SharePoint Metadata

Many companies adopting SharePoint for the purpose of document management make the mistake of simply importing their shared files into the portal without considering SharePoint metadata or any of the other tools that make SharePoint so valuable.

Businesses with document storage requirements complex enough to justify SharePoint, should also use metadata to make that information easier to find and manage.

What is SharePoint metadata

Metadata is information about a document or item. In the example of a sales agreement, the metadata may be the date the document was produced, who produced it, the customer name, sales rep name, or even if the document has been invoiced. All of this data describes the document, but isn’t necessarily contained in the document.

All Microsoft Documents have metadata. To review metadata in Microsoft Word 2010, for example, click on the file tab, then select Info on the left. The metadata is listed as properties on the right hand side of the screen, including author, date created, number of words, and optionally title, tags, and comments.

In SharePoint, Metadata is visible as the column headings in the spreadsheet view of a document library. By default, new libraries have at least Type, Name, and Modified SharePoint metadata headings.

Metadata is customizable to the properties that are most appropriate for your organization or application. A sales document for a sales department may use very different metadata than that of a human resources document.

How does SharePoint use Metadata?

Because SharePoint uses metadata for searching and views, nested folders are no longer necessary for document storage. This makes the SharePoint best practice of never burying content more than 3 clicks away from the home page realistic for even very large sites.

Metadata allows SharePoint to create custom views that include only the documents or items that are most relevant to the page and the user. For example, if all sales documents are kept in the same document library, but each document has a client name attached as metadata, then SharePoint can generate a custom view that only shows the documents for a specific client. This view can be saved and added to that client’s customer service page.

The problem with nested folders

Nested folders are much more limited. For instance, if an HR department uses nested folders to store employee files, and organizes those folders in 3 levels of department, group, and employee, then searches for every employee in a department will require clicking through each group. SharePoint can do this work nearly instantaneously with metadata.

Going overboard

Most SharePoint implementations will use a combination of metadata and folders to organize their documents. This organizational system is called document taxonomy.

Good taxonomies include everything that is crucial and nothing that isn’t. Filing documents should be easy and obvious. Complex SharePoint metadata can get in the way.

Overbearing taxonomies won’t be adopted. If the user has to stop working to think about the client’s eye color, the taxonomy will soon be abandoned.

Uses for SharePoint Metadata

For SharePoint, metadata is the advantage over nested folders and other document management systems. Tactful use of this tool will make documents more findable, file-able, and discoverable.

See similar posts on our main Training Blog and at our Legal Document Management sites.