All good stuff though.

Rick

Sarah (an expert) evaluates the requirement for content types and then implements them where appropriate. The information asset is now appropriately managed, and time is not wasted attempting to train a user on something they will only rarely use and don’t have time to fully understand.

Not only that, but Sarah can show hard-dollar ROI for all of her work.

Ruven
P.S. If you want to see her speak about this, she’ll be at the Best Practices conference in La Jolla (San Diego) this spring.

Users need to create a “simple” list form for their customers and then want additional “for office use only” fields to display once a new item is submitted. Rather than setting this up via a custom form in SharePoint Designer, I use content types and a SharePoint Designer workflow to convert the content type value once a new item is created. The user ends up with 2 content types they can manage via the SharePoint web interface–one content type named “new item” and a second content type named “existing item.” Users get the concept of the content type as a template and find it easy to manage the fields they want to display on the new vs. existing items.

I agree with you though, it’s something that would need to be implemented at a site administrator / developer level to be truly effective.

As an aside, it is hard for my users to learn how to add fields to a list, or to create views to a list unless they do it often enough, let alone trying to teach CT’s. Still, I think it’s worth trying to impliment – but the bulk of the effort will be on the site admin or a few power users to champion.

Thank goodness I’m not trying to create a contract authoring system, as it sounds like you did. It sounds like your experience confirmed that one doesn’t “own” knowledge of how to use Content Types until one has actually used them, and banged one’s head against the wall enough times in the process.

But having solved my problem, I’m now curious as to why you would suggest a base Contract CT and a Contract-Admin CT. If my base CT only has the fields the users are to see, how do I fire my workflows on the admin columns? I need the admin columns to manage the workflow looping required to give reminder notices to users at various intervals.

If I just add BOTH the base CT and the admin CT to the same custom list, what have I gained over including both in a single CT?

An interesting problem. The question I would ask is: What is the benefit of using a content type in a certain situation? Can that benefit be cost-justified? What if you could save two days of the administrator’s time for training, plus the cost of the training room, trainer and travel? Could you avoid teaching a topic that is rarely used and apply that money to a better use?

What if, when a site gets provisioned, a person who DOES understand content types and their use in the organization, sits down (maybe virtually) for half an hour with the site owner/admin and gets an understanding for what the site is going to be used for and what content will be stored there. In many cases the decision may be: “This is simple, go ahead” (i.e. no content types required). Alternately, the decision may be: “This library is going to hold corporate assets (info) that needs to be managed properly, made easily findable, filterable, etc, and REQUIRES properly thought-out metadata/content types. In that case a (relatively small) investment will be made to get this done quickly (avoiding a bunch of ‘futzing around’ by someone who’s time is better spent elsewhere).

I am assuming that I’ll hear some people say: We have 10,000 sites! Do you know how much that would cost?!? My answer is: Don’t do it if you can’t see a (hopefully measurable) benefit. Do it only if it provides value.

Has anyone tried this approach?

Good thread!

Ruven