> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.box.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Metadata cascade policies overview

export const Link = ({href, children, className, ...props}) => {
  const localizedHref = localizeLink(href);
  return <a href={localizedHref} className={className} {...props}>
      {children}
    </a>;
};

A metadata cascade policy describes how <Link href="/guides/metadata/instances">metadata
instances</Link> applied to a folder should be applied to any item
within that folder. For example, a user might assign the same `invoiceData`
metadata template to a project folder allowing it to automatically apply to all
the files and folders within that project folder.

Every policy specifies exactly one metadata template instance and one folder.

## Activation and permissions

To use metadata cascade policies, an enterprise admin needs to enable them for
the entire enterprise. In the **Admin Console**, select **Enterprise Settings**,
**Content & Sharing**, **Cascading Folder Level Metadata**. Click the **Edit
configuration** button and pick who can apply cascade policies to folders.

Any user with edit permissions on a folder and the ability to create cascade
policies can create metadata cascade policies for that given folder.

## Limitations

There is some delay from file upload to the metadata being applied. This very
much depends on the number of items in a folder. Metadata cascade operations
are performed asynchronously and there is currently no way to check when all
metadata has been cascaded to all files.