Data that describes Data

Sharepoint makes it possible to build a site that all of your users can manage and customize for almost any purpose. Not only does Sharepoint make it possible, it also makes it extremely easy for users to create, change, and share documents.  How you choose to organize the structure for each given site depends on many different factors, such as the size of the site, the amount of users it will have, and what the needs are for the people who use it.  Basically, you can customize it to fit whatever business needs you may have.  Sounds great right?  It is great, but at the same time, the fact that different people from different departments at different stages of the documents lifecycle can access documents, opens the door for human error. 

HR department employees think differently than I.T. employees, I.T. employees think differently then accounting dept. employees, and the examples go on & on.  An auditor may associate a document with who worked on it last, but a sales rep will likely associate the same document with the customer information it contains.  Subsequently, they interact with the documents according to these associations.  They may end up changing important information, saving it under a different name, or even deleting the document before it has completed its lifecycle through the other departments. 

This article explores the concept of metadata: the data that describes your data.  Being that this is essentially the lifeblood of any successful business, we will also provide some guidance on how to organize your metadata so that it works seamlessly through the various departments that deal with it.  

In this article:

• What is metadata?
• Organizing and controlling metadata.
• Plan and create Content Types
• Plan and create workflows
• Search for documents using Columns & Content Types

Metadata = Columns

So what is metadata?  Well, believe it or not, when it comes to designing sites in Sharepoint, it’s probably your best friend.  It has been said that metadata can be best understood as "data about data".  An easier way to think about metadata is to think of metadata as the attributes of an object.  Let’s take a music CD as an example.  Attributes of the CD could include the title, artist, release date, genre, and barcode number.  All of these attributes would be the “metadata” of the CD.

In SharePoint, metadata can be described as the data about the documents, or any properties that describe the attributes of the document.  In such a case, you will actually see the metadata in a SharePoint document library.  SharePoint actually captures certain pre-determined metadata by default, such as document title, document type, last modified date etc.  .  These are displayed in SharePoint as columns.  Therefore, metadata is also equivalent to and may often be referred to as columns in the Sharepoint environment.  If there is metadata that you wish to search by that is not included in the default, you also have the option to make customized columns. 

So what makes metadata so important?   Well, the simple answer is this:  if we did not have metadata, we would have no way to describe, search for, or differentiate any of our sharepoint documents.  Obviously, we can’t find it if we can’t describe it, right?  Lets say we want to access a document called “legal contracts”.  You search under the word “legal” because you know that the metadata associated with this document will bring it up under that search.  We can even take it a step further, and discover that the metadata associated with this document also blocks you from opening the document due to the sensitive legal information that it contains.  This way, since you cant access the document, you won’t see the sensitive legal information, your boss won’t be upset with you for accessing top secret company data, you get to keep your job, and the document remains safe untouched.   When metadata is managed correctly, everybody wins.  Without control and organization of metadata, it is likely that things will not work out so well for those same users. The control and organization of metadata will rely heavily on workflows, which we do not cover in this article. For more on workflows, check out this article:  “Workflows that Actually Work.”

Controlling and organizing Metadata

Metadata provides keywords that describe the content of a document, whether it’s for tagging blog posts, photos, or folders.  This allows for ease and efficiency of search.  This way, when a user goes to search for a report called: employee discount under the keyword employee, everything tagged with that data will show up in the search, including employee forms, employee policies, and who to contact in regard to employees.  *It should be noted that, without proper Governance of your site, your metadata will not be utilized properly. For more information on Governance, read the article that precedes this one: “Govern your Governance.”

By managing metadata (or columns), an organization can make it easier for its members to find the content they are looking for when they need it.  The fact that it does so easily, and without overburdening them during the creation process is one of the key factors that make Sharepoint work seamlessly between separate departments that use the same documents.  The management of your data will also include the mastering of content types, but they will not be discussed in this article.  To hear more about Content Types, read the follow up article “Make your life Easier with Content Types.”

Here are some useful tips for managing your metadata in Sharepoint:

#1 - Be Descriptive.  Every time you create a new column, fill in the Description field describing the information you're asking for as definitively as possible. The more contexts you give your users for the metadata, the more likely it is they will enter information correctly.   In other words, when you are at the creation level, make sure metadata provides an alternative description for your data.  For example, when uploading a document, you should use descriptions such as Author, Date, Topic, Department, and Expiration Date.  All of these descriptions of your metadata will make it easier to group for viewing, or to find in searches.

#2 - Always spell check your metadata. I know that this sounds fairly obvious, but users are great at creating data with typos.  When this happens in Document Information Panels, (or really anywhere else for that matter) it usually leads to DISATER.  The biggest and most prevalent issue is that when metadata is misspelled & then applied to documents, those documents are in effect "hidden" from search engines. That definitely spells trouble, pun intended. 

#3 - Keep lists short. When referring to lists, we are talking about the choices that are made available to users as a Menu, Drop-Down, Checkboxes, or Radio Buttons. For the sake of your users, keep this list to a 4-6, and if necessary use 8-10 maximum.

#4 - Differentiate Columns with similar attributes: Define Columns that contain overlapping attributes decisively.  Columns that have the similar defining attributes can cause confusion for your users. For example, what's the difference between Author, Contributor, Publisher and Source? Depending on the company, they might mean similar or completely different things. Decide what describes your metadata the most conclusively, and then refer to #1.

#5 - Create Subsets: If necessary, create a subset of a Column that extends the main set above. For example, Category, Keywords and Subject may contain more descriptive metadata than the main set, but they are harder to define. Often times, these types of Columns overlap in many ways. Choose one (e.g. Category) and use that for more descriptive metadata.  *Remember to keep the subset lists as short as possible.

#6 - Build Views.  Metadata can be used to build views that are specific to designated teams or departments.  If you do not choose the default (View: All Documents), you can customize views by associating them with columns that you have already created.  If a user only views documents that deal with accounting, then why burden them with documents from sales, HR, IT, legal, and inventory?  With their own specified View, they can deal with the documents that they need to deal with without the clutter of irrelevant data constantly popping up.   

Creating a Lookup List & a Custom Column

Often times, you will want columns that you create to represent metadata that is uniquely meaningful to your organization.  When this is the case, you will do well to record this information as the documents are created.  Creating Custom Columns can capture this unique Metadata, and organize it in a way that benefits users tremendously when it comes to searching for specific documents.  A good example of this is when a user wants to know what employee last opened a document, and what department it is associated with. 

In the example below, we will create a lookup list, and a custom column.

Create a Lookup List

1.  Select “Lists” from the side menu

2.  Click “create” in the top menu bar

3.  Filter by: Lists

Now you see the default choices for the different types of lists that Sharepoint provides.

4.  Choose “Custom List”

5.  Click More options

• Name: Lookup_MonthsOfYear

• Description: Months of the Year

• Display on Quick Launch?: No

6.  Click Create Button

7.  Use the Datasheet view to enter the names of the week in the title column

Use the lookup column you just created in a library

1. Open up an existing library, or create one if necessary (make sure it is one that needs days of the week as a column)

2. From the Library Menu, choose “create Column”

Column Configuration screen settings:

• Column name:  Month of Year
• The type of information in this column is: Lookup (information already on this site)
• Descripiton:  Choose a Month of the Year
• Require that this column contains information: Yes
• Get information from: Lookup_MonthOfYear
• In this Column:  Title

• Click OK button

Now, when you create a new item in the library, you will have a dropdown list available to you that contains the months of the year. This is great when you know you will have to use the same lookup list in multiple places on your site. Create it once and you can re-use to it on a per need basis from then on. 

* If you have a list that is longer than three items and has the potential for reuse, a good rule of thumb would be to always create a lookup list. Inevitably this will end up saving you time, and it will help to prevent errors in the future. 

Conclusion

Earlier we said that when it comes to Sharepoint, metadata is your best friend.  It is also your users your best friend.  As you can tell, metadata does a lot of essential things to help the Sharepoint world go around.  The most obvious benefit that you get is the added context that you can give your users when they are interacting with your site.  It also drastically increases the likeliness of your content being found easily and efficiently.  

Search is accentuated by Metadata, because tagged content gives the search engine even more context around your content so that t can more accurately display it when it is relevant to a user's request.  This makes it easier for users to effectively find your documents, which (at least to me) is a pretty big deal.  Sharepoint rules, but it would not be able to rule with such a steady hand without Metadata.

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Want to learn more about SharePoint? Don't miss the next article in this series: Part 3: Content Types can Make your Life Easier