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SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Date post: 09-Jul-2015
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SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices
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Page 1: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

SharePoint Folders vs. MetadataBest Practices

Page 2: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

What is Metadata?

Metadata is information that describes, classifies or identifies a piece of information. Metadata is typically described as a set of attributes that help to describe or classify an object.

Page 3: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

This is Metadata…

Page 4: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

This is Metadata…

Page 5: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

What is a Folder?

Container of files and other folders within a Document Library

A folder has a name and a URL location.

A folder is a familiar metaphor for most people –from the physical world (e.g. file folders, cupboards, buckets, etc.) and the digital world (file shares, email, etc.)

Page 6: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Folders vs. Metadata: FoldersImagine you have to categorize documents in three ways: Department, Year, and Publishing Status. This is what a traditional folder structure looks like to categorize across MULTIPLE metadata elements.

Finance

2011

Draft

Published

2012

Draft

Published

2013

Draft

Published

2014

Draft

Published

Information Technology

2011

Draft

Published

2012

Draft

Published

2013

Draft

Published

2014

Draft

Published

Why did I pick Department first?

Lots of repetition

No way to filter easilyMultiple clicks to find the right files

We have used this approach historically because we had no better alternative…and we migrated from a physical metaphor.

Page 7: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Folders vs. Metadata: Metadata Site Columns

In SharePoint, we can assign multiple metadata attributes using independent site columns.

My Document

Department

•Finance

•Information Technology

•Operations

Year

•2011

•2012

•2013

•2014

Status

•Draft

•Published

Each attribute acts as a “tag” or “property” of my document.

I can filter, sort and view based on any combination of attributes

I can pick multiple values to tag per attribute (e.g. my document could be BOTH finance and IT)

Page 8: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Moving from Folder to Site Column (e.g. Metadata Attribute in SharePoint)

Change Folder to a Site Column

Page 9: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Advantages of Site Column over a Folder

Site Column definitions are re-usable across document libraries where folder hierarchies have to be recreated each time.

Site Columns can be added to Content Types to define types of documents

Site Columns are can be used by search to filter search results

Metadata values can be validated (e.g. must be a date, a number, a user, etc.) where folders can be any text value as a label

Document can have multiple selected choices instead of a single folder (e.g. document can be tagged as both finance AND information technology)

Document can have multiple metadata attributes (instead of being locked into a single folder hierarchy)

Site Columns can have default values

Site Columns provide filtering and sorting including filtering by more than one column (e.g. show me only items that where department = finance and language = English)

Site Columns can be hidden or displayed in views (folders are always visible)

Moving a document means the URL changes – changing a metadata property value keeps the URL the same.

Deep folder structures mean long URLs

Page 10: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Some Reasons why Folders Can Still be Useful

Easier to create a folder than metadata structure and easier to adopt

Folders are security boundaries – can set permissions on folders

Easy containers to drop in large volumes of files

You can set default metadata values for each folder

SharePoint limits number of files in a view to 5,000 so folders can be helpful if you have large numbers of files

File names in SharePoint must be unique – folders can avoid name collision

Page 11: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Conclusion Plan out your taxonomy before organizing your documents – use re-usable site

columns to standardize how documents are classified, tagged or categorized across the organization.

Use Site Columns in SharePoint to store metadata instead of folders, in particular for categorizing, tagging, searching and filtering documents

Folders should be used only for specific reasons where they are still helpful containers

Configure your search to leverage the metadata you have invested in creating!

Page 12: SharePoint Folders vs. Metadata Best Practices

Thanks!Christopher Woodill

[email protected]

@microsofttrend

www.microsofttrends.com


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