2022.2

Metadata
Metadata is a hierarchical structure describing a job. Simply put, Metadata is data about data or, in
other words, information tagged to data. Depending on the type of job, the Metadata includes inform-
ation about the job, the data file, items in the Connect database, a PlanetPress Design document, 'User
defined information' (sometimes created by regular tasks) and in some cases page properties and page
counts.
Some of the Action and Output tasks produce, alter, or use the Metadata. In addition to that, Plan-
etPress Workflow provides a whole series of plugins to create and edit Metadata during a Workflow
process (see "Metadata tasks" on page469). The things that you have to know in order to use the
Metadata tasks effectively are set out in another topic: "Working with Metadata" on page69.
You can also manipulate the Metadata in your process via scripts using the Metadata API. See
Metadata API Reference.
Note: Applications or plugins created in PlanetPress Suite 6 and using Metadata will need to be
updated for use in version 2022.2. No backward compatibility mode is available.
Caution: When a user-defined emulation (created in PlanetPress Design) is used with Metadata,
results and behavior are unknown and unsupported. For instance, refreshing the Metadata file
may cause the document to crash and/or corrupt. For this reason, it is strongly advised to create
backup copies of your documents beforehand.
Metadata structure
The hierarchical structure of the Metadata is composed of a number of basic levels for adding inform-
ation to a job. These levels are, from top to bottom:
l
Job: A file that contains one or more groups.
l
Group: A logical and ordered group of documents (ex: all invoices for a specific customer num-
ber; all documents going to the same address, etc.).
l
Document: A group of one or more ordered data pages intended to the same recipient from the
same source (ex: invoice).
l
Data page: One atomic unit of content that produces zero, one or more pages.
l
Page: One side of a physical paper sheet.
When Metadata is produced for a given job, a hierarchical (i.e. tree-like) structure is created, composed
of the above elements in the following order: Job > Group(s) > Document(s) > Datapage(s) > Page(s).
For example:
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