# Template using UDT param: Can you access UDT tag metadata?

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/template-using-udt-param-can-you-access-udt-tag-metadata/10179>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [June 28, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/template-using-udt-param-can-you-access-udt-tag-metadata/10179 "2015-06-28T14:43:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nminchin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nminchin/32/6911_2.png) [@nminchin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nminchin)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/template-using-udt-param-can-you-access-udt-tag-metadata/10179/3 "2017-04-10T22:42:11Z")

</div>

Having more experience in using Ignition now, it’s worth noting that using UDT parameters within template symbols is **_not_** recommended. It’s much more efficient and scalable to bind the path to the UDT instance instead, and then concatenate the relative path to the tag onto that.

Using a UDT parameter has two major down sides:

- all tags within the UDT are subscribed to, meaning higher load and potentially slower client and server performance, especially if a number of the template instances are displayed on the page.
- it’s impossible to reuse the template symbol for another, similar UDT

---

_[View the full topic](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/template-using-udt-param-can-you-access-udt-tag-metadata/10179)._