get more context when viewing different metadata within the corresponding tab in settings.
Default value - Determines the information that will pre-populate the field when the end user sees it.
Editable by - Allows you to select the group that can edit the field, whether it's everyone, admins, or team owners.
☑️ Field Types
Each Field Type has its own unique properties, along with a corresponding use case. Let's explore how each Metadata field is created and how it behaves in real-world scenarios.
1. Text Fields
Text fields are relatively self-explanatory and allow you to prompt users to provide extra information of any kind regarding their team creation request.
The only part of the field that requires attention is the Name since it will determine what the user sees above the field.
ℹ️ If you created a Template for projects, you can ask the user to specify the client name prior to submitting their request.
2. Number Fields
Number fields can function similarly to Text fields, where you simply need to enter a number into the box or work in a Running number field configuration that automatically counts down each consecutively approved Team using this Template.
ℹ️ You can use a regular Number field to prompt users to specify the number of tasks in a given project.
You can turn a regular Number field into a Running number field by enabling the corresponding checkbox in the Create a metadata field menu.
ℹ️ You can create a "Project Number" Running number field to count down the number of projects and organize them numerically later on. The value from this field can also become a part of a Naming Convention, allowing you to automatically specify the Project Number in a given Team's name.
3. Date Fields
Date fields allow you to prompt the user to affix a date to the creation request. This field type is great for any kind of time-tracking and becomes especially useful when you start working with Lifecycle Policies.
ℹ️ You can create a "Start Date" field to track the creation date of each new project. You can also base the Team's Lifecycle Policy on this field, giving you the ability to automatically archive the team once a certain period of time has gone by.
4. Person Fields
Person fields are extremely versatile and allow you to tie different Teams to specific people. You can even use the Map field to SharePoint permission group option to govern their access to SharePoint content.
ℹ️ You can create a "Project Manager" Person field to track who's responsible for a given project. Keep in mind that Person fields allow you to specify more than one person, so feel free to experiment with other ideas where you might want to select a group of people.
5. Dropdown
Dropdown fields allow you to prompt users to select answers from a pre-defined set of options. They're extremely convenient when you want to get more information within certain confines.
ℹ️ You can create a "Project Type" dropdown to make users specify what kind of project they're working on.
6. Checkbox
Checkboxes serve as binary information indicators that can either be Checked or Unchecked. They're great for prompting users to answer Yes/No questions.
ℹ️ You can create an "Internal Project" Checkbox to make users specify whether or not it's an in-organization project or something meant for a client. Alternatively, you can create a "Department Approved" checkbox to differentiate projects that were already coordinated with the corresponding department from the ones that weren't.
🔗 Adding Links to Metadata Fields
All Metadata Fields can have an additional link attached to their title, allowing you to redirect people to related resources with ease.
If you'd like to attach a link to your Metadata Field, simply click the link icon next to the Name field while Creating or Editing, specify the Text to display and the link Address, and click Insert.
Let's say we want to redirect the user to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy before they mark off the Agreement Checkbox, but we don't want the whole field name to be a link.
In this case, you'd type the first part of the non-linked text "I agree to the", then click the link button and type the linked text into the Text to display field along with the corresponding Address, followed by "and" before once again linking the second page with the "Privacy Policy" text.
Once done, your newly created Metadata Field will contain both links within the correct portion of the text.
⛑️ Need more help?
Get further assistance with Teams Manager through our support chat widget within the app, or reach out to us at [email protected]