Guest Author: Charlie Puffer
Titus Labs

The SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata feature has been my favourite topic since coming back from the SharePoint conference.  I get excited about this kind of thing because metadata is a big part of all of the software we build. But some people are probably saying "Why should we get so excited about new metadata features in SharePoint?  The new UI and improved capacity are really the neat things about SharePoint 2010."

Well, I guess it all depends on your point of view. The way I see it SharePoint is all about collaboration and document / records management.  The more easily you can work within SharePoint and the more easily you can find stuff, the more productive a user can be.  So that’s why I thought I would cover off the new Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters in SharePoint 2010 today. Once you have your metadata into SharePoint you can start taking advantage of it, and navigation hierarchies and key filters are two great examples of how you can leverage metadata in SharePoint.

Navigation Hierarchies

Navigation Hierarchies appear in the left hand pane of the new user interface and allow users to navigate metadata taxonomy in order to filter the view of lists / document libraries etc. For example, I’ve setup a document library that contains documents with different security classifications.  To do this I’ve added a column called Classification that has possible values of PUBLIC, CONFIDENTIAL and INTERNAL. Here is the document library:

I can turn on the navigation hierarchy for this library by going into the Document Library settings, selecting Metadata Navigation Settings, and then adding the Classification column to the list of Selected Hierarchy Fields.

Once this Setting is in place we can go back to our document library and we will see Classification as an available field in the Hierarchy:

By clicking on the CONFIDENTIAL value in the hierarchy, I will see only the CONFIDENTIAL documents in my library.

Maybe not that impressive in a document library that only has 15 documents, but in a library that may contain a few hundred documents this would really help users filter down to specific documents they want to find and work with.

Key Filters

Key Filters also appear in the left hand pane of the user interface just below the navigation hierarchy. Key Filters operate in a similar fashion to the navigation hierarchy.  They are also used to filter a list or document library.  The difference is that the user does not have to navigate a hierarchy, they can simply type in the value they wish to filter on, or in some cases select the value from a drop down list.  When the user clicks Apply, their list or library will be filtered based on the value. 

In order to configure the Key Filters option, the administrator goes into the Document Settings, Metadata Navigation Settings, and then adds the Classification column to the Selected Key Filters Fields.

These features should make it super easy to find relevant information in SharePoint. Have fun!

Guest Author: Charlie Puffer
Titus Labs

Charlie is a co-founder of Titus Labs and has been at Titus Labs since its inception in 2003. He was the driving force behind the early development of the Titus Labs desktop classification products for Microsoft Office. Most recently he acted as the product management lead for the development of the Titus Labs SharePoint products. In this role Charlie has developed in-depth knowledge of SharePoint document management as well as its metadata capabilities.