SharePoint Saturday - What is Metadata and how to use it

good day there and welcome to the first edition of SharePoint Saturday my name is Daniel Anderson and this is a new edition of uh the newsletter where every single Saturday I will be inside your inbox delivering you one little snippet of learning all around SharePoint and and SharePoint only now today we're going to be tackling the concept of metadata what it is how to create it how to use it and what the impact and the benefits are of metadata and in particular on our document libraries so that is the focus of the first episode um now there's always been a debate and conversation about should we use folders or should we use metadata I'm not going to enter into that debate I'm just going to show you uh the power of metadata specifically on document librar so let's just dive in and get stuck into it we can see that I'm in a SharePoint team site here and I'm in the policies or a policies library that I have created this is the end result okay so we can see that we've got um a library with no folders we've got the name of the file we've got a department column we've got a policy type we've got a review date a document owner and then we've got the version number on the right hand side now if we look up Wikipedia about the um the term metadata and what it is metadata really is information about data that isn't specifically related to the content of that data so for example this uh policy here is we've got 1 2 three four custom pieces of metadata that tell a little bit more information about this particular file we've got what department it lives in we've got the type of policy and we've also got the review date and also the owner of that document so this metadata forms um more information and tells people a little bit more information about this particular file all right so where that can be used um across SharePoint are things like search and the highlighted content web part filters and Views that we'll get into in other positions as well so how do we go about creating this metadata so I'm going to uh pop into a brand new SharePoint site here now the first thing we're going to do is we're going to create a new document Library so I'm going to go to the new button and document library now we'll see here that we've got a new experience here that's just rolling out at the time of this recording where we're provided with a couple of out of the-box templates that Microsoft provide we've got media library invoices and learning now if I click on invoices for example you can see that I get a preview of what the invoices library is going to look like after I've uh provisioned it from this template now this metad dat here you can see that it comes with payment status amount vendor all of that sort of stuff and that is what we call metadata so if we had a use case for an invoices library then we could use this template I'm not going to use that template though I'm going to start from scratch so I'm going to create a blank library and I'm going to call this policies I'm going to show it in the site navigation and we're just going to create it now when you create a new SharePoint document Library it comes with a a default or a um a set of metadata that is there out of the box now we've got name we've got modified we've got Modified by and if I click on ADD column and I go show or hide columns you can see that we've got more metadata that is just there out of the box right so created by and created are two other columns or bits of metadata that come when you create a document library now what if we want to create our custom columns that we saw before the custom metadata of Department policy type review date and document owner well there's a couple of different ways that we can do it we can hit the add column and we can choose create a column and we can choose a column from the list or the data type from this list here now this just puts this and it Associates that column with this particular list we're going to create what we call a site column though and this means that it creates a a column or a piece of metadata that we can reuse across different libraries or different lists in this particular site called SharePoint Saturday now to do that what we do is we click in the the Cog in the top right hand corner we go to uh we go to site information and then what we want to do is we want to go to view all site settings now under the web designer galleries heading here you can see that we've got site columns and we've got site content types so I'm going to select site columns and we're going to create a site column for department so I'm going to click the create button and let's call this um Koso Department all right and we'll give that the column name now a good idea here also is to create the column with no spaces in it first and then we'll go back and we will um rame the title of this column shortly okay so we're going to choose the choice column and we're just going to pop in a few different options here down under here okay so we've got HR it finance and legal now I'm going to create a new group for this all right so we're going to and I I'll show you where that uh appears in a minute so we're going to create a new group I'm just going to put underscore Koso as the new group and we'll go uh site columns so Koso site columns and we'll leave everything as is we'll leave it as a drop down menu if you wanted multiple select then you could have checkboxes and you could select multiple um values in that column so I don't want to have a default value so I'm just going to blank that out and I'll click okay all right so that's now creating what we call a site column now you can see that this is where that uh those columns our custom columns reside all right in this group that we just called contoso site columns now if I go back now to the policies Library okay I want to add that column that I've just created to this Library so Cog settings menu I'm going to go to library settings I'm going to go to more Library settings again and here is where we've got our columns now you can see here that we've got our standard and our default um metadata here created modified title description created by Modified by and also checked out too what I want to do though is I want to add from an existing site column cuz we've just created our site column now I can say let's have a look at this custom group that I've just created and there's my Koso Department I'm going to add that I am going to add it to the default view and I'll click okay now once I've clicked okay that's now been added to the library now we can see here that we've got our column here but I don't want this I don't want it joined together I want to have a space so what I want to do is I want to go to column settings and I'm going to go to edit and then I'm going to go and put a space in there now because we got a choice column we can actually do a little bit of color coding here so I want everything that's been tagged with HR to be red it green Finance purple and legal blue and I'm going to hit save all right so now we're good to go right so we've got a we've got a column called Koso department and we can go about and then create our other site columns add them to the library and then you would have something like this as an end result so here been done before I've got Department I've got policy top I've got review date and I've got document owner now how do we use this metadata what is the besto well what what can we do all right so the first thing that this metadata allows us to do is create and we're going to go through how we create different views based on this metadata so let's say that we want to create a view just for HR policies in our case so I am going to click the the little arrow next to the department title and I'm going to filter by and I'm going to say just show me everything that's been tagged with the HR department so now in the top right hand corner here where it says all documents this is where our views live we click all documents and we go save you as and I want to say human uh resource say policies so now I want to make it public and I'll hit save so now what we've just done is created a specific view called Human Resources policies we've got all documents which is everything but then we've also got um Human Resources policies and you can see there we've got only the ones that have been tagged or uh marked as HR policies all right so a really nice way to filter and slice and dice all of your uh documents in that library with a particular tag now the good thing here is that each view that we create has its own unique URL as well so what I can do at the top here is I can copy this URL now let's say we want to create kind of like a dashboard or a oneclick uh option for people when they come to our site and we just want them to we want to present them with a button that says just show me the HR policies so what we can do here is use that URL I'm going to pop this page into edit mode I'm going to use our quick links here and I'm going to edit this quick link and I'm going to now change where this link goes so I'm going to choose from a link I'm going to paste that link in the one that I just copied to that view that I just had I'm going to paste it in there and I am going to say all human resources policies and we'll give that a that that title we'll change the icon here and let's just go for uh a document icon and we'll go this one here all right we'll select that and we are now good to go I'm just going to delete this one one I created earlier and I'll republish all right so now we've got a button here when I click this button I'm taken directly to that view that I just created based on our department of HR all right so that's one advantage and one use case for using our views and using metadata and combined can create a a great user experience another one here that I've I've pre-created is grouped by department so here we can see that this view has been um grouped by the department column all right so all HR we've got it I can expand and collapse each of these I can then drill into and click the title and can see here that I've got a filter that's been applied where it's just the legal policies I can clear this filter and I'm taken back to that particular view now what about outside of this site how do we surface and use that column that we've created as a site column outside of this particular site so because we created this as a site column the department column the policy type and the review date these have all been created as site columns what we can do is we need to convert these site columns into what we call Managed properties now manage properties then allow us to use that property in a search or what we're going to see in a second in the highlighted content web part so to do that we need to map what we call uh our site column into a Manage Property so in the SharePoint admin Center we have um under more features we have this search center okay where we can manage the search schema now the search schema here what Microsoft provide us is a bunch of blank um properties that we can use and we can map other crawled what I called crawled property so that site column that we created created becomes what's called a crawled property and then we map that crawled property to what we call a managed property okay so we can see that I and the properties that we're going to use here in particular is called a refinable string so I'm going to just find this refinable string and we have a lot of these we've got refinable dates and things like that so we can see here that we've got a refinable string 0 0 and the mapped craw property is policy type so if I go back to this site here I've got this this column that's called policy type so what I've done is I've mapped that property to that Manage Property called refinable string 0 and we're inserting and bringing that in in there because this refinable string we can see that it is queriable it is retrievable it is refinable and it is sortable all right there are the things that we can do with this Pro with this refinable string now so how can we use that so I'm going to jump on to this communication site let's say it's your internet site I'm going to hit the edit button and I'm going to pop the highlighted content web part on the page all right so I'm just going to scroll down here it can be anywhere right so I'm just going to hit the plus and I'm going to choose highlighted content now what the highlighted content web part allows us to do is show content based on specific criteria so you can see we've got a filter option now the source is going to be all Sites so I'm going to choose all sites because the documents or the policies in this case are stored on this collaboration in the cloud site all right so I'm going to get all Sites it's going to be documents but down here under the filter I can choose Manage Property all right so that Manage Property that I want want to use is actually this refinable string 00 0 and then I can uh show any document with a specific value that has been tagged with policy type so I'm going to say refinable string 00 0 and we'll say if refinable string 0 0 equals let's say external all right so we'll go um external what that's going to do is that is going to show three documents here that has been tagged with the policy type of external we can give this external policies a title we republish and now all of a sudden I'm pulling in those ex those policies from this site called collaboration in the cloud that has been and let's just move change to all documents you can see that I've got one I've got two and I've got three documents here that have been tagged with external all right so let's just do this one more time and I'm going to pop on the same page we've got our external policies but here I'm going to put another highlighted content web part on the page I'm going to edit the properties same settings I'm going to go all sites and then I'm in the filter I'm going to go Manage Property I'll paste in our manage property remembering it's the refinable string and we've mapped our policy type site column or crawled property to our refinable string and I'm going to say equals um and I think we had what did we have we've got company all right so let's go equals company and then what we'll see is we've got 1 2 3 four documents here and if I jump back into the library we've got 1 2 3 4 documents that have been tagged with company back to The Landing we'll republish and now we've got two instances of the highter content web part that are pulling out and displaying uh the content based on that particular property all right I'm going to leave it there that's the first edition of SharePoint Saturday bit of a crash course in man in uh in metadata and in manag properties uh so I hope that brings you some value today so as I said SharePoint Saturday every single Saturday delivered directly into your inbox a little tip uh on how to use SharePoint in uh a way that's going to to be more productive for you and to give you value and your SharePoint and the users that interact with your SharePoint sites value as well so I hope that uh hope that brings you some value today um thanks for subscribing thanks for signing up to SharePoint Saturday uh if you do have other people please do share um the um the link to the subscription page and get them on involved as well so I'll see you in the next Edition

Channel: Daniel Anderson

Views: 8,961

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Id: CaU65VB_YTA

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 25 2023