In a modern Enterprise Content Management platform files are enriched with metadata making it much easier to search and retrieve information from the ECM platform. Metadata can be any kind of information (text, numeric …) that specifies the content of the file. In Alfresco metadata is organized in the following way:

• A number of document types, each having a particular combination of specific metadata fields, are defined. For example: offer, order, invoice, marketing document, contract …
• Some metadata fields can appear in multiple document type: example customer name
• Metadata can be mandatory or optional, single value or multi value …
• Drop down list can be used to provide predefined values for the metadata field

The Fred trial environment provides a sample document model with a number of document types. This trial document model will evolve over time.