Documents generated with xential contain standard document properties such as Author, Title and Last modified by. These are visible in Microsoft Word under File > Info. In xential, you can control these properties in different ways, depending on what you want to achieve. This article describes the three available options.


Option 1: filling a Word property with a question from the template

Use this option when you want to fill an existing Word document property with the answer to a xential question. A common example is automatically filling the document title based on a subject entered by the user.

1
In xential|manager, open the properties of the relevant template.
2
Select the question whose answer should populate the Word property.
3
Click Link metadata and select the desired Word property (for example title).
4
The link is active when the name of the document property is shown in brackets after the xential question field.


Option 2: filling a Word property with a xential property

Use this option when you want to fill a Word property with a fixed or organisation-wide value, without the end user having to enter anything. This is useful, for example, when you want to display the organisation's name as the author instead of the logged-in user, or when you want to modify Last modified by.

1
In xential|manager, go to Settings > Manage xential properties and create a category.
2
Add a property and give it a recognisable name.
3
Fill the property with the desired value at the appropriate level (user group, template group or template).
4
Link the property via Document properties metadata links to the desired Word property (for example author or lastsavedby).

Common use cases:


Option 3: adding a new document property

Use this option when the desired document property does not exist in Word by default. You can create a new property yourself and fill it using option 1 (xential question) or option 2 (xential property).

1
In xential|manager, go to Settings > Manage document properties.
2
Click Add and enter the desired description.
3
Fill the new property using option 1 or option 2.


Important

A newly created document property only becomes visible in the metadata fields the next day, after which it can be linked. This option is rarely used in practice.


Tip

When transferring templates to a test or production environment, make sure that the xential property exists in the target environment with exactly the same ID. The link only works when the ID is identical. Consider giving the property a logical name instead of the default generated ID.