Content Profiling, formerly known in WebGUI as Metadata, allows you to add arbitrary fields to all assets in WebGUI. This is like adding global properties to all assets for display purposes.

Before using Content Profiling in WebGUI, you must enable metadata. To do so, click on Settings in the Admin Console.

In the Content tab of the “Setting” screen, set the “Enable Metadata?” tab to Yes. Then, click save.

Add Metadata Properties

1. Click on Content Profiling in the Admin Console to open the “Content Profiling Screen.”
   
   

2. Displayed on this screen are all metadata properties already entered in the site. A metadata property must be unique among all properties. To edit an existing property, click on its edit button; to delete a property click on the red X.

3. To add a new metadata property, click on the “Add new metadata property” link on the far right hand side of the screen.

4. In the “Field name” field enter the name of this metadata property. You may use any letter, number, or underscore, but do not add spaces.

5. In the “Description” field you can enter a note about what this metadata property will be used for.

6. In the “Data Type” dropdown menu you can choose the type of data form element for this field. Options include text, number, Yes/No, select list, or radio list.

7. If the “Data Type” field is set to select or radio list, enter the possible values, separated by a carriage return, in the “Possible Values” field.

8. Click save. The metadata property will be added to this list displayed on the main Content Profiling screen.
   
   

On the screen you can see that two metadata properties currently exist: one that checks for assets related to golf, and the other checks for assets with a byline by a specific name.

Now, if you return to the site and select an asset from the New Content menu, you will see these metadata properties reflected in the asset’s Metadata tab. These fields add additional fields to an asset...if you always want a byline in your article, now you have it. In this example, an article is being shown.

These metadata fields can be used for:

1. Template variables: they are exposed as template variables and can be used to display content in the asset if you make a custom template.

2. Storing data to use in reports later. You can write an SQL Report that will tell you how many golf related articles are in the system,

3. Passive profiling.

Metadata and Shortcuts

You can use metadata to display content in shortcuts without having to update it.

1. Make a shortcut of an asset and place it on the site. In this example, a shortcut of the “Welcome” article on the Plain Black demo site was made.

2. Above the shortcut article is the actual shortcut toolbar. Click on Edit. In the picture below you can see this toolbar as the top toolbar; hovering your mouse over the class icon would reveal that this is the shortcut toolbar.

3. The “Edit Shortcut” screen will open.

4. About half way down this screen is the “Shortcut by alternate criteria?” field. Set this to Yes. This will unblock the “Criteria” field further down the page. You will now create “rules” by which to display content using the metadata fields at the bottom of the page. For example, a rule to display only articles that are golf related; this will be explained in the following steps.

5. The “Disable content lock?” field determines how content is displayed to the user. If set to Yes, content is locked. What this means is once you have decided what asset to display to the user during his/her session (using the metadata), that asset will stick and will be the only asset that displays during that session. For example, if this is enabled and you choose isgolfrelated, when the user views a golf related article, that article will be the only article displayed to the user on that page...in essence, that content is locked in view.
   
   

6. The “Resolve Multiples” field allows you to select a random asset or the most recent asset to display that matches the specified criteria. In the screenshot above, you see Most Recent has been selected. Therefore, the most recent golf related article will always be displayed in this shortcut.

7. To set the criteria, you may either type it in the “Criteria” field, or select criteria from the metadata fields. In this example, isgolfrelated was set to “is,” then Yes, and then Add was clicked. This added the code to the Criteria field. Now, the most recent asset that is golf related will be displayed in the shortcut. If you wanted to use the byline, you could do the following: set byline to “isn’t” and select JT, click Add. This would generate all assets without a byline by JT.