Edit metadata

If an organization has enabled editing metadata, item owners and organization administrators can include and manage standards-based metadata for their items. Use the built-in metadata editor accessed from the item page to include additional metadata based on the style applied by the organization.

When you open the editor for the item for the first time, the editor is populated with existing item information metadata from the following item page elements:

• Title
• Tags
• Summary
• Description
• Acknowledgements
• Terms of use
• Extent

When field properties in a hosted feature layer or hosted table are updated, you can synchronize certain field property changes to update the metadata in the layer or table.

If you upload a local metadata .xml file in the ArcGIS metadata format, you can overwrite the item details with the imported metadata from the .xml file or use the existing item information.

Edit metadata for an item

Complete the following steps to add or edit metadata for an item:

1. Verify that you are signed in, have the privilege to create, update, and delete content, and that your organization has enabled editing metadata.
2. Open the item page of the item for which you want to edit metadata.

   The item's page opens to the Overview tab.

3. Click Edit metadata to open the metadata editor.

   Tip:

   You may need to click the expand button to see all options.

   If the item is a hosted feature layer or hosted table, you can edit each sublayer's metadata. To access the metadata editor for a sublayer, click the sublayer name in the Layers or Tables list on the Overview tab.

4. Provide metadata content that describes the item.

Metadata editor

At minimum, you must provide metadata for the elements that are required for the metadata style you're using. These required elements have an asterisk (*) next to them. Some metadata elements that are not included in an official metadata standard or profile but are included in the item information are available as suggested elements, such as thumbnails. Both the required and suggested elements are presented on the Essential metadata tab.

To provide additional metadata beyond what is required or suggested, click the All metadata tab.

The metadata editor displays dynamic information about what metadata has been added and what is still required. The information is validated and updates as you edit the metadata.

Click Save when you finish editing and before you close the editor.

The following options are available from the Options button at the top of the editor:

• View XML—Opens the metadata document in XML format in a new browser tab with the style configured for the organization. To see changes made to the metadata, you must save them before you view the metadata.
• View HTML—Opens the metadata document in HTML format in a new browser tab with the style configured for the organization. To see changes made to the metadata, you must save them before you view the metadata.
• Download—Creates an .xml file of the metadata in ArcGIS metadata format without a metadata style applied to it and downloads it to the local machine.
• Synchronize—This option applies to hosted feature layers and hosted tables only. Synchronizing pulls changes to a subset of field properties into the sublayer metadata.
• Overwrite—Replaces the current metadata information with content uploaded from a metadata .xml file or another item. See the Overwrite metadata section below for instructions.
• Reset—Deletes all metadata values other than those inherited from the item information.

Synchronize layer-level metadata for changes to fields

If any of the following changes are made to the fields in the layers in a hosted feature layer or hosted table, you can synchronize in the metadata editor to update layer-level metadata to include these changes:

• Field name
• Field alias (Field display name)
• Field description
• Field data type
• Field length
• Field precision

When any client updates these properties for a field in the layer, synchronizing metadata will update the layer's metadata. The field name property is only affected when you add a field to or delete a field from the layer.

Complete the following steps to synchronize layer-level metadata after changes are made to field properties:

1. Sign in to your organization.

   You must be the hosted feature layer owner, a member of the default administrator role, or a member of a role with the administrative privilege to update all member's content.

2. Open the item page for the hosted feature layer or hosted table.
3. In the Layers or Tables section on the Overview tab, click the name of the layer for which you need to update metadata.

   The layer's item page appears.

4. On the layer's Overview tab, click Edit metadata.

   Tip:

   You may need to click the expand button to see all options.

   The metadata editor appears.

5. Click the Options button and click Synchronize.

   

   The Synchronize attribute fields pop-up appears, which displays the following information:

   • From data table—This column displays the field name present in the layer's attribute table. This name is what is stored for the underlying feature service. This value in the service's table does not change after the field is created.
   • An arrow indicating that updates are pushed from the attribute table to the metadata—At this time, all updates are pushed only from the attribute table to the metadata.
   • To metadata—This column displays the field name that is or will be stored in the layer's metadata. If the field name in the attribute table and the field name in the metadata are not the same, you can update the property in the metadata or leave them to be different.
   • Action—This is the action that will take place when you synchronize. If there is no metadata for this field, the action is Add, meaning the properties from the attribute table will be used to create metadata for this field in the data dictionary. If metadata exists for this field, the action is Synchronize.

     The first time you perform synchronization for a layer's attribute table, the action for all fields will be to add metadata.

   • Info—Use the Show details link to open a panel that provides a side-by-side comparison of each property of the attribute table and the corresponding existing property in the metadata. This comparison is only available if metadata already exists for the field.

6. Optionally, to find a specific field, type a field name in the search text box or click the arrows buttons to page through the list of fields.
7. Click Synchronize.

   The Synchronize attribute fields window closes and values are synchronized.

8. Click Save in the Metadata Editor window.

   Note:

   You must save the synchronized changes; if you do not, the layer's metadata will not update.

Overwrite metadata

When you overwrite ArcGIS metadata for an item in the metadata editor, you can use the metadata of an existing item or upload a metadata (.xml) file.

1. Sign in to the organization as the item owner or an administrator.
2. Open the item page.
3. On the Overview tab of the item page, click Edit metadata.

   Tip:

   You may need to click the expand button to see all options.

   To open the metadata for a sublayer in a hosted feature layer, click the layer in the Layers list and then click Edit metadata on the sublayer page.

   The Metadata Editor window appears.

4. Click the Options button at the top of the editor and choose Overwrite.

   The Overwrite window appears.

5. Choose one of the following for the metadata source that will replace the metadata for this item:
   • From item—In the Item page URL or item ID field, provide the URL of the item or the item ID that you copy from the item's page.
   • Choose file—Click Choose file, browse to the location on disk of the metadata file (.xml), and click Open.
6. Choose one of the following options that determine how much of the item's metadata is overwritten:
   • Maintain metadata from item details—Certain metadata values that were populated from the item's details will be maintained for the item, but all other values will be overwritten using values from the metadata source file or item. For a list of which values are maintained, see the FAQ.

     Unpopulated values will be overwritten by the metadata in the source file or item. For example, if title, summary, and description are set for the item but none of the other information is, the values for the item's title, summary, and description are preserved, but the values for the other, unpopulated information—such as tags and extent—will be taken from the metadata in the file or source item you chose in the previous step.

   • Overwrite all metadata—All values from the metadata source will be used when overwriting the existing metadata.
7. Click Overwrite.

Considerations when editing metadata

Consider the following when editing metadata:

• You cannot edit metadata for items that are shared to your organization through a distributed collaboration.
• Currently, the title element is not synchronized between the metadata editor and item page. This includes when you upload a metadata .xml file. The first time you open the editor, the element has the title from the item page. Any changes you make (and save) to the title in the metadata editor are saved to the standards-based metadata. They are not saved to the item page.
• Currently, edits you make to a hosted WFS layer's metadata do not update the capabilities file of the underlying WFS service.
• Edits to layer-lever metadata are not synchronized with the item. Similarly, edits to item metadata are not synchronized with layer-level metadata.