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Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Folders and Metadata Rehashed

The other day I got done with a one on one session with a user starting a new Sharepoint site collection for their department.  After returning to my desk I tweeted “good one on one sessions over the past 2 days with a user involving the metadata practice instead of folders”
These are the responses I got in the matter of a few minutes:

Folders and Metadata

While a few weeks ago I was nearly pulling my hair out with this very topic with a different user, I knew I had an opportunity to point a new user down the right path.  The day started with an email I received:

“I need to create sub-folders in the document library, because I’ll be uploading sets of documents such as two different surveys, multiple responses to each survey.   Is the process to create sub-document folders as simple as hitting the “New” then “New Folder” buttons?”

To which I replied:

“Yes that will work, however folders can be a bit problematic down the line.   With several folders nested, you can run into the issue of hitting too many characters in a URL as well as problems displaying items within the folders.

An alternative is to create an additional column in the document library that serves as the folder, the best option being a choice column.  When a document is uploaded, it is tagged with a value from the choice column.  Then views can be created to group items on this particular column.

My general rule of thumb is to use folders only when strict item level security is warranted or if a document library is going to contain many thousands of files.

Either method will work, personally I lean towards the additional column.”

We then went back and forth about how to set this all up, creating the grouped views, and seeing it in action when he uploaded a few of his documents to the libraries we created.

A few keys to success of this case:

  1. New Sharepoint user starting a new Site Collection.
  2. Early involvement with the Sharepoint administrators (aka me).
  3. Easy to use and understand terminology.
  4. Clearly presented pros and cons of using folders.

With him being a novice to Sharepoint, I was able to really relay best practice decisions.  Other more experienced Sharepoint users aren’t as open to these ideas in the collections they have built up.  He appreciated and respected the guidelines I was offering. 

Not once did I mention the term metadata when referring to this column.  That probably would have derailed the train and lost my user.  Instead, I just stated this column will store information particular to the file being uploaded.  The reality is that this bit of information is acting in the same way a folder does, without the physical structure that he was used to.  He was a bit confused with this at first, but it became real clear, real fast when we uploaded 2 files with different metadata tags and they were grouped nicely.

In my initial response to his inquiry, I explained that yes, folders could be used, here is where folders shine, and here are their limitations.  He wasn’t doing restricted item security or was going to have a huge library, so he decided to take my recommendation.

The circumstances of this particular may or may not relate to some of your user base, the dialog is important.  Give the user the pros and cons along with your recommendation.  Hopefully they respect you enough that your recommendation is the best path to use. 

Guest Author: Eric Alexander
http://alexanderblog.info

 

Please Join the Discussion

6 Responses to “Folders and Metadata Rehashed”
  1. Robyn says:

    I had a similar session with a client last week via Webex. She’s also a SharePoint novice. I explained the advantages of columns and views, and she agreed somewhat but still wanted to use folders.

    As we spoke, I set up a couple of columns and views. When she saw the organization begin to take shape she said, “Oh, now I get it.” Nice moment.

  2. eric says:

    That’s another victory for metadata!

  3. Wanda says:

    My favorite illustration, that usually produces an “Ah Ha moment”, is to describe drilling through 4 levels of nested folders to find NOTHING ! Everyone understands that frustration. Then I show how the GroupBy will display a count of items in that group and then they get it.

  4. Jeff says:

    It makes sense, but what do you recommend if a department site has 20,000 documents related to application documentation for applications that a department supports. Wouldn’t that list of documents be too long?

  5. Richard says:

    Here at “GlobeBestridingMegacorp” (I’m not representing them officially here), we’ve learned the “never say metadata!” lesson, too. One too many groups of glazed eyed zombie users who return to their desks and immediately start creating folders, because it’s all they KNOW, I suppose…

    We HAVE had good luck using the term “tagging,” and explaining it using other public web sites with which users may be familiar – del.icio.us, for instance. Coaching users/groups to select the right “set of tags” is one of our first steps and we’re much more confident and savvy end users are a result. Helping them understand that even if they start with only a column or two of tags, they can always add more later if they choose to has gone a long way towards acceptance.

  6. eric says:

    @Jeff

    A couple things come to mind. One, never try to return all 20k documents, that would be asking for trouble.

    Two, create multiple views. The logical approach here is to have a view for each application, then use columns to refine the data more and group things accordingly.


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