This article describes the difference between data and metadata fields across your documents. It contains the following topics:
- Metadata fields meaning
- Adding metadata fields to a document
- Making metadata fields required
- Finding a metadata fields overview
- Permissions for metadata fields visibility
- Metadata fields characteristics
- Good recommendations for metadata fields
What are metadata fields?
- Metadata fields represent data relevant to a contract but not present in the contract itself. This differs from data fields as data fields are visible in the contract body.
- Metadata fields allow you to enrich your contracts with useful data for you and your team and can also be used for workflow automations. For example, the contract type, negotiation terms, Hubspot Deal ID, or Salesforce Opportunity ID.
- These fields can only be seen by the contract owner and their team members who have access to the document.
- Fields with a grey icon in your data fields sidebar are metadata fields:
How can I add a metadata field to my documents?
To add a new metadata field to your document:
- Click "Add fields"
- Type in the field name
- Click "Create new field"
Once you drag a metadata field to the body of your contract, it becomes a data field as it is now in the document content. The grey icon will update to blue to reflect this:
Can I make some metadata fields required?
- Metadata fields cannot be made required, and this can only be done for data fields within the document content:
Where can I find all my metadata fields?
You can view all metadata fields in the data fields sidebar by selecting the filter "Fields not in document body":
What are the visibility permissions for metadata fields in my documents?
- Metadata fields will be visible only to the document owner and all internal company users.
- If you need anyone to see metadata fields in your document, you must ensure you are part of the same team in Contractbook.
What are the other characteristics of metadata fields?
- The metadata fields you add will be reusable across all documents within your company.
- The properties of your metadata fields can be updated after their initial creation.
- They can be added and edited in both drafts and templates.
- You can add and edit metadata fields after a contract has been fully signed.
- You can fetch metadata fields from your documents and export them to Google Sheets, Excel, or any business intelligence tool.
What is a good contract metadata field?
A good metadata field is the contract type (i.e., Sales Agreement, Employment Contract, etc.). We recommend you track contract types to be aware of the many agreements of each type you have. You can use this measurement to understand your contract needs better and fine-tune the process from creation to final signature.
Additionally, before creating a contract template, ask yourself what information you would like to store in relation to this contract. Then, you can check which fields you already have under the metadata fields in the sidebar.
For other examples of metadata fields, you can just head to our data fields library to find the most common data fields and metadata fields. You can filter for inspiration based on different contract types or contract workflows such as HR, Compliance, NDA, DPA, Employment, and Sales.