We released multi-level metadata taxonomies in Box, a powerful new metadata management capability that brings reusable, multi-level metadata field types to Box Apps, Box Forms, Box Relay, Box Preview, and anywhere you leverage Box Metadata. This feature lets admins define hierarchical schemas, or taxonomies, once within the Admin Console, and reuse them across metadata templates, improving categorization, discoverability, and end-user experience. Metadata taxonomies enable Admins to provide a hierarchical relationship between fields for better metadata management and much more efficient user experience.
With this release, admins can define hierarchical taxonomies once and attach them to multiple metadata templates, simplifying categorization and improving consistency across your enterprise content and workflows. Box Metadata supports taxonomy creation and editing, including supplying a display name for a taxonomy, deleting a taxonomy, adding root nodes, and adding child nodes up to ten levels deep. Admins can create taxonomies automatically by importing a CSV file which is then transcribed into separate nodes and levels, at which point Admins can add, modify, and search for additional nodes and levels via a right-hand panel.
Admins can add taxonomy-based fields to templates, specify whether a field is single-select or multi-select, and choose whether selectable options include only leaf nodes or nodes at all levels. A taxonomy-based field can be added to multiple templates, and a single template can contain multiple fields based on the same taxonomy.
End users benefit from type-ahead, or autocomplete, support in taxonomy fields, meaning that when users start typing three characters, for example, the metadata field begins to surface matching options.
Taxonomies can be utilized when searching for content in Box and supported in:
- Box Preview to streamline content discovery.
- Box Apps to power metadata-driven views and workflows.
- Box Forms when leveraging metadata templates to build new forms and fields.
- Box Relay to automate workflows using metadata.
API support is also available to retrieve an entire taxonomy, a specified node subtree, a child nodes, all nodes at a specified level, and all nodes of a specified node type, enabling integration with custom and third party apps, and additional developer-driven experiences.
To learn more about this release, please see Metadata Taxonomies and the Box Developer Documentation for Metadata.