A data tab generates customized metadata as a JSON file - based on the answers in the questionnaire and ready for automatic downstream processing.

Activate

Create a new tab in your template and, under Options, set Use as a data tab.

Activating a tab as a data tab

Set up

A data tab is structured like a normal tab: headings are the namespaces, paragraphs the data fields. Inside data fields, the data is always a key-value pair. On export it appears as JSON:

"{"Namespace1":{"key1":"value1","key2":"value2"}}"

A data tab with namespaces and data fields

Namespaces and data fields can also be indented - the generated JSON reflects that:

Indented namespaces

The corresponding JSON output

What the data tab can do

As with normal tabs, all entries can be governed by rules - with placeholders, inline rules and the questionnaire. That makes the exported data fully individualized and dependent on the answers. Keep these rules in mind:

  1. Namespaces on the same level must be named uniquely.
  2. Namespaces themselves must not contain rules or placeholders.
  3. Namespaces may only contain A-Z, 0-9 and _.
  4. The key-value format (key: value) must be kept.
  5. All data fields on one level must have unique keys.
  6. keys can’t be shown dynamically (via rules/placeholders) - values can.
  7. keys may only contain A-Z, 0-9 and _.
  8. values can contain any information.

Example: metadata from an employment contract as JSON

Publication mode

You can also use data tabs in publication mode.

If you don’t want users to export the JSON file, prevent the export: select the data tab → Options at the top right → the data tab (in the example “DATA: DATA TAB”) → clear the Include in export checkbox. To hide the data tab from users entirely, set that in the template’s options.