5. Manage Metadata

• Overview
• "Details" view
• Controls
  • Search field
  • Sorting control
  • "Change view"
  • + Add instance
  • Upload metadata
  • Show attributes/Hide attributes
  • Bulk operation panel

Overview

Metadata is a CP object that defines custom data entities (see the definition below) associated with raw data files (fastq, bcl, etc.) or data parameters (see the picture below, arrow 1). By using this object a user can create a complex analysis environment. For example, you can customize your analysis to work with a subset of your data.
Two important concepts of the metadata object is an Entity and an Instance of an entity.

• Entity - abstract category of comparable objects. For example, entity "Sample" can contain sequencing data from different people (see the picture below, arrow 2).
• An Instance of an entity - a specific representation of an entity. For example, sequencing data from a particular patient in the "Sample" entity is an instance of that entity (see the picture below, arrow 3).

"Details" view

"Details" panel displays content as a table of entity instances. Each column is an attribute of an instance, which is duplicated in the "Attribute" panel.
Note: more about managing instance's attribute you can learn here.

Controls

The following buttons are available in the metadata entity space:

Search field

To find a particular instance of an entity a user shall use the Search field (see the picture above, 1), which is searching for the occurrence of entered text in the ID column of the table.

Sorting control

To sort instances of an entity in a table, a user shall click a header of the desired column: 1 click sorts a list in an ascending order, the next click sorts a list in a descending order, the next click reset sorting.

"Change view"

This control (see the picture above, 2) allows customizing the view of the table with instances of an entity. For more information see 5.3. Customize view of the entity instance table.

+ Add instance

To add a new instance in the current metadata container, click + Add instance control (see the picture above, 3). For more information see 5.1. Add/Delete metadata items.

Upload metadata

Use this control (see the picture above, 4) to create the metadata object or to add entities to the metadata object/to add instances of an entity to the existing entity. See here for more information - 5.2. Upload metadata.

Show attributes/Hide attributes

This button (see the picture above, 5) allows to view or edit attributes of a particular instance of an entity. For more information see 17. CP objects tagging by additional attributes.

Bulk operation panel

This panel allows to execute operations for more than one item. You can tick desired items and the panel switch to active mode.

Control	Description
DELETE	To delete one or more metadata item (1). See more details here.
CLEAR SELECTION	Clears all selected items (2). The panel is deactivated.
TRANSFER TO THE CLOUD	To download files from the external ftp/http resources (3). See more details here.
RUN	Allows to execute run configurations for the selected items (4). See details here.