Moving, copying and exporting metadata
Moving and copying metadata
This section focuses on what happens to data associations when copying metadata tables. This information also pertains to moving metadata tables between File Locations, as this is equivalent to a copy action.
To copy a metadata table and the data associated with it, such that the new data element copies are associated with the copy of the metadata table, select both the metadata table and the data elements and copy them in a single operation. Of note here:
- The data element copies will have associations with the new copy of the metadata table. The original elements keep their associations with the original metadata table.
- If a metadata table is copied but data elements with associations to it are not also copied in that action, those data elements will be associated with both the copy and the original metadata table.
- If data elements with associations to metadata are copied, but no metadata table is involved in the same copy action, each data element copy will be associated to the same metadata as the original element.
If a metadata table and some, but not all, data elements with associations to it, are copied in a single action, then:
- The data element copies will have associations to the copy of the metadata table, while the original elements (that were copied) remain associated with the original metadata table.
- Elements with associations to the original metadata table that were not copied will have associations to both the original metadata table and the copy. However, if these data elements are later copied (in a separate copy operation), those copies will only be associated with the original metadata table. If they should be associated with the copy of the metadata table, those association must be added as described in Associating data elements with metadata.
Exporting metadata
The standard Workbench export functionality can be used to export metadata tables to various formats. The system's default locale will be used for the export, which will affect the formatting of numbers and dates in the exported file.
See Exporting data for more information.