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### External (Shared) Metadata

Creating External (Shared) Metadata
Linking External (Shared) Metadata
Internalizing External (Shared) Metadata

External (shared) metadata are metadata that serve for more graphs than only one. They are located outside the graph and can be shared across multiple graphs.

#### Creating External (Shared) Metadata

If you want to create shared metadata, you can do it in two ways:

- You can do it by selecting File → New → Other in the main menu.

  To create external (shared) metadata, after clicking the Other item, you must select the CloverETL item, expand it and decide whether you want to define metadata yourself (User defined), extract them from a file (Extract from flat file or Extract from XLS file), or extract them from a database (Extract from database).

- You can do it in the Navigator pane.

  To create external (shared) metadata, you can open the context menu by right-clicking, select New → Others from it, and after opening the list of wizards you must select the CloverETL item, expand it and decide whether you want to define metadata yourself (User defined), extract them from a file (Extract from flat file or Extract from XLS file), or extract them from a database (Extract from database).

  Figure 32.3. Creating External (Shared) Metadata in the Main Menu and/or in the Navigator Pane

#### Linking External (Shared) Metadata

After their creation (see previous sections), external (shared) metadata must be linked to each graph in which they are to be used. You need to right-click either the Metadata group or any of its items and select New metadata → Link shared definition from the context menu. After that, a File selection wizard displaying the project content will open. You must expand the `meta` folder in this wizard and select the desired metadata file from all the files contained in this wizard.

You can even link multiple external (shared) metadata files at once. To do this, right-click either the Metadata group or any of its items and select New metadata → Link shared definition from the context menu. After that, a File selection wizard displaying the project content will open. You must expand the `meta` folder in this wizard and select the desired metadata files from all the files contained in this wizard. You can select adjacent file items when you press Shift and move the Down Cursor or the Up Cursor key. If you want to select non-adjacent items, use Ctrl+Click at each of the desired file items instead.

#### Internalizing External (Shared) Metadata

Once you have created and linked external (shared) metadata, in case you want to put them into the graph, you need to convert them to internal metadata. In such a case you would see their structure in the graph itself.

You can internalize any linked external (shared) metadata file by right-clicking the linked external (shared) metadata item in the Outline pane and clicking Internalize metadata from the context menu.

You can even internalize multiple linked external (shared) metadata files at once. To do this, select the desired external (shared) metadata items in the Outline pane. You can select adjacent items when you press Shift and move the Down Cursor or the Up Cursor key. If you want to select non-adjacent items, use Ctrl+Click at each of the desired items instead.

After that, the selected linked external (shared) metadata items disappear from the Outline pane Metadata group, but, at the same location, newly created internal metadata items appear.

The original external (shared) metadata files still exist in the `meta` subfolder and can be seen in the Navigator pane.

Figure 32.4. Internalizing External (Shared) Metadata

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