If you prefer starting with the DAMS MODS GUI form, Benn Chang  developed an approach to creating a custom template for turning tabular metadata to MODS XML. The attached presentation contains an updated guide on how to use conditional statements in the DAMS GUI form to create a custom XML template.

Steps for creating a template

1. In the DAMS Test instance (https://dams-t01-rh7.lib.utexas.edu), manually create a new template asset with the same Content Model as the assets you are going to batch ingest.
   1. Go to a DAMS (sub-)collection for which you have Collection supervisor/owner/contributor permissions.
   2. Click on the "Manage" tab.
   3. Click on the link labeled "Add an object to this Collection".
   4. Select the same Content Model that you will use for the batch ingest set.
2. Input conditional statements from the attached spreadsheet (DAMS MODS Conditional Statements.xlsx) into all input form fields for which you have metadata.
   • Metadata values that are common for all assets in the planned batch ingest set can be entered accurately at this point already.
   • Pay attention to repeated form fields, e.g. when an asset has multiple authors or other contributors. Your tabular metadata must have multiple columns with contributor names in this case, and you must add as many conditional statements as placeholders in the DAMS metadata form. Adapt the additional conditional statements so that they reference all column names in your metadata spreadsheet.
3. Save the metadata by finishing the manual ingest process. You do not need to upload a file object for the template asset.
4. Download the template asset's MODS XML datastream from the "Datastreams" page on the "Manage" Tab of your template asset and save it to your computer.
5. Open the MODS XML file in your preferred text editor. Example screenshot.

6. If the file's first line reads <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>, remove this line.

7. Remove the following auto-generated identifiers:

   <identifier type="utldamsURI">dams-p01-rh7.lib.utexas.edu/islandora/object/utlgs:cdf95dff-07dd-4def-b59e-bd8c61b02d32</identifier>
   <identifier type="utldamsPID">utlgs:cdf95dff-07dd-4def-b59e-bd8c61b02d32</identifier>
   <identifier type="fileName">txu-oclc-984148143.tif</identifier>

   Delete only identifier elements with the type attributes shown here!

8. Remove the following auto-generated relatedItem information:

   <relatedItem displayLabel="UTLDAMS Digital collection" type="host">
   	<identifier type="utldamsPID">utlgs:69a6ea93-b709-4734-bb0f-b72029248288</identifier>
   	<identifier type="utldamsURI">dams-p01-rh7.lib.utexas.edu/islandora/object/utlgs:69a6ea93-b709-4734-bb0f-b72029248288</identifier>
   	<titleInfo displayLabel="UTLDAMS Digital collection name">
   		<title>Sample Collection</title>
   	</titleInfo>
   </relatedItem>

   Delete only the relatedItem element block with the displayLabel attribute "UTLDAMS Digital collection"!

9. Remove the following auto-generated element data and record creation date information:

   <dateCreated keyDate="yes" encoding="w3cdtf" point="start">2001-01-01</dateCreated>
   
   <recordCreationDate encoding="w3cdtf">2019-06-26</recordCreationDate>

10. Check how the sample metadata entered into the form translated into values and attributes in the MODS XML file.

11. Check that your MODS template file contains either common (fixed) values or jsonize placeholders for all required/mandatory MODS elements.
12. Check to make sure your asset metadata will be suitable for publishing. For instance, make sure that exactly one of the elements of metadata which can be marked as "primary" in the DAMS GUI, will have a usage="primary" attribute in the XML document (e.g. name and titleInfo).
13. Save your MODS XML template to your computer.

After you successfully created a template XML document, you can use the following step-by-step instructions to convert your tabular metadata to XML files: Convert tabular metadata to XML.

Template files

Sample files