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Thursday, November 20, 2008

SharePoint Libraries, Folders and Content Types, Oh My!

Bob Mixon: Mixon ConsultingWritten by Microsoft MVP Bob Mixon
Mixon Consulting
MasteringSharePoint.com
Recent Articles

A note from Mark Miller, Founder and Editor of EndUserSharePoint.com

Recently, the topic of folders vs libraries started to show up on Stump the Panel and in my email inbox. I started to sketch out an article, but about five minutes into it, I said “What the hell are you doing? This is what Bob is GREAT at.”

Ten minutes later, he agreed to write a response and this is what you see here. Thanks, Bob, not only for saving me a couple hours, but for doing it much better than I would have. — Mark

Overview: Libraries, Folders and Content Types

There have been many heated conversations about when to use Document Libraries, Folders within Document Libraries and Content Types. If you monitor any of the SharePoint forums or blogs, it’s quite easy to see there is a lot of passion around the topic.

And rightly so, file shares and folders have served us well for many, many years. Is there a better way to manage documents is SharePoint then to use Folders; is there a better mouse trap?

So let’s answer the better mouse trap question right away, and then I will elaborate.

IMHO, there are viable scenarios where the use of folders and even complex item-level security may make sense. However, the manner and reasons why we used them in the past, with regards to file shares, has changed. If your only argument is, “this is how we always organized our information in the past and it worked”, then I would invite you to (at least) consider a new approach.

What are Your Goals?

The first question I would have to ask you is; what are your goals? If your goals are to simply replace the file share and forgo all other value-add proposition, why would you do that? That just seems like busy work and you may be better off leaving the files where they currently reside.

However, if your goal is to provide a solution that will:

  • Reduce document duplication,
  • Reduce the question “where do I manage this content”,
  • Reduce the security administration burden from IT and push ownership back out to the business, and
  • Promote content discovery and findability.

Then folders just don’t work! Sure, they may work for the contributor; the single individual or small group who knows exactly where that document is. But what about sharing information with others in the organization, is that a goal of your Document Management System (DMS)?

You’ve got to ask yourself the question; how much time has been spent traversing through endless folder structures on the file share looking for a file you need right now? Or more common; not bothered to look for a needed file because the location wasn’t clearly known? How will this differ when you move those documents to SharePoint? This “old-school” approach doesn’t need to be used anymore.

I’ve got one more thing to say about folders; who is going to make the decision about structure? Are you going to leave that to each department, LOB or business user? Who is going to make the decision about where and how those business documents are stored? If you leave that entirely up to the business user, there won’t be any consistency at all. Autonomy is a great thing; except when we are trying to promote consistency, accuracy, trustability and sustainability.

I recommend clustering your information based on these factors; consistency, accuracy, trustability and sustainability. If your goals include these, then break this out and cluster the information under a unique name and governance plan; for example separate your Business Operations sites/documents from your Collaborative Wild, Wild, West sites/documents. Don’t mix them…

Sure but that’s why we have Search!

Glad you brought that topic up! I hope your expectation doesn’t include some magical search engine to provide highly-relevant results based on entirely unstructured data? More on this topic in a moment…

Sites, Site Structures, Content Types and Metadata to the Rescue

So then, how do we accomplish all of this? One approach I commonly use in my designs is Sites and Site Structures as the primary point to cluster information of a similar type. You no longer have to think of a Site as a big, bloated resource consuming monster; Sites can be thought of as nothing more than a content container with a user interface. From a structural perspective, you can look at Sites as simply being another level in your folder hierarchy. However, you get the benefit of a much more elaborate user interface; such as breadcrumbs and the ability to abstract the details away from the user.

Another advantage of using a Site as a container to cluster content includes less need for IT to centrally manage security; the responsibility for managing all content within that cluster using the same security model is much greater.

Point being, you constantly have to weigh-in all sides of the equation; which can be many. During the implementation process, many forget about how governance will factor in and even more seem to forget about the content consumer.

Additional Information:

Clustering Information of Similar Type

As noted above, the first level of clustering of content can be done at the Site Collection and Site level. Once you have successfully accomplished that level, you can then consider the next; which is most often at the Document Library level. Document Libraries can be configured to manage one or more types of content.

This level of clustering is accomplished using Content Types. For example, it is much easier for an individual to navigate to a Document Library and understand its purpose when it is named “HR Policy Documents” and only allows documents of type Corporate Policy to be managed; this type of structure and naming conventions truly lend itself to reducing the question “where do I manage this content”.

Item-Level Security

Item-level security is a luxury that we have for those circumstances where we absolutely need to use it. And plenty of those complex scenarios exist; but its overkill for general day-to-day document management needs and the general business user will have problems with it.

I have personally been involved in many file share audits and every single one of them exposed significant security holes. Use the same approach in SharePoint and you will have the same results. If your goal is to promote trustworthy content then this general use of item-level security has to be changed. The fact is most IT departments would like to offload the content security burden and push it further out to the owners themselves. Don’t push item-level security on them, the general population doesn’t understand security as it is; so keep it simple!

Search

I have talked and written about search more times than I can remember. The bottom line, there isn’t a magic-search-bullet available yet. Actually there are incredible full-text search engines available but most organizations don’t want to shell out more budget; especially after they just purchased SharePoint infrastructure and licenses.

The best approach you can use is to categorize your content using Content Types and surface instance specific information with metadata. You can dramatically improve search relevancy with a little architecture work. Go a bit further by understanding the information in your organization and the people who use it and you can deliver something great! Add 3rd party wildcard and faceted filtering abilities and you have something amazing!

Additional Information: Findability: Tools and Technology Alone is not the Answer

Download a PDF version of this article.

Bob Mixon, Microsoft MVP
Mixon Consulting
MasteringSharePoint.com

 

Please Join the Discussion

27 Responses to “SharePoint Libraries, Folders and Content Types, Oh My!”
  1. Christophe says:

    My number one concern with metadata and content types is archiving. All this information is disconnected from the file itself as soon as you leave the SharePoint environment. Same issue btw for versioning.
    Folders are more basic, but the architecture can easierly be transferred to other supports like a file share or a DVD.

    Christophe

  2. Nancy says:

    This post is fantastic. Says so many things well that I still struggle trying to put into a coherent statement to glassy-eyed business owners. Thank you!!

  3. Nancy – Yes, I agree that this is a very powerful post. Bob could actually break it down into sections and do an article on each section. Lots and lots to think about… 5 stars.

    Mark

  4. Nancy says:

    I for one hope he does! And it could be a book that I would buy!

  5. Bob Mixon says:

    Hi Christophe,

    I do understand the thought about documents and loosing metadata when they are copied to a DVD or file share.

    However, one of the many goals of a Document Management System is to move files off the file share. In addition, there is no other way to produce relevant search results from unstructured data. It sounds like you are thinking about just the file and not how that file can add value to the organization (consumers).

  6. Christophe says:

    Hi Bob,

    Thanks for your reply.

    I’d say that I am talking about the document lifecycle, not just the immediate use. So yes, I am talking about the value for the organization (in his case the value of achiving).
    I had documents with metadata in SharePoint 2003, how do I deal with this 5 years later when SharePoint 2003 is not around anymore…

    Christophe

  7. Bob Mixon says:

    Hi Christophe,

    Regardless of the document management system you use, this will be something to consider; so its not specific to SharePoint.

    Quite often a document archive will be another SharePoint repository; this way it can still be searched. Another option is to maintain the metadata in SharePoint and point to the file in archive.

    I still don’t quite understand your comment about the file share and DVD; are these your archive media? If that is the case, then you will loose the metadata anyway. Only when the data is stored in a medium that it can be searched by a centralized DMS would it add value.

    The metadata adds the greatest value during day-to-day business operations, not when it is archived.

  8. Christophe says:

    Hi Bob,

    You’re correct about file share and DVDs, and from my experience these two are very common archive media, even though they are far from perfect as you point out.
    My point is that the folder name is a kind of metadata – primitive, but compatible with most storage tools (and even my computer). When moving the content to other media, you lose the metadata but not the folder name.

    The comments section is becoming too narrow, so I’ll try to write down my thoughts on my blog…
    Bob, I really appreciate that you share your knowledge and take the time to answer questions. The part about item-level security did it for me…

    Thanks!

    Christophe

  9. Bob Mixon says:

    Hi Christophe,

    One last thing to remember. Enterprise-class search engines, such as Microsoft Enterprise Search, actually index the internal text of a document. The Title metadata and table of contents will provide better findability than a folder name.

    I also appreciate your comments here; it has been wonderful. If you have any further questions or would like for me to see your blog posts, please let me know where it is!

    Take care…

  10. Kip Iles says:

    My God! Do you folks ever sleep?

    One issue i run into all the time with document search is the fact that the document properties common for all Office documents seem to be ignored. I understand that content types and forced checkin/checkout can help to capture relevant metadata back in the database but ignoring this simple feature can really reak havoc on the search engine, especially when some bogus title is part of the Office template and no one bothers to change it.

    I have some 100,000 documents still living in Sharepoint 2003 and in most cases, these properties have been ignored making it extremely difficult to determine how to move these to Sharepoint 2007 (except for the document library name and/or folder name – both of which is pretty much useless is a search scenario).

    When discussing folders you also need to stay aware of the limitations of interfacing with Office 2003/2007. There are character limits and extremely long nested folder hierarchies can result in those documents failing to launch correctly in their native Office applications.

    Many kudos to Bob and his team for providing the most relevant and easily understood information on these subjects. This is always my 1st stop.

  11. Bob Mixon says:

    Hi Kip,

    With regards to relevancy ranking and search in MOSS, the document file name is ranked higher than the document title metadata. The document title metadata comes second.

    What many don’t realize is the other ranking that occurs. By default, text with H1 formatting has the same ranking as the document title metadata. A document table of contents also plays a part in the ranking process; TOC at the top has higher relevancy then later in the document.

    If there is additional information anyone would like on how the ranking engine works, I would be happy to share!

    http://www.BobMixon.com
    Microsoft SharePoint (MOSS) MVP

  12. Skillmaster says:

    Well done Bob excellent article

    there is no clear winner with folders vs libraries

    we were going around in circles trying to work this out we ended up with a mixture of both. with libraries having the adv of using security and views that might not be appropriate elsewhere

    this sums it up

    The best approach you can use is to categorize your content using Content Types and surface instance specific information with metadata

    nice post!

  13. Martin says:

    Hi Bob, nice debate.

    I’m a self taught newbie to SharePoint and have been through a steep learning curve over the last month or so. My site is robust and permissions tightly controlled.

    I hope that my users won’t struggle too much with the migration from our old system to SharePoint.

    However one thing I’m struggling with is how to allow users to see how many files are inside a SharePoint folder (within a library) before they open it. We have the funuctionality on our old web based system and I can’t seem to enable it on SharePoint 2007. We felt it was important to replicate a folder structure from our old system onto SharePoint to give users a familiar environment….(I know, you’re going to say Big Mistake)

    I found this blog entry by that doesn’t really help me.
    http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=120

    Any suggestions?

  14. Bob Mixon says:

    Hi Martin,

    You’re right… big mistake simply copying the folder structure from a file share. I think you will eventually find there isn’t much value in doing so. Your users will have to engage in item level security, there won’t be any level of relevant search results, people will be confused as to where to store information and no findability. Other than that, SharePoint will be a great solution for you.

    Now on to your other question; the number of items in a list, library is only available in the “View All Content” view. Its not available in a Web Part view. However, this would not be difficult to write; which I believe is your only option… Write a custom Web Part!

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