By: Rahul Mehta | Comments | Related: > SharePoint Document Management
Problem
Enterprise level systems consist of huge amounts of data which is likely interrelated. All data stored in SharePoint has a specific metadata. Until SharePoint 2007, there was no way of storing the metadata in an organized and hierarchical format.
In addition to this, it wasn't even possible to store metadata centrally which could be reused by multiple applications. One of the most common problems for the client was redundant metadata used in different web application or sites. And using such metadata wasn't even indexed and so was not of much help when searching.
Editor's Note: If you haven't already seen it review Part 1 of this article.
Solution
In previous article, we showed how to create a 'Group', 'Term Set' and 'Terms' in a Taxonomy Store. Now it is time to use it in an effective manner within a site.
In this article, we will be using the defined term store data in a list and will map it with a managed metadata column.
We will first create a custom list. Go to Site -> Site Settings -> More Options -> Create -> Custom List. We have named it "TaxonomyTestList".
Now we will create a custom column. Go to the ribbon bar and click on the List tab. After that, click on 'Create Column'.
Here we name it 'AsiaMediaInformation'. Next we create a column of Managed Metadata to map to the term store data, so select the Managed Metadata column type.
On the next page, we select what to display from the term store. In our case, "Display term label in the field".
Next, in the Term Set Settings, select the managed metadata service and browse to the defined "Asia" Term Store. Be careful to select the exact term store only. Leave the rest of settings as it and click on "Create".
Now try and add a new item in the list. As soon as you try to fill in the data in the "AsiaMediaInformation" field, you will get the values drop down.
Suppose this type of metadata has been added at couple of different sites and now you want to add an extra value to the Asia Zone. All you need to do is to go to the Asia zone term set and add a new value (like "NewTest" and Save).
Come back to the list and create a new item and now you can find that a new value has been added to metadata column.
One can use this approach to provide granularity to the metadata structure of a web application or site. Here we have shown how the metadata structure can be managed centrally and in a hierarchical format.
Next Steps
- Use it with different types of lists which shares the same kind of metadata.
- Use it with search to enhance search results.
- Check out these other tips:
About the author
Rahul Mehta is a Project Architect/Lead working at Tata Consultancy Services focusing on ECM.This author pledges the content of this article is based on professional experience and not AI generated.
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