| Minimum Software Version | 8.16.0 |
| Solution(s) | Cases International ✓ Cases US ✓ Institutions ⨉ Counsel ✓ |
Document metadata is data about data - it is embedded information within the electronic document that describes the document's properties, the document's origin, and how it was created or modified.
Document metadata enables search and retrieval of files, and the classification, organisation, and labelling of documents. Metadata fields can be imported and exported via either .csv or .xsls file formats.
There are two types of metadata fields available in the Opus 2 Platform:
Standard metadata fields - these fields ANDand their values are auto-generated when a project is created.
User-defined metadata fields - these fields and their values can be manually added, edited, or deleted by users.
Standard metadata fields
Standard metadata fields and their values are created by default when a new project is created. They apply to all documents by default. The Opus 2 Platform has the following metadata types as standard:
Field type | Uses |
Opus-id | A unique identification generated by the Opus 2 platform to identify individual documents. |
| Principal ID | The Principal ID field is a unique field that is set up with every new instance of an Opus 2 platform project. The Principal ID field displays all other metadata fields that have been configured to be included in the principal ID. This can be used to create easily readable and unique name combinations for documents when displayed in a list. |
File name | Name of the file that is uploaded by the user. |
Status | Indicate the upload status of the document. To learn more, go to File upload and processing (Table 3. Upload status). |
| Pages with text | This field displays the percentage of pages in a document that have any text. For example, if a 100 page document has text on 75 pages, the field would display 75%. If Opus 2 has performed OCR ( Optical Character Recognition) on the document it will be indicated by a purple halo icon. |
Folder | Name of the folder where the document is stored. |
Added by | Name of the user who submitted the file for upload. |
Date added | Date on which the file is uploaded. |
Updated by | Name of the user who last updated the document. |
Date updated | Date in which the file is updated. |
Version | The sequence of files associated with a document. |
File type | The type of original file that was uploaded into the instance. Platform supports most of the electronic file types. |
Size | Size of the document. Size unit are in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes. The base for file sizes is 1000 therefore 1 kilobyte is 1000 bytes and 1 megabyte is a million bytes. |
Pages | Number of pages within a document |
Access | The icon |
MD5 hash | Shows the unique md5Hash value of the document in a record. If there are multiple file versions associated with one document record, the field shows the md5Hash value of the most recent file. |
| Duplicates | This field is visible to those users who have the See duplicate metadata capability. It displays all the duplicate files along with the principal file. The first file uploaded within a duplicate group is identified as the principal file. |
| Links | Shows related content for each document- such as worksheets where that document is referenced, if the the document has links to other documents (using a 'link' symbol). |
| Media | This field is only applicable to transcripts. This indicates whether the transcript has any media files associated with it. If any files are associated with the transcript, this is indicated with a media icon. |
These metadata field types can be edited on a very basic level; a field can be set as principal ID, and a description can be added to the field. Standard metadata pertaining to individual document records cannot be edited or deleted.
User-defined metadata fields
User-defined metadata fields can be created to include any additional information that you would like to add about the uploaded document. The metadata field types available in the Opus 2 Platform are as follows:
Field type | Uses |
Short text | Text field with a maximum character limit of 80 characters including any special characters e.g. &, @, £, etc. |
Long text | Text field with no maximum limit for characters. |
Date | Allows users to manually enter a date. The date format will be same as the default date format for the environment or project. |
Date and time | Allows users to manually enter any date and time (various time zones available) relevant to the document. |
Number | Numerical field. This field supports both decimal and negative values. |
Choice | Allows users to make a single selection from predefined options. |
Multi-choice | Allows users to make multiple selection from predefined options. |
Tags | Allows users to add predefined tags to the document. |
Derived field | A derived text field allows for metadata from either a 'document' or 'text in a document' field within the same worksheet to be set as a separate field in a record. A derived field is applied automatically from this other field in the record and cannot be edited separately. |
Compound text | Allows users to combine multiple fields into a single field/ compound text. Users can also enter a conjunction between field names, for example, Document Name AND Opus-id. |
Principal ID | |
Custom Id | It provides a mechanism for allocating structured IDs to documents. A custom id field is structured with:
The user can specify whether to allow duplicate IDs where two documents are given the same prefix and number for a particular field. When entering a custom id value, the user can pick from existing prefixes or add a new one. |
Family | Read only field that shows whether a document is part of a family. The relationship between the documents in a family can be a predefined type such as an email and its attachments or a document and its duplicates, or a user defined type. |
Collection number | This field shows what number(s) a document has been assigned within each collection it has been added to. Numbering can include letters and separators such as "A.2.3". |
Collections | This field type shows which collections, if any, a document is in. It displays the collection name and the document number within that collection. |
| Folder path | This field shows the full path of a document's position, from the Home folder to the current folder in which the document is situated. |
Data added to a user generated metadata field can be edited or deleted.
Document types can be assigned to document(s) so that selected metadata fields are applied only to those document(s). The most common document types are Document and Transcript.
By default, document metadata fields, both system generated and user generated fields, are applied to all documents.
It is possible to apply metadata fields for user generated metadata fields to selected document types.
Document types are not set by default but must be created in the metadata fields manager and can be given any name.
Once a document type has been created, metadata fields can be added for the type. Above, you can see that the Document type Transcript has the metadata fields Deponent, Depo Type, and Date assigned to it.
Document types can then be applied to documents. A document can have multiple document types and it inherits all the metadata fields from each document type assigned to it.
Document types, collections and folders
Document types can be applied to a collection, resulting in all the documents in the collection having the same document types.
Changes to the document types for a collection do not affect the source documents unless the source document already has a Document type.
Document types can also be applied to folders. Any document added to a folder that has a document type applied has that document type applied directly to the document. Removing the document from the folder does not remove the document type.
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