When you have a team of people working on your collection, you want to make sure that their changes to your collection are consistent. One way to achieve this is to set up controlled vocabularies. In APS, controlled vocabulary means that a data field will only accept certain predefined entries. For example, when there are several pieces of art in your collection, that could be referred to as either a “drawing” or a “sketch”, you can establish one of them as the correct version by using controlled vocabularies. Should you later change your mind about the official version, you can apply and save changes to your controlled vocabulary at any time. “Wrong” entries will be highlighted the next time a document is opened. If many documents are affected by the change, you can use the powerful APS Job Engine to let APS automatically correct any documents that are showing the wrong entries.

The controlled vocabulary feature is also responsible for suggesting entries in data fields. If an editor selects a field with a controlled vocabulary, he or she will only see suggestions contained in that vocabulary.