One of Dash's biggest differentiators is its ability to make your assets more organised and easy to find, outside of simply using folders. A key way to achieve this is via fields.

A field is a way to attach a piece of information to a specific asset. You can see all the fields on the right hand side when you're viewing an asset:
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Fields enable you to do two things in Dash:

So, if you need to find all assets that are Display ads featuring a t-shirt, you can simply select this in the filters:

Except for our pre-built fields that come with every Dash (File Type, Orientation, Dimensions, Added By), the rest are custom made by you, so you'll need to create these yourself. This gives you the ability to categorise your assets however you want, and for your specific needs!

Go to Admin > Fields

It's also possible to add fields in other places, e.g. from the upload screen. Please read our dedicated article for more information: How to create a custom field
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You'll notice there are many different types of fields to choose from, so here's our breakdown of all of them and when to use them.

This is a single-line free text field. An example is the Asset Title you'll already see in your Dash:

This is a multi-line free text field that accepts carriage returns. Useful for notes, additional copy, video scripts or any other longer-form information you might want to store. Already used in your Dash account in the "Description" field:

A dropdown list can be used to allow a user to select a single option from a list. This is appropriate if only one of the options could apply to an asset at any one time.

💡 Dropdowns appear as checklists in the filter bar to support OR logic while filtering. Read more here.

A checklist is similar to a Dropdown in that it provides a list of data to choose between, but with a checklist a user can select multiple items from the list. This is appropriate if multiple options from the list could apply to an asset at the same time.

Tags, similar to the Dropdown or Checklist field, can be used to store pieces of preset information, such as a product name ("Formal shirt") or a phrase ("Internal use"), against an asset.
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Often, a Checklist or a Dropdown field will suffice, but a Tags field is better in the following scenarios:
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When you have a lot of different options you'd like to store, having a long list of options in a dropdown or checklist won't be as user friendly as it would become a very long list that could run off the page.

Tags, on the other hand, display side-by-side and you can easily select 1 or more options when filtering:
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Some examples of what our customers use tags for:

​In the example above, it may become tedious to keep adding every variation of your product categories as a separate tag, e.g. "formal trousers", "casual trousers", etc.

Instead, you can group my products into broader categories, and then have tags underneath each category. For example, you could have "Trousers" as a parent tag, with all the different types of trousers as child tags:

This helps things feel a bit more structured.

Once you've done this, you can either tag assets with one or more child tags, or just by the parent tag, e.g., "Trousers", if you're not sure about the exact granular category.
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Then, you'll be able to search for assets on multiple levels:

For the Dropdown and Checklist fields, non-admin Contributor users can apply an existing option to an asset, but they can't add a whole new option. With Tags, however, you can configure this in the field settings of the Tags field:

Note, this will only apply to users with "Contributor" permissions to any Dash folder, not "Basic" users.

This works in the same way as the newer Tags field, with the following differences:

We would therefore recommend converting your legacy Tags field to the newer Tags field, please get in touch with us for advice on how to do this, or read our article:
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​Converting one set of fields to another

A nested list is useful when you want to navigate a visual hierarchy of information.

It operates fairly similarly to the tags field, it just presents differently in the filters pane. In most cases, we'd recommend using the Tags field.

A nested list is most useful in cases where you have users that really just want a clear hierarchy to click through, and find it more intuitive to use. In most cases though, we'd recommend a Tags field as it offers mostly the same functionality. You may want to experiment with each and find which one suits you.

Still not sure which field to use out of the above? Refer to the table below to help you decide:

💡 As you can see, there is some overlap as to the use cases between certain fields, so it's up to you to use your judgement as to which will be most appropriate, based on the specifics of your workflow.

Of course, if you just want us to tell you which is best for your specific situation, don't hesitate to reach out via the live chat on the bottom right of your Dash page, or email help@dash.app 😇. If you have a dedicated CSM, you can also email them directly.

These are a bit different, as you don't create custom values as with the fields above, you simply set a date next to the asset. Each has a slightly different functionality depending on what you need it for.

This is a typical date selection field, that lets you record a date against an asset.

The same as a date picker but with the option to add a time as well

This is a date picker field that has some special behaviours, namely the sending of emails to admins when the date is expired and the displaying of a warning message on the asset when the asset has expired.

Learn more about using expiry dates in this article.