Which is better for metadata - labels or page properties
Asked by Tara English-Sweeney:

Hi. I have used page properties and know about the reporting capabilities. However, I also know that you can add labels to pages and use macros to categorize information as well.

Labels: <https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/use-labels-to-organize-your-content-724764874.html>

Page properties: <https://wiki.aciworldwide.com/display/CON/Page+Properties+and+Page+Properties+Report+Macro>

Is one better to use than the other when you want to add metadata to your Confluence pages? If so, can you please explain why?

Thank you.


Answers:
author: James Dellow
body: Good question.

Labels are good for organising, aggregating or filtering content. They also support search and discovery. However, they are designed to be user-generated - any user with edit permissions can add or remove labels, without it being recorded as a page edit.

The Page Properties macros allow you to build simple reports based on content in the page (so changes are in the page history) - it isn't really meta-data as such. It also uses Labels to help filer the pages to include in the report. (I've also been involved with building an add-on that aggregated hundreds of pages across multiple spaces into a kind of "super" report, however it relied on web scraping).

There is a third-option, custom "content properties", however, these are accessed by developing your own functionality. My News for Confluence Cloud add-on uses a custom content property to allow people to feature blogposts in a way that provides more control than using labels alone.

comments: author: Tara English-Sweeney
body: Thank you James! Your explanations of the differences between labels and Page Properties are extremely helpful.

I only have access to labels or page properties and cannot get additional add-ons. My team can embed content into pages using page properties and run reports, no? I thought that would be an option. From the way you explain it, it is not.

Additional thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Regards,

T


author: James Dellow
body: Yes, the Page Properties macros are great for creating reports, which you embed on a page using the Page Properties Report macro - but there aren't really any other macros that work with Page Properties. Also watch out for the pagination - it defaults to show only 30 items at a time and I've found that people can miss items as they expect it show all items. Unfortunately you can't set it to show all.


author: Tara English-Sweeney
body: I forgot that we also have access to the metadata plugin.. However, the last time I tried to use it, I did not have much success. I was in a rush at the time. Maybe I should revisit that.

Have you worked with that at all James?

[https://comalatech.jira.com/wiki/spaces/META/pages/14155897/Metadata+plugin+version+1+documentation#Metadatapluginversion1documentation-metadatamacro](https://comalatech.jira.com/wiki/spaces/META/pages/14155897/Metadata+plugin+version+1+documentation#Metadatapluginversion1documentation-metadatamacro?)


author: James Dellow
body: Definitely - If you are able to utilise 3rd-party add-ons, then you have many more opportunities to make use of meta-data. I've had more experience with ServiceRocket's [Reporting](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/186/reporting-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview) (and [Scaffolding](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/190/scaffolding-forms-templates?hosting=server&tab=overview "Scaffolding")) add-ons. But both [Comala Metadata](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/5295/comala-metadata?hosting=server&tab=overview) and [Metadata for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1213690/metadata-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview) look worth investigating.


author: James Conway
body: Hello [@Marlene Pirker](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4394046)

There are a number of plug-ins available on the marketplace that add the ability to manage metadata related to your content, see:

[https://marketplace.atlassian.com/addons/app/confluence/top-selling?hosting=server\&query=metadata](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/addons/app/confluence/top-selling?hosting=server&query=metadata)

You'll see that one of the options listed there is Comala Metadata, if you have any questions about the app do not hesitate to reach out to our Customer Success Team at <https://support.comalatech.com>

All the best

James  
Senior Product Manager


author: Tom Keidar
body: Hi [@Tara English-Sweeney](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2585030) ,

If you are looking for a Cloud solution we've recently released [Metadata for Confluence Cloud.](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1222027/metadata-for-confluence-cloud?utm_source=atlassian_community&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=labels_post)

It breaks the limitations of labels and page properties for organizing pages, lets you configure your own fields with various types, input, and query them.  
Additionally, it includes a few macros to integrate the metadata inside the page.

Give it a try with a free trial :)

comments: author: James Dellow
body: Nice one [@Tom Keidar](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3675838) - that looks like a great addition to the marketplace.


author: Marlene Pirker
body: Hello - do you know if there is a plug in like this for Confluence Server too? this is exactly what I am looking for.


author: Dea Mandija
body: Hello [@Marlene Pirker](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4394046)

The Atlassian marketplace offers many plugins for Metadata, particularly for Confluence server, you can check those out here:

[https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?hosting=server\&product=confluence\&query=Metadata](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?hosting=server&product=confluence&query=Metadata)

One option could be Metadata for Confluence, which offers you the possibility to:

-Assign metadata sets to single pages, part of or even the whole page tree of a space.  
-Add metadata sets to Confluence page templates.  
-Search metadata and display pages based on their metadata values.

I'm now part of the team that built it, so please let me know if you have any questions. Would love to help :)

Best regards!


Tags: confluence-server

label

metadata

page-property

server