The difference between the 'Used in' and 'Publish in' properties in Studio

The Studio application — and the Studio Server application that it is connected to — contains many tools and options for managing the large number of files that are available in the system.

Two of those options may appear as very similar to users and are therefore worthwhile to explain: the properties 'Used in' and 'Publish in'.

Definitions

Let's start with some definitions of both properties.

Used in

The 'Used in' property indicates in which location that file is used:

• The Brand and Issue it has been assigned to
• The Dossier or Task it is part of (when applicable)
• The layout it is placed on

It is therefore a relational target.

Viewing this relation can be done in the following locations:

• In the Properties panel, the 'Used in' field shows all relations of the file, including the Brand and Issue.

Figure: Here, the 'Used in' properties of an article are shown. We can see that it belongs to the Brand 'WW News', it is in the 1st Issue, and part of Dossier 'December kayaking'. (Note that the 'Publish in' property below it is not set for this article. The reason why is explained in the 'Publish in' section below.)

Tip: Hover the mouse pointer over a value to show the object type and name in a tooltip.

• In the Linked Files panel, you can see the relation between this file and other files in Studio:
• For a Dossier or Task, you can see all files that are in that Dossier or Task (without having to open it).
• For an article or image, you can see all Dossiers or Tasks that the file is part of and all layouts it is placed on.
• For a layout, you can see all Dossiers or Tasks that the layout is part of and all files that are placed on it.

For a full explanation, see Viewing to which Studio files a file is linked using Studio.

Figure: The Linked Files panel shows to which files in Studio a file is linked.

Publish in

The 'Publish in' property is used for a Dossier or a layout to indicate in which Issue the Dossier or layout is published.

It is therefore an object target.

Other files such as articles and images typically do not have their 'Publish in' property set, because they are placed on a layout or are part of a Dossier for which the property is set. Also, it is very common for files such as images to be used in multiple Dossiers or on multiple layouts which may be aimed at different Issues. Therefore, the 'Publish in' property is not set for these files.

With this property set, all files that are part of a particular Issue can then be easily found using the Issue field in the search tools.

Note: There is one reason why files would have their 'Publish in' field set, which is when they are not part of a Dossier, but still need to be part of an Issue and need to be found when searching for all files in that Issue. However, the typical workflow is for all files of a Story to be part of a Dossier. In that scenario, the 'Publish in' field is set on the Dossier.

Viewing this relation can be done in the following locations:

• In the Properties panel to see in which Issue (and optionally Editions) the Dossier or layout is published to.

Figure: The 'Publish in' properties of a layout. It will be published in the 1st Issue, for Editions North and South. In the 'Used in' property above it we can see that the layout is part of Brand 'WW News', it is in the 1st Issue, and part of Dossier 'December kayaking'.

• In the Publication Overview, to see a complete overview of the progress of a publication.

Figure: The Publication Overview Application shows a complete overview of the progress of a publication. The files shown are based on the 'Publish in' property.

Assignment

The way the properties are assigned is as follows:

• The Used in property is automatically set based on its location (part of a Brand, Issue, Dossier, placed on a layout, and so on). You will therefore not manually set this, it is set as a result of what the file is part of.

• The Publish in property is a static field and must be manually set. This is done when it is decided to which Issue (and optionally Editions) the file should belong.

Note: There is one scenario in which the 'Publish in' property is automatically set, which is when a file is removed from a Dossier. The 'Publish in' property is then set to the Issue the Dossier was assigned to (see use cases below). This is to prevent orphaned files: files without an Issue assigned which can then not be found when searching on that Issue.

Key use cases

Let's now look at some scenarios to see what happens to these properties when working with files:

• Scenario 1: When searching for a file that is part of an Issue, both the 'Used in' and the 'Publish in' fields are referenced.

• Scenario 2: When moving a Dossier to another Issue, the Issue reference in the 'Used in' property for all files that are part of that Dossier also changes.

• Scenario 3: When a file is removed from a Dossier, the 'Publish in' property is automatically set. This is to prevent orphaned files: files without an Issue assigned which can then not be found when searching on that Issue.

• Scenario 4: When changing the Brand of a Dossier, layout, or any other file, the 'Publish in' settings for that file are cleared. The following message appears:

Changing the Brand has cleared the Publish In settings. Reset these when needed.

• Scenario 5: Progressive changes when creating a layout, placing an image on it, and adding them to a Dossier.

Summary

The following table shows a summary of what is described in this article.