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Metadata Card rules improvements and wishes

Hi community and M-Files,

Metadata Card concept and its rules are actually a central area of M-Files. MD card rules help to hide potentially technical metadata, make certain read-only or show some after certain workflow step. It is powerful concept but unfortunately not really consequently implemented through the whole M-Files client.

In History area, task pane again shows users the whole complexity of metadata and all metadata is again shown to users. There are also some other areas where this is happening.

I find this a very week point of M-Files UI and should really get improved. One of the first questions by users is how to check the history and who changed documents. Showing history pane and show set of metadata below is often confusing for them because they suddenly start seeing metadata complexity we hide from them on MD card.

I understand that this is obviously technological problem (MD card is web based and embedded in frame, task pane is probably native C++ implementation) but I think it would be good if MD card concept is used everywhere. I think look&feel should be consequent and follow the same pattern. 

Another point is obviously the fact that MD card rules are only client-side configs and that do not provide any protection on server side. It would be great if we could enable read-only options to be applied on the server side too.

And additional one: I am asked often to hide certain metadata for certain people/role. Unfortunately MD card rules are not so granular. It would be great if we could configure it to apply for specific groups at least.

Really amazing and so usuful concept but need perhaps a bit of additional polishing.

I understand those are big wishes. I would love if we could at least promote MD card and it's rules in all other pop-ups, windows and start having same look & feel for the beginning. Users would definitely love it.

Best regards,

Dejan

Parents
  • Hi Dejan,

    There is an option to use the metadata card for the history menu. It is an option available in the admin client, in the configuration menu. Then Advanced vault settings and then Configuration and then Client and then Desktop and Metadata Card. Set to yes the option Prevent showing in Bottom pane.

    You can hide a property at the definition property level for a specific user or user group using the permissions tab of a given property (When defining rights I recommend to use user group and avoid specific user as much as possible); But it will apply for the property itself not for only one class using this property. For instance if you have a property Confidential information you can make the see this property permission available for only the admin user group. But this will apply for all classes using this property. This permission also will work only for static user group, you cannot use metadata driven permission.

    I hope this will help somehow.

    Kind regards

    Patrick BROUILLAUD

  • Hi Patrick,

    Thanks for response.

    That's a great tip if possible to hide that "old style" metadata card in History window. I will try it out.

    Another approach with hiding/showing metadata for specific groups (in our case admins) we use often by NDOs. We show some technical metadata only for our admins but those are not shown for standard users. That works well and is usuful.

    I am more referring for the problem that hiding of metadata is not consequent in all places in M-Files. Configuration on classes is static and I am not aware if possible to change it on runtime (probably you would need admin user to run VAF application which is not really realistic). It would be great if we could do more dynamic actions through MD card.

    If your first suggestion could make it more consequent in look&feel, that would be already good improvement.

    Dejan

  • Hi Patrick, 

    Just to come back to first suggestion "Client -> Manage Client Settings Centrally -> Desktop -> Metadata Card -> Prevent Showing in Bottom Pane = "Yes"":

    This seems really to help and I can see same look&feel of metadata card in specific pop-up windows such as History/Relationships. It is a bit scary option to enable due to those warnings and overwriting of registry settings but so far I could not find any significant problem.

    The only thing I found a bit strange: I needed to open pop-up window twice to get the new look & feel (both History and Relationships) but it seems to be ok afterwards.

    Thanks again for this tip Patrick!

    Dejan

  • Hi Dejan,

    Glad it helps.

    Those warning can be indeed a little bit alarming. It is because it is a centralized configuration of the client desktop behavior. And it overwrites possible local registries settings that could have been already defined.

    The advantage is that all user will have the same behavior and nothing to be configured locally. But sometimes you might want some specific desktop to behave differently from other.

    It is best to know what you enable or activate there to avoid having unexpected behavior, this is why there are such warnings when enabling them.

    After enabling the settings did you log off of your M-Files vault and log in again before testing it? If not may be this is why there have been this open window twice. 

    Kind Regards

    Patrick BROUILLAUD

  • You are right. I haven't log off/on, just keep it using 

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