02b - Component types: Fields, Actions, and Notifications

Info: This article is work in progress and subject to change.

Every component you place on a Workflow Assistant panel is one of three types: a Field, an Action, or a Notification. The Configurator calls these the entity types because they are the top-level categories that every other choice — field type, button type, asset kind, visibility, validation — sits underneath.

This article explains what each type is for, when to choose which, and how the three work together to keep users on the happy path.

If you have read 02a — Panel anatomy, you already know that a component lives inside a row, inside a section, inside a tab. This page tells you what the component itself can be.

Fields, Action and Notification

The three types at a glance

Fields

A Field is the workhorse of any panel. It exposes one Assets metadata value — title, status, due date, tag list, rights category, anything — to the user, and lets them read it or edit it depending on how you have configured the field.

Thirteen field types are available. The full reference is on page 05a — Fields reference, but here is the shape of the catalogue:

Every field type shares a common set of options:

• Display name — what the user sees as the field label
• Field name — the technical name of the matching Assets metadata field that this field reads from and writes to
• Hint text and Disable hint — the tooltip that appears on hover
• Disabled and Disable condition — whether the field is editable, and the rule that decides
• Required and Required condition — whether the field must hold a value before the user can move on
• Visibility by asset kind — which kinds of asset the field appears for

Several types add their own options on top — minimum and maximum values for numbers, a values list for dropdowns and tags, a date format string for date fields, and so on. The Fields reference page covers every option on every type.

Note: The technical Field name on a Field component must match a real Assets metadata field. The Configurator helps you by autocompleting from the available fields in your Assets installation as you type. Typing or pasting a name that does not exist will cause the Workflow Assistant to error when an end user opens the panel — this is the single most common silent-mistake pattern reported to support.

Actions

An Action does something. It is the verb to a Field’s noun. Where a Field shows or stores a value, an Action moves the user, runs a query, stamps metadata across a selection, links assets together, or opens a URL.

The Configurator gives you several action types, each delivered as a button the user clicks:

Every Action gives you the same controls you get on a Field plus a few of its own:

• Always on — the button is enabled even when no asset is selected. Use this for navigation buttons that should work from anywhere
• Confirmation popup — a confirm dialog appears before the action runs, with a message you write
• Disable condition — a Lucene query that, when true, disables the button and shows a message you write

Tip: Actions that change data (any Metadata stamper, anything that moves assets) deserve a confirmation popup unless they are designed to be reversible. The cost of the extra click is far smaller than the cost of an accidental status change across a hundred assets.

Notifications

A Notification is feedback. It is how you tell users — quietly or loudly — where they are, what to do next, what they have got wrong, or what they should be aware of before they act.

A Notification appears on the panel only when its display condition is met. The condition is a Lucene query, evaluated against the metadata of the currently selected asset or collection. When the query returns true, the notification shows; when it does not, the notification is hidden. There is no other rendering rule.

Four message types are available, each with its own visual treatment:

Notifications are the design choice that separates a panel that works from a panel that feels well-designed. In our experience, the single most common design mistake when building a Workflow Assistant panel is using too few notifications. Without them, a user who has ended up in an unexpected state — wrong asset kind selected, missing required metadata, viewing an asset that needs attention — has to deduce that from the absence of buttons or the presence of a disabled overlay. With them, the user is told what is going on, and what to do next, in plain language that you write.

Tip: Write notifications as if the user has never seen the panel before. “This asset has no credit. Add one in the Credit field below before publishing.” reads better than “Credit missing.” Keep them short, but keep them human.

Choosing between similar components

A few common confusions come up. Here is how to think about them.

If the choice is not obvious, default to a Notification. A panel with too many Notifications is easy to fix; a panel that silently lets users into the wrong state is not.

Where to go from here

• 02c — Asset kinds and visibility — for any of these three types, you choose which kinds of asset the component applies to. This is the next concept to learn
• 02d — How conditions work: Lucene and regex in plain language — Notifications, Disable conditions, and Required conditions all use Lucene; this primer makes it readable
• 05a — Fields reference — the full catalogue of every field type and every option
• 05b — Actions and buttons reference — the full catalogue of every action type and every option
• 05c — Notifications reference — the full catalogue of message types, conditions, and options

Revisions

• 7 May 2026: First publication of the manual