Metadata lets you keep details that don't have a field of their own in Stora — a unit lock code, a reference number from your old system, an accountant's ledger code, the local authority a site sits in.

Each entry is a key and a value. The key names the detail (lock_code), the value is the detail itself (4821). You choose both, and you can use different keys on different records.

Once a detail is stored as metadata you can show it in your Contacts table, search on it, include it in a CSV export, and drop it into emails to your customers.

Metadata can be added to four things, each of which has a Metadata panel on its detail page:

To remove an entry, select the bin icon beside it and save.

Keys are strict because they are used as column headings, in exports, and in email merge tags. Values are free text.

Keep your keys consistent. Stora does not enforce a set of keys, so lock_code on one unit and lockcode on another are two different things. They will appear as two separate columns, and an email merge tag written for one will not find the other. Agree the spelling with your team before you start.

Metadata keys you have used on contacts are available as columns on the Contacts page.

Your choice is remembered in the browser you are using. It will not follow you to another computer or another browser, and clearing your cookies resets it.

The search box on the Contacts page also looks at metadata values. Searching 4821 will find the contact whose lock_code is 4821.

Search matches values only, not key names — searching lock_code will not return every contact that has one.

Metadata columns are unticked by default, so an export you have always run keeps the same columns until you add them yourself.

Anything you have stored can be dropped into an email, so each customer gets their own detail without you typing it.

In the email editor, select the merge tag icon in the toolbar. Your metadata keys appear in the list alongside the standard fields, grouped as Customer Metadata and Site Metadata. Choose the key you want and Stora inserts the tag for you.

If a contact does not have that key the tag prints nothing, and the rest of the email still sends.

The move-in day email can list every unit on the booking with your metadata against each one. This is the one to reach for with gate PINs and lock codes.

In the move-in day template, select Insert unit list. Stora adds a block that repeats for every unit on the booking, showing the unit name, type and size, along with your metadata. The keys available to you are listed just above that button, so you can see what your units actually hold.

A customer renting three units gets all three, each with its own code, in one email.

The same information is available through the Stora API, so a developer can read and write it automatically — pushing reference numbers in from another system, or pulling lock codes into your own tooling. See the metadata guide in the API documentation.

The API also supports metadata on bookings, deals, notes and webhook endpoints, which do not yet have a Metadata panel in Stora.

Your integrations may be writing to it. Metadata was built so integrations could store their own references, so some values on a record may have been set automatically rather than typed by your team. Stora does not record which is which. Changing or deleting a value an integration relies on can break it — if you do not recognise a key, check before you change it.

There is no history. Metadata has no version history, no undo, and no record of who changed what. A value you overwrite is gone.

Values are text. Even a value that looks like a number is stored as text, so you cannot sort by it or filter on "greater than".

Columns, search and export are Contacts only. Units, sites and tasks can hold metadata and use it in emails, but their tables do not offer metadata columns yet.