Browse by Metadata Tags

Egnyte provides powerful built-in metadata capabilities that allow the users to efficiently set metadata properties on a large number of files and folders, and enable quick searching of content based on metadata. 

Browse by Metadata Tags brings a new and unique way to navigate through the content using metadata tags. It enables the users to navigate to the files and folders of interest regardless of the overall folder structure or where each individual file may be located in the folder tree. Users can navigate the collection of tagged documents by simply clicking on Tag values and automatically filtering the files and folders to the matching results. 

 

Browse By Tags View 

Click on the Browse by Tags icon near the top-right of a folder list view.

This changes the display mode to ‘Browse by Tags’.  A new pane opens up that shows all the metadata properties (tags) that have any value applied to any of the files in the current folder tree. 

The tags are divided in two separate sections 

• System Tags: System tags are created and applied by the system, such as Secure and Govern Policy Tags, and Document Tags.
• Custom Tags: Custom Tags are user-defined metadata. 

Learn more about Metadata in Egnyte.

 

Choose one or more values from the dropdown menus to filter the results based on the tags selected.

For example: select Document Type as Employee Handbook to view the matching results. Additionally, users can use the column-level dropdowns for custom attributes to filter the results.

Users can mix and match values from different properties to narrow down their search. As Tag values are selected, the list of chosen values appear on top. The user can click on the x symbol to remove any given filter. 

As the user chooses one or more Tag values to filter their view, some of the Tags in the left pane become disabled and are displayed as greyed out. 

In the example below, after selecting the Training Manual as the Document Type, the options Policy Tags and Folder Insights Tags are greyed out as these do not have any tag values set.

Search Tags

Users can search for the tags using the search option in the left pane. 

Hide Disabled Tags

Some of the tags may be disabled as there may not be any content matching with the current filter. The user can click on the Hide disabled tags checkbox to hide any disabled tags.

Edit Tags

Users can edit the tags associated with a particular document by hovering over the document and clicking on the Edit icon.

They can choose to add or remove the tag(s) as needed. Click on Save to save the changes.

Enumerated vs Freeform Tags 

Fundamentally, there are two types of metadata properties. 

Enumerated properties: These are the properties that can only contain a finite set of values. 

For example: Document Type can only contain a handful of distinct values. On the other hand, a property like Address can contain any of the billions of possible values. 

All enumerated Tags in the left pane display a drop-down menu when clicked. The drop-down menus contain all possible values for that Tag. The user can choose one or more values in the menu to filter their results. 

 

Freeform Tags do not show a drop-down menu. When a user clicks on a freeform property, the display gets filtered down to show all items that have any value set for that property. 

For example, if a user clicks on the ‘Address’ property, the display shows all items where the Address is set to any value. If the user needs to search for all files with a specific value, they can kick-off advanced metadata search from the bottom of the Tags pane. 

Save Views

Users have the option to save views when browsing by tags. They can also rename, share, and remove any of the saved views.

• Click on Views when browsing by tags and click on ‘+’.
  
• Provide a name to the view and click on Save. This will save the current view including all the applied filters and displayed column list.
  
  The saved view will be available under My Views.
  

Rename the Saved View

• Navigate to Views -> My Views -> Click on the three-dots for a view to rename and click on Rename.
  
  
  
• Enter the new name and click on Rename.
  
  The saved view will be renamed.
  

Share the Saved View

• Navigate to Views -> My Views -> Click on the three-dots for a view to share and click on Share.
  
• Users can share the saved view with the existing domain users. They can choose to email the link or get a direct link and share it with the user(s).
  
  When emailing the link, the users can enter the email addresses of the domain user(s), provide an optional message, choose to send a copy of the mail to themselves, and click on Send email.
  

  
  

  Alternatively, they can choose to Get share link and the link will be copied to the clipboard for sharing. 

  When the recipient clicks on the shared link, the shared view will be automatically saved for them, and will be available under the Shared With Me tab.

  

Remove the Saved View

• Navigate to Views -> My Views -> Click on the three-dots for a view to remove and click on Remove.
  

  

• Click on Remove to confirm.
  
  The saved view will be removed.
  

Frequently Asked Questions 

Why do some tags appear as active, but when a user clicks on them, the screen displays "No results found"?

There are a number of reasons why there may be no results found for a Tag that appears active and clickable:  

• The user may not have permissions to see the tagged files 
• The tagged files were recently moved or deleted and the tags have not yet been re-indexed 
• If the tag is an enumerated type, the dropdown menu is marked as active as long as at least one value from the list is assigned to a file. However, not all values in the menu may have files associated with them, so clicking on certain values might show "No results found”

The user launches the browse by tags view from one folder, but they wish to go to another folder without losing the filters already set. Is this possible?

The folder tree pane gets collapsed in the ‘Browse by Tag’ view. However, the folder tree can be expanded by clicking on the ‘expand’ arrow as shown below. Once the folder tree is visible, the user can navigate to any folder. As long as any files in the new folder tree match the filters, the filters will remain applied.