Manage My drafts

Learn how to use the My drafts screen in CONTENTdm (new version).

Roles: Users with the Administrator, Collection manager, Collection editor, or Collection builder role can manage drafts they have created or have been assigned. Refer to CONTENTdm (new version) roles.

Use the My drafts screen to add and manage items that are in draft status in your instance of CONTENTdm (new version). A draft is an item that has been saved for later review and editing. Drafts are not visible on your public website until you publish them.

Note: Drafts are user-specific and not shared across the site. You see the drafts you created and the drafts that have been assigned to you.

Find and sort drafts

Use the Search draft items bar to retrieve items by Item title.

Sort the item table by selecting a column heading. You can sort by Item title, Item type, Primary collection, Metadata template, and Last modified date. By default, the columns are sorted by the last modified date in descending order.

You can also find your drafts in other places:

The My drafts list on the Dashboard.
The My drafts tab on each collection's page.

Add items

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select Add item.
On the Add items screen, choose how to add the item:
Select Save as draft at the end of a workflow to keep the item in My drafts. The workflows that add many items create drafts for you. An item appears in My drafts when processing is complete.

For more information, refer to Add items.

Edit the metadata of multiple drafts

Export metadata

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox for any draft item whose metadata you want to export, or leave all checkboxes deselected to export metadata for all available drafts.
Select More actions and choose Export metadata (CSV) from the drop-down menu. A CSV file containing the metadata for your selected draft items is saved to your downloads folder.

The file contains an identifier ([id]) for each item. Use it to match your changes when you import the file.

Import metadata

Use Import metadata to update the metadata of draft items from a CSV file. A good way to start is to export your drafts, edit the CSV file, and then import it.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select Import metadata.
Select your CSV file.
Once the file has been uploaded, it is validated. If validated, select Import to import the file.

Draft items whose [id] is in the file are updated. Only columns that match properties are imported. For more information, refer to About metadata properties.

Edit in spreadsheet view

Use spreadsheet view to edit the metadata of several drafts in a table. Please be aware of the following before making any edits in the spreadsheet view:

Only draft items can be edited in spreadsheet view.
The items you select must use the same metadata template.
Properties constrained to a vocabulary or to dates cannot be edited in spreadsheet view.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox for any draft item whose metadata you want to edit in spreadsheet view. You must select at least one draft.
Select More actions and choose Edit in spreadsheet view from the drop-down menu. The Edit drafts screen appears.
Select a cell to edit it. You can also double-click a cell. Text appears after your first keystroke.
To fill or copy values, right-click a cell and choose one of the following:
- Fill up: Fill every space above in this column with the edited content.
- Fill down: Fill every space below in this column with the edited content.
- Fill column: Fill every space in this column with the edited content.
- Copy: Copy content.
- Paste: Paste content.
Choose one of the following:
- Select Save to save the items as drafts. You stay on the screen.
- Select Publish to publish all of the items directly. You return to the drafts list. Only users who can publish see this option.
- Select Cancel to leave the screen without saving your changes.

Generate transcripts

Use Generate transcripts to run optical character recognition (OCR) on several drafts at once. OCR works only on image and PDF files.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox next to any draft item for which you want to generate a transcript.
Select More actions and choose Generate transcripts with OCR from the drop-down menu.
Select Generate in the Confirm transcript generation dialog.

Note:

The new transcript replaces any transcript the item already has. The item keeps its current transcript until the new one is ready.
The published version of an item does not change until you publish the draft.
To check progress, refer to the Process manager. There you can pause, resume, or cancel the job.
If an item cannot be processed, the failure is listed in the Error log.

Publish drafts

Roles: Users with the Administrator, Collection manager, or Collection editor role can publish drafts.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox next to any draft item that you want to publish.
Select More actions and choose Publish from the drop-down menu.
Select Publish in the Confirm publish dialog.

The item moves to processing and cannot be edited, published, or deleted until processing is complete. Published items appear in Published items.

Assign drafts to another user

Roles: Users with the Administrator, Collection manager, or Collection builder role can assign drafts.

Use this to hand a draft to another staff member to review or edit. A Collection builder assigns a draft to a user who can publish it.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox next to any draft item that you want to assign to another user.
Select More actions and choose Assign to user from the drop-down menu. The Assign to user dialog appears.
Search for a user by name or email and select them from the drop-down list.
Click Continue.
Select Confirm in the Confirm assignment dialog.

The user must have permission to edit the item. If they do not, an error appears and you cannot continue.

After you assign a draft, it appears in the other users' My drafts. It is no longer in your My drafts, and you can see the item only after it is published.

Add drafts to a collection

An item can belong to more than one collection. Its primary collection determines its metadata template and access settings.

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox next to any draft item that you want to add to another collection.
Select More actions and choose Add to collection from the drop-down menu. The Add to collection dialog appears.
Select a collection from the drop-down list.
(Optional) Select Change the primary collection for all items to make this collection the primary collection.
Select Add.

To add a single item to a collection, refer to Edit draft items.

Delete drafts

To delete several items:

From the Content management > My drafts screen, select the checkbox next to any draft item that you want to delete.
Select More actions and choose Delete from the drop-down menu.
Select Delete from the Confirm deletion dialog.

Edit an individual draft

To view and edit an item, select its title or select the Edit button () in the Actions column. For more information, refer to Edit draft items.