Introduction

Administrators often have the need to batch manage metadata, whether uploading, editing, or downloading. There are several ways to work with multiple items all at once:

• Administrative Batch Management Tool - work with a CSV file; the only way to batch approve items through review
• Batch manage account item metadata - only works with items the account owns
• FTP - this is only for files, the only metadata uploaded is a title
• API - requires scripting, very flexible, can be combined with the FTP option and Admin Batch Tool to take advantage of easy file uploading and batch review.

Administrative Batch Management Tool

This tool is only available to top level admin and it enable the download of metadata as a CSV file as well as the upload of metadata and files through CSV. The upload process can also edit existing metadata. See the articles in this support site for detailed information on using this tool.

Highlights:

• Who: Only available to top level admins
• Scope: Full repository - upload and download across accounts and groups
• Special features: 
  • Can specify metadata download from certain groups, drafts, public, or everything
  • Can auto-review items and publish

Batch manage account item metadata

Any account has the option to add or change the metadata in batch for items that they own. This is especially useful in conjunction with FTP. For example, you can upload related files through FTP to create many items and then add shared metadata in batch. In the 'My data' tab in your account, click the check boxes (left side of the item list) next to two or more items that you want to add or edit metadata for.  Click the Actions dropdown that sits above left of the item list and select 'Edit in batch'. You can then add, append, prepend, and remove metadata, including custom fields.

Highlights:

• Who: Any account
• Scope: Only items owned by the account
• Special features: 
  • Edit any metadata field available to the account/items

FTP

You can use FTP to upload files into one or more items. The only metadata included is a title. See the user help page for more information.

Highlights:

• Who: Any account
• Scope: Only items owned by the account
• Special features: 
  • will upload many files to one or multiple new draft items
  • will upload very large files

API

Figshare's open API enables working with many items in a variety of ways. This requires some scripting and more information is available on the documentation site: https://docs.figshare.com. 

Highlights:

• Who: Any account
• Scope: Scope is determined by the account's privileges and controlled through tokens created by the account
• Special features: 
  • Provides access to almost all options for working with metadata and files.
  • What it cannot do: approve an item in review for publication, add ORCID to an account.