How To Create Content Types In SharePoint Online

are you trying to set up content types for the first time this video is for you in my last video I talked about what content types are how they're best used and what the ultimate goal is if you haven't seen that catch up by clicking the link right there in this video we're going to go through the process and create some content types apply them to a library so we can see everything in action so what I've got here is just a sample site it's a communication site um doesn't really matter that much what template it is but we're going to go through the process what you need to do first and you might already be familiar with this you might not but go up to the gear icon and you're going to go to site contents there's a couple of other ways to get to it but this will work fine click on site settings up on the top right corner in the web designer galleries you're going to see the site columns and the site content types you can add the site columns by themselves first then add them to a content type what I prefer to do is just go straight in the content types so in the content type Gallery as you saw in the previous video there's all the content types that are already in the system in this case it was when the site was created it's just all the built-in content types so to create a new one we're going to click on create content type uh we'll call this one presentation so we're going to be building a document library that contains presentations manuals maybe just you know anything else that we could think of but we want to you know break out those particular content types to keep them you know better organized so we're going to call this presentation It'll ask you for the for the category where does this need to get filed it'll default to custom content types and that'll be fine for our purpose the next thing is what is the parent content type so we're going to be basing this off of an existing content type whether that's something like item for list items or document or particular type of document maybe you're going to create a different type of page so you have different types of SharePoint pages so we're gonna be basing this one off of a document content type because I would imagine this would be like a PowerPoint presentation so for the content we're going to base this off of documents so we're going to click on create here and so here's our bear content type it gives us one option title already there so what we need to do is we're going to add an additional column uh notice here it'll let you create a brand new site column or pick an existing one if you've already created those in the site columns section of site setting so I'd like to create them all here so I'm going to create a new site column we'll call this one topic so the topic of the presentation just so maybe users can find or or organize their presentations by topic again uh category we're going to be just sticking with the default custom columns how to kind of keep everything you know a little more separated from the uh the core and the system type uh categories for the field type if you look you've got the same types of fields uh that you would creating columns in the list and Library so this one I will leave is a single line of text we could look at more options maybe I want this to be required that there is some sort of a topic yeah if you're giving a presentation there's probably going to be a topic so we're going to have that required and I think that'll be all we need we're going to click on Save and there is our new topic site column for our custom content type so you can continue adding more Fields but what I'm going to do is go back to the content type gallery and create my next content type this one I'll just call manual uh maybe we're storing product manuals in this uh in this document Library I I've kind of envisioned it's you know some sort of a departmental document Library so this will kind of identify all the different manuals that we have so we can quickly find those if we need to again put this in the custom content types category again we're going to base this off of document types and document so we'll click create and we're going to add a column for uh let's call it product because the manual is going to be based on some sort of a product so make this one required as well and all of that looks good we'll click save and there we have it we've got our two custom content types created ready to apply to a library if you're getting value from this video please do me a favor and click that like button so let's go next to site contents and let's create a new library to house these so we're Insight content now we're going to create a new document Library um we'll call this team files now we'll call this department files and what I want to do I don't like spaces in the URL so we're going to create this without the space and then we're going to go into Library settings because we have to go to library settings anyway to add the content types we'll go in here and we'll add the space back that way the URL stays clean and we have a nice looking title once we're here the next step we have to go is to go into advanced settings we need to turn on the ability to add content types if you notice all we can do here is really just add columns there's no option to do anything with content types until we enable that feature so for that we're going to go into advanced settings and the very first option is what we're looking for allow management of content types now this is going to let us add and remove content types to our library all we need to do right now is just click yes on this and then just hit OK and now we've got a new section for Content types and it's already got the default one in there for just the generic document this will be kind of our catch-on so I think we'll leave document in here and we'll just add our two new ones so if you're adding something that's not a presentation and it's not a manual then it would just default to document to add new content types what we're going to do is click on the add from existing content types button we'll go to custom content types and we see our two new types right here so we'll just click on each one of them and add them and click OK when we're done and there we are we have three content types now you notice it'll it'll let you pick which should be visible on the new button so when someone clicks on new which ones should be allowed to show up so you may want to hide some and then the default content type by default if you just drag and drop a document on onto the library what is that content type going to be and we'll see that in action because we're going to drag a document on here and see what happens and go through the process of of switching that so we've got our content types added as I mentioned in my last video if you scroll down you will see that our new fields that were on the content types have been added we have product here and it shows that it's used in the manual content type we've got topic let's use on presentation so if we go back up to Department files we are ready to start trying out these features if you look on the new button we see our content types now the one of the issues is presentations are going to be PowerPoint files that's you know kind of what I've already envisioned for this so we don't need a word icon up there we really need a PowerPoint icon so how do we get this well what we need to do is we need to go back to Library settings for presentations we can click on this and this will take us to the instance of the content type that's been applied to the library again think of a hierarchy with how these are being applied but if we change it at this level it'll apply it just to our document library and I think that for this demonstration I think that's what we want to do we're just going to update this library for that we're going to go to advanced settings and we're going to pick the PowerPoint template just a normal PowerPoint file and then we're going to click ok so now our presentation content type has a default template let's see how that looks we're going to go back to Department files and we're going to check the new button now that looks better so now that we're here let's go through the process of creating a new presentation so we're going to click on the link into takes us into the PowerPoint so we'll type in a little bit of text this is a test of content types and then don't forget to give it a good name and that'll be good so with that we go back to SharePoint it's still showing the default name so I'll just give it a refresh and there's a new file now if you notice it's saying that there's a problem where we're missing required information and we know we've got a custom field on there so if we click on this and go to the info panel and we'll see our topic there's our custom field so for the topic of this I'll put in SharePoint all right now that that's done the other thing I wanted to demonstrate is uploading a file let's say we've got that manual somewhere and we're going to upload a manual so I've got a test file that we'll use as our manual I'm uploading it and here's our new file over in the info panel you will see that it defaulted to that document content type and this is going to be a manual so we're going to change this and you'll see our other content types here we'll change it to manual and you'll see our new product field here so here's where we can start really utilizing those custom fields for our custom content types and for this is a manual for product X so for the product I'll just put in product X so we've got our two files here we need to kind of see those custom fields in my opinion so let's edit the view and let's add in product and topic so you see we could have both fields on here even though they're only applying to one particular content type and you see that they only put in the information needed for that content type so you have two content types sitting side by side on here and everything's working fine taking this one step further what we really want to do is have new views created so that people can go just see the manuals just see the presentations so let's create some new views so we've got our manuals let's go edit this and add a filter for the filter we're just going to specify the content type and then just set it equal to manual all right that's done let's make a copy of this call this presentations and let's update the filter we'll set that equal to presentation so we've got views set up to show our new custom content types users can click between them and find what they need to find they can still go back to alt documents and they can see everything and that's all there is to it I hope this has been useful and that you've learned something let me know your thoughts down in the comments below check the videos above for more content and don't forget to like this video And subscribe to the channel 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Channel: Steve Corey - MVP

Views: 10,595

Keywords: sharepoint content types best practices, sharepoint content types, sharepoint content types explained, sharepoint content type, sharepoint content type heirarchy, content type in sharepoint online, sharepoint content types examples, overview of content type in sharepoint online, Sharepoint content types list, sharepoint content type not updating, sharepoint content types vs metadata, sharepoint content type gallery, sharepoint content type hub

Id: tntCCbBdAHQ

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2022