Start Using Content Types to Manage Documents in SharePoint Document Library

hello everyone so today's video we're going to talk about content types in SharePoint now SharePoint content type basically pulls together all the information about an item now that item could be different kind of files documents or you know an Excel workbook let's just say for example you have a document library and you have different kind of reports that you store in that document Library now each type of report might need a certain type of metadata which is not required by the other type of a document Now using content types you can basically manage different set of metadata for a certain type of documents or you can even create document templates for those certain type of documents in one document Library using content types you can basically manage uh you know the all the document libraries if they are using the same sort of metadata within your SharePoint online site let's have a look how to actually use content types and what are content types so before we start creating content types let's have a look what I'm actually talking about so I currently have this document Library within this document Library I have created two type of content types number one is basically employee contract and the other one is sales contract right now both of these documents they basically have different set of metadata required for for each of the document type that we are going to basically create right so for example if I go to new I can see that there is a sales contract an employee contract now the sales contract The Meta data which is required for sales contract is basically a salesperson client company and um PO number right the three columns are attached to the sales contract and for employee contract I have employee name and date signed right but both of these are basically within the same document Library now both of these documents they basically have different kind of templates as well so if I click on sales contract it basically opens up a sales contract document right which is a separate document to employee contract now this is our sales contract document where I have sales contract and the client name but obviously you can create your own template right let me open up employee contract as well so um before I do that let's just see what it actually does so I'm going to rename this um like just call this sales contract demo for example and this is saved and we are going to close this one right so it basically created this document um let me just refresh it so that the name basically updates it should automatically update the name but sometimes it just speaks slow okay so I've got sales contract demo and these are the three fields which are attached to this particular document um so if I click on any of these um on the right hand side I will only see that you know these three metadata columns are basically attached to this document type so if I go to the properties on the right hand side I can see that there is a name title sales person client company and PO number it doesn't ask me for employee name date signed right so this is this document but if I click on let's just say employee contract this time you will see that this employee contract is basically a different kind of a document template so you can actually create you know separate kind of document templates and attached to your document content types so this is a different template let me just rename this to um employee contract for example I just click on that and I'm just going to call this I think it's still loading so I just click on that again and yep so let's just call this employee contract employee contract demo right and then we basically just close this window and we have a new document created and let's just click on the properties now when I click on the properties you can see that this only requires name title employee name and date signed it doesn't ask me anything about client company pure number and sales person because this content type only requires these kind of metadata and it has a a separate document template attached to it as well right so this is one kind of scenario so you can create multiple kind of content types and attach you know different document templates to each content types and also attach different kind of metadata requirements and then you can manage all of your documents from the same document Library you can even create multiple views just for those content types and manage those documents from one document library right other scenario could be where you have multiple document libraries and in those document libraries you basically are using um a new document type which is by default right so by default whenever you create a new document it only requires a name and a title of the document but in your organization you might have a requirement that whenever someone uploads or create a document using that default document type you basically want them to enter some extra information which could be the status of that document or it could be some sort of approval date or date created right any any metadata using content types you can basically from one location add extra columns and wherever that particular document type is actually used you know in multiple document libraries it will basically update um you know all that additional information everywhere and in all the document libraries what I'm trying to say is you can basically standardize the creation of all of your documents or you know the other information within your lists using content types okay so we had a look at that and let's just see how to actually achieve this now so I have opened up a new site and I have a document library in that site now if I click on the new menu I can see that you know these are the different options available to me right now you know I can create a new word document Excel right all of these options now let's enable content Types on this document Library now to enable content types I'll have to click on the settings gear and then click on Library settings and then click on more Library settings and and from the library settings page we click on advanced settings and under advanced settings we have an option to allow management of content types currently this is set to no but we are going to say yes to this and we scroll down and click ok right once we do that two things happened right one is we did not have this option on our document Library settings page so now we have an option for Content types another thing which happened is if I go back to the document library and click refresh the new menu has changed so if I click on the new menu all of the options which I had earlier like to create Excel workbook and you know a PowerPoint they all have disappeared I had a Word document before but now it only says document because this document is basically a content type so when we enable the content types so I'm back to the library settings so when we enable the content type so this content type document is now visible on that new menu okay so on that new menu I can have document or link but you can always click on edit new menu and then you can select you know all of the other options which just got disappeared you can basically you know add all of these again and then you will be able to basically uh you know use all of these other documents as well within your new menu but if you are using content types and this is a document Library let's just say for reports then um I'll stick to the only the content types that we are actually creating so that your users does not use all of these other options for example a Word document right so I'm going to quickly hide this options and I'm going to only leave the document and maybe hide the folder as well okay I just click on Save okay so so far we have enabled a content type okay so let's just go back to our document Library settings and see what is this content type okay so if I click on that content type called document which basically is goes back to you know the content type list because this is a list content type because we added this to a document Library and it basically says the parent for this content type is this document right and these are the two columns that are there for this list content type which is sitting at your document Library level okay um and then it tells you you know these are the columns and the source of these columns is basically coming from the document which is the parent and then item which is again item level content type okay I know this might be a little bit confusing for you so just to give you an understanding so this is the by default content time let's create new content types and then you probably have a better understanding Okay so to create a new content type okay so we have this document library and let's just say we want to add a different kind of contracts to this document Library okay so I currently have two set of documents which is a employee contract which is a world document so this is the template for employee contracts and then I have a sales contract which is you know for sales contracts so if I open this they both have different wordings within it so you know this it says sales contract and if I close that one the other one basically says employee contract so you can create multiple document templates right which we are going to use in a minute okay so you have different contracts so I want to create two content types one for the sales contracts and other for the employee contracts and I want to attach different set of metadata columns for each kind of a document okay right now to add new content types which we call custom content types right we have to click on the settings gear and then click on site settings so we don't have site settings here let's just click on site contents and then from there we'll just go on settings and then site settings again so um then I'm going to click on the site settings and then under site settings there is basically a web designer Galleries and under that you can see site content types okay so I'm going to click on site content types and this will then give me you know a list of all the content types within this site right now these are the default content types so for example an item in a list is a separate content type and then document is a content type in itself right as I said content type is nothing but it has certain um you know um you can say metadata columns attached to it it has certain properties attached to it for example it might have a certain kind of a document template right so it's a set of things which can be utilized in your SharePoint side okay so we are going to create a document content type okay so let's just click on create content type and we want to name this sales contract Okay so sales contract you can add a description here I just say this is about this is about sales contracts right you can use existing categories or you can create a new category so category is just how you know these content types will be visible under this Gallery so I'm just going to call it my custom content types okay you can name it whatever you want um and then under parent content type because this is a document content type so the sales contract is a document right so I the this will basically fall under the document content types okay so that has a document properties if you are creating a list then you create a list content type right so we're going to select document content type and then the parent category is document content type and the content type is basically a document itself right so sales contract is a document okay once we've done that then I'm going to click on create okay so now it's going to create a content type for us right so all we did is basically created a shell content type okay now with this content type it basically added two columns a name column and a title column because this is a document content type so with document you have to have a name and title is optional now we are going to add some columns for this content type so this is the sales contract so whenever this document is uploaded or created we basically want our users to fill in some extra information for sales contracts so we can say um you know one of the column is who is the sales person um we can use existing categories or we can create new categories let's just say call my custom columns it doesn't matter what you use this is more of a 4A identification process right and that's a single line of text um default value is fine and we want this column to be mandatory um then you have this checkbox you know update sites and lists so this is used if you are already using this column as part of content types and if you are making any changes to this site column then it basically says you know update throughout the whole site and you know wherever it is being used okay so let's just keep it checked and then we click save so we have our you know sales person created and then we're going to add another column and let's just call it um client company right so you signed a sales contract with the client so client company again single line of text and this is a mandatory column and then you can create multiple Columns of course right so so far we have created two columns for this content type okay so this was about the columns now we also want our users fill out template never they select sales contract right now to attach a template you have to click on advanced settings and then we can say upload a new document template and then I click on upload and then I'm going to select the sales contract um that's the template that I basically created earlier and I click on open so we have attached our sales contract template permissions um I'm going to just say edit and then click on Save all right so our sales contract template is now ready okay before we start using it let's just create employee contract as well so I'm just going to go back to content type Gallery again and then going to click on create content type and this time I'm going to call this employee contract and um I'm going to use the existing category this time which is my custom content types and again this is a document so document content type and again it's a document and I click on create and I'm going to now create um different columns so I'll just say create new site column and then I'm going to call this column let's just say employee name okay I'm only going to create one column but you can create multiple columns based on your requirements and then again um I'm going to select my custom columns this time because this is about your existing employees so this could be a person column type and under more options we want this to be a mandatory column and then we click on Save okay so we have only added one column okay I can add more columns as well I can also reference The Columns which I created for sales contract so if I click on ADD site columns and say add from existing site columns right and then I can look for the category where it says my custom columns and I can see that you know there is a column called salesperson right so I can basically make use of that column as well which we created for our sales contract documents so that one column will be used in both of the content types right um the idea is basically whenever you have to make a change to that column so you just come and make a change from your content type gallery to that column and it just get basically pushed out to all the document libraries or content types which are using this sales person column okay we're not going to do that now so let's just close that one so we have created one column employee name um under employee contract okay our columns are now ready so let's just go back to the marketing site again and go to our document Library settings and see what actually happened there um I would say nothing happened because we only added this to um content types but those might appear under Library settings as well so I am now going to click on the documents again and then I'm going to click on um settings gear and Library settings and from library settings I'll click on more Library settings and then under document Library settings I am back to our content type section done so the two content types that we have added earlier we actually added at the site level now we have to add those content types into this document library to make use of them right so I'm going to click on ADD from existing content types so I am going to you can you know obviously select from this you can filter it by my custom content types category and then you can select employee contract and then click add okay and I'm going to say okay and when we go back to our document Library settings you will see that this employee contract is added and under your columns it has also added employee name and um just the employee name for employee contract yep and then it actually tells you which column is basically used in which content type okay so we don't have any columns for our sales content iPads yet because we haven't added our sales contract so let's just say we want to add our sales contract content type as well so I'm going to click on my custom type and then click add and then click ok so now we have three content types document employee contract and sales contract okay all of them are visible on the new button and the default content type is this so when I say default whenever someone clicks on the new button by default this will open okay we don't want this document content type here we only want two so I'm going to click on the document and then I'm going to remove it okay so that's that and then I'm going to click on delete this content type when you click delete this content type you are not actually deleting it from your top level um site right you're not deleting it from the main source because the main source is still this document you're only deleting this content type from your document Library so I'm going to click on delete this content type and click ok and on my document Library settings page I only have two content types visible and if I scroll down I can see that sales person is also added and that sales person is used only in sales contract and um the client company is also used in sales contract but the title for example is used in employee contract and sales contract because title is coming from a different content type which is a document content type and title and name are common in both of our content types okay any custom columns we created within our content types will be you know just assigned to those content types only unless we add them from existing site columns you know from one content type to other content type okay all right so we have added those now let's go back to our document library and see what actually happened so I'm going to click on documents and from documents um if I click on the new button right I can see that there is the employee contract and sales contract um before we do that I think we have still have to attach our document template to um our sales contract type so I'm just going to quickly click on sales contract or maybe from employee contract I think so let's just attach to employee contract and then click on the advanced settings and attach our document template okay so I'm going to click on upload new document template I'm going to choose the file and then it's employee contract and click open then click ok now we have attached you know different document templates to our different content types that I'm going to click on documents again and from documents now I'm going to click on the new button and click on employee contract right so when I click on employee contract it should open up that document template for employee contract and it should when we save this document be asking me to fill out the required columns for that particular document type right so this is the employee contract template which has opened you know you can modify this template and let's just call this employee contract so I'm just going to click on that so this is a document and I'm just going to call this employee contract demo for example and I'm going to um just simply close this document okay now you can see that it says you know there are some required metadata missing but within this view we don't have those columns added so what we need to do is basically add all of those columns which we had in our document Library so for example I'm going to click on added current View and I'm going to add um employee name sales person so let's just say um we had a client company we had employee name and we also had a salesperson and I'm going to also add a column called content type as well so that we can see what actually happened I'm just going to move it to the last one and I'm going to click ok now once I've done that all of these columns are now actually added into the view so I can see that you know employee contract demo and then there is an employee name and there is a client company and sales person which are from my sales contract right but for this employee contract demo document that we have added the only column which we need to add is basically employee name so if we select this document and click on the information button the only required column or or the columns are needed for this document should only be employee name and title and name so let me just scroll it down and I can see that you know it's the content type employee contract and then I have a name column title and the employee name column right salesperson or client company columns are not needed for this document template with employee contract okay so let's just add the name of the employee and this is saved and everything is fine right so we have added this now let's try to add sales contract document okay so I'm going to click on new and then sales contract now again sales contract is a different document template so it should basically just show us the sales contract document or the template that you have uploaded okay so that's a sales contract document um you know this document can be modified now I'm going to change the name of the document so I'm just going to name this to sales contract demo right so that's the document and once you're happy then you can click close And then we have our new document added right like just refresh it so that it has the new name updated now when we add this sales contract demo you might see that now it actually requires information on these two columns because these are two mandatory columns for this sales contract right so if I select this document and then click on the information button which basically shows the properties of this document I should not be saying the employee name at all right so if I scroll down I can see that you know there is a sales person a client company but there is no employee name okay so um let's enter the name of the salesperson let's just say it's John G and the client company is um oops I just cancel that and the client company is let's just say x y z okay um so we have added these two details and you know the document properties have been updated now this is just one view you know all documents view which you gives you all the um columns within this document library for all content types but you can definitely create um you know separate views so for example you can create a new view just for your employee contracts so let's just say if you want to do that employee contracts and that's a list view we click on Create and then you can only select you know whatever um columns that you need for this template or whatever columns are attached to this content type right so let's just say say edit current View and then we only going to select um you know the columns for this particular content type which is employee contracts so we don't want salesperson we don't want client company we know that content type is this but let's just leave it as it is and under filters then what we can say is um let's just filter it by the content type and we can say the content type is equals to then we put the name of the content type itself right so content type is equals to employee contract and then we can click ok similarly we can create another view for our sales contracts then that will only give us the sales contracts and all the attached columns to that document template right um so doing that you can actually create multiple content types and you can create or attach set different kind of document types to your content types and attach different kind of required columns for Content types right so I have this one document library and then within this document Library I have different content types and each content type has different fields or metadata or columns attached to it which may be mandatory column or non-mandatory column you know that way you can actually differentiate them and it's only not just this document library right you might have another document Library where employee contracts are managed or stored right um or you can actually create one specific templates for all of your contracts and then you can actually enable or add those contract content types into your different document libraries where you actually use or store contracts you know doing um or using content types you can easily manage your documents um and and you can basically manage the uh you know addition or modification of your Columns of your content types from one central location okay let me show you how let me quickly do that so let's just go back to um site contents and we are going to create a new document library right I'm going to fast forward uh this whole thing so that um you know we don't just sit around and watch the creation of the document libraries so I'm going to create a new document Library let's just call this contracts and I'm going to click on Create and then I'm going to go to the library settings and basically um add you know a content type to this document Library so I'm going to click on site settings and then Library settings and then more Library settings and um advanced settings and then I'm going to click on the allow management of content types I'm going to scroll down and click ok and from the content types I'm just going to add existing site content types I'm going to show I'm I'm trying to show this demo just to showcase the management of content types and the columns from one central place so I've got this employee contract I click on ADD and click ok so we have added employee contract into another document library right now let's just say we have um we have a requirement and we want to capture more information on employee contracts so what we might need to do is to basically then you know um for example we want to add some extra column so apart from employee name we also want to capture the start date of the employee right that's just one example so this is um this this is just my new library which I created I just tried to modify the all documents view to have this column visible okay now this content type employee content type is basically used in multiple document libraries okay and you have a requirement to add an additional column to this content type right [Music] um and Rock rather than going into each document Library what you can actually do is you can basically um add that column to the content type itself okay so let's just say um I go back to my content type let's just say library settings more Library settings and then I'm going to go into my um employee contracts and then from employee contracts I'm going to go into employee contracts again which is the parent right so that's the parent where we have these columns added now I'm going to add a new site column to this employee contract content type so I'm going to click on ADD from new site column and then I'm going to call this employee start date right and that's it date and time column and um once you're happy with all all the changes and then I'm going to click ok so this is now going to add a column to my employee contract content type which it has added and of course this is not a required column this is an optional column okay so let's go back to our documents for example right um so let's go back to our documents document Library where we have added content now this is the employee contract demo so if I click on that document before I do that let's just refresh it um now if I select this document and click on the information pane all right so this is employee contract and I'm just going to select it and then click on the information button and under that I should now see a new column um that we've just added so once it's loaded um so let me scroll down so once I scroll down to this um you know I see employee start date now this is um so it's actually added to um you know the documents document Library so what is going to happen is whenever we add any new columns or make modifications to the content type root right then it basically updates all that information to all of the sites or any content types which are actually using that content type so this is just um our employee um the documents document library and we can see that the column is now attached here and the same would be for our marketing contracts so if I were to basically create a new employee contract into the new document library that I have created this column would be there as well right so from one place you basically added a site column to um your you know multiple sources so this is the new document um you know which is in our um new document library that we have created so if I close this one um and that's the document and if I click on the information button I should see the employee start date column within the properties of this document as well um so if I scroll down yep I can see that there is an employee start date right so um I hope you enjoyed the video um so this is how you can actually use content types and manage your documents lists and libraries and basically standardize the creation of your documents um if you have any comments please feel free to put your feedback in the comments below um don't forget to hit like And subscribe to my channel and I hope to see you next time thanks for watching

Channel: TechByTosh

Views: 5,645

Keywords: teams, learn o365, office 365, microsoft 365, techbytosh, toshit bhardwaj, tutorial, learn sharepoint, sharepoint online, tips and tricks, document templates, content types, how to use content types in sharepoint, site columns in sharepoint, document libraries in sharepoint, document content types, content type in sharepoint online, sharepoint content types explained, add content type to sharepoint list, sharepoint content type gallery, sharepoint document library, sharepoint

Id: iLZGNlits2Y

Length: 43min 57sec (2637 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 26 2023