This document is a 36 slide PowerPoint presentation by Metataxis on metadata management in SharePoint 2013. It provides an overview of key concepts like columns, content types, term sets, and the managed metadata service. It also discusses best practices for information architecture, governance, and ongoing management of metadata in SharePoint. The presentation aims to be interactive and cover both technical and practical information management topics at a level that is not purely technical.

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Metataxis
Metadata Management
in SharePoint 2013
Marc Stephenson
June 2014

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• Information architecture/management consultancy
• Not SharePoint specific – not Microsoft partners
• 12 years old
• Worked on 40+ SharePoint projects
• Consult and implement
• Private, public and third sector
• SMEs (100 staff) to large organisations (100,000 staff)
• Projects from 2 days to 2 years
• We like and use SharePoint…2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016…
About Metataxis

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• PowerPoint presentation
• As interactive as possible – all questions are good
• Live demonstrations using SharePoint 2013
• Technical in parts but IM not IT based
• Offline questions if needed
• You will stump me!
Tutorial Style

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Briefly each:
• Your name?
• Your organisation?
• Your role?
• Why are you attending the training?
• Any specific things you want to understand?
• Your SharePoint experience?
About you

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Agenda
• The “Big Picture”
• SharePoint Overview
• Columns (Metadata)
• Content Types
• Term Sets (Taxonomies)
• Management
• Wrap-up

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“The Big Picture”

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The Ideal “Big Picture”

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• Sometimes called an “information audit”
• May overlap with a “system audit” – but not the same
• Aim is how to get “a handle" on your information
• Or discover the “information landscape”
• The picture now, distinct from what it might be
• Aims to find (mostly) metadata of the current information:
• What information exists, what it is about
• What kind of information it is
• Who owns it
• Where it is
• How much there is
• How it is used
• How it relates to other information
• What are its characteristics – size, date, format etc.
Information Inventory

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• Built on an information inventory
• States why information is important
• Describes your approach to managing information
• Refers to policies and procedures (but does not include them)
• Sets out the roadmap for development of collections and systems
• Shouldn’t contain high level statements about technology
• Should include high level statements about engaging with users
• Should include roles and responsibilities for information management
• Helps with:
• Reducing costs – fewer systems, less hardware
• Roadmap for where you want to go – systems, content, culture, business
• Along with the inventory – frames the information architecture
Information Strategy

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A way of organising and describing your information to most benefit
• Includes at least metadata and taxonomies, and optionally other artefacts
• Benefits are:
• Efficiency
• Getting information to support business processes as easily as possible
• Avoiding multiple rekeying or copying of data: information is held once
• Effectiveness
• Avoiding “reinventing the wheel” through access to what's been done before
• Ensuring information retrieved is complete, connected, accurate, and up to date
• Compliance: Freedom of Information, DPA, retention and disposal schedules
• Creativity
• Analysis and synthesis of new information – leveraging your information
• Knowledge sharing, collaboration
• Establishing the “Learning Organization”
Information Architecture

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• New systems need to be populated
• That’s why you create them in the first place
• Your information is valuable
• Real information in new systems helps users
• And system creators (testing, training)
• Full migration allows decommissioning of old system/s
• Saves money (hardware, licences)
• Saves effort (maintenance)
• Reduces risk (support elapsed, cleaner information)
• Simplifies your “information estate” and “IT estate”
• Strategy on semantic (what), technical (how), planning (when)
• Migration needs an inventory and IA
Migration Strategy

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Governance myth: the system will govern itself once deployed
You will need to define:
• Policies
• Procedures
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• And don’t forget…
• …ways to police them
• …and resource it
• … governance of the system and the IA
The Governance Strategy

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SharePoint
Overview

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SP2013 Overview

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• Document management
• Records management
• Collaboration
• Web content management
• Social Media
• Business intelligence
• Enterprise search
• Workflow
• Provide mobile and offline access
• Be configured easily – especially metadata and taxonomy
• Be customised easily
• Be integrated easily
What can SharePoint do?

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• Web applications
• Site collections
• Sites, sub-sites
• Libraries
• Web pages, web parts
• Folders, sub-folders
• Files
• List
• Content types
Some SharePoint Concepts
• Document sets
• Views
• Columns (aka metadata, properties, fields)
• Managed metadata
• Term sets (aka taxonomies, vocabularies)
• Workflow
• Templates
• Policies
Most of these are impacted or defined by metadata in some form

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Concepts Hierarchy
Folder
Policy
Web Part
Web Page
View
Document
Document Set
Content Type
Document
Column
Workflow
Workflow
Workflow
Policy
Policy Site
Site Collection
Site
Library
Column
Column List
Content Type
ColumnPolicy Content TypeWorkflow

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Columns
(Metadata)

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• “Columns” is the term mostly used for metadata
• “Properties” also used
• Metadata can be defined for any list
• Metadata can be defined for any content type (more later)
• Defined columns are easily re-used
• Metadata drives views
• Easy to define and use
• Makes SharePoint a powerful and flexible system
• Defined columns have a number of scopes
• Site collection
• Site
• Library
Metadata Overview

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• Metadata values can be assigned to any item of a list:
• Documents
• Web pages (documents)
• Folders – with some limitations
• Document Sets
• Other list items – calendar items, survey items etc.
• Metadata values (folksonomy tags) can be assigned to other structures:
• Social media
• Sites
• Web pages
• Metadata is used for search:
• Automatically
• Via specific configuration – very extensive
• Metadata has more relevance weight over content terms
• Can define “entity extractors”
Metadata Assignment

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• System (automatic)
• Configured (user defined)
• Automatic defaults – via instantiation or location
• Mandatory/optional/hidden
• Many data types
• Short/long text
• Numeric – various kinds
• Look-up (refers to another list)
• Choice (enumerated list)
• People/Group (Active Directory)
• Date/time
• Calculation
• Managed metadata (term sets)
• Keyword (tags)
• External (from an integrated system)
Types of Metadata

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Content
Types

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• Used by the system itself, but also extensively customisable
• Always used poorly, if at all
• A content type defines and encapsulates:
• Set of columns
• Office template (optional) and icon
• Workflow (optional)
• Information Management Policy (optional)
• Document Information Panel (optional) – advanced metadata capture/validation
• Defined in site collections, or sites
• Deployed and used in libraries
• Use inheritance
• Content types can inherit from other content types
• Many built in content types
Content Type are key structures

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• Content types management can be centralised
• Hub and spoke model where a “master site (collection)” is nominated
• Content types deployed in libraries
• Automatic synchronizing of changes
• Some changes are easy, some are difficult (many ramifications)
• Makes SharePoint an easier system to manage
• Makes SharePoint an easier system to be consistent (user-friendly)
• But, content types are conceptually tricky to define
• Content types can also be used for records management…
• … can cause many complications
Content Type Hubs

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Term Sets
(Taxonomies)

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• SharePoint “Classification” includes:
• Fileplans
• Business classification schemes
• Navigation hierarchies
• All defined via creating containers and links
• SharePoint Thesaurus:
• A set of separate (csv) files stored on the server
• Used for search synonyms – especially acronyms
• Sharepoint term store for tagging:
• Controlled (taxonomy, “Managed Terms” in SP)
• Uncontrolled (folksonomy, “Managed Keywords” in SP)
• Can also use the terms to drive some navigation (new in SP2013)
All these are independent of each other!
SharePoint “Classification”

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• Terms:
• Basic construct - a word or phrase that can be associated with content
• A term can become a managed term or a managed keyword
• Managed Terms:
• A controlled term can only be created with appropriate permissions
• Term sets are collections of related terms hierarchically structured
• Can be open or closed to users
• Managed Keywords:
• User-generated keywords (aka tags) in a non-hierarchical list
• Called the keyword set
• Terms can move from being managed keywords to managed terms
• All made available through the Term Store Management Tool
Term Store

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• Improved over SP2010
• Cross site collection term access
• Link different site collections to see others terms
• Pinning terms
• Read only reuse of the term in alternative locations in the hierarchy
• Custom properties for term sets and terms
• Local term properties
• Not for pinned terms
• Additional Multilingual support
• Automated translation support
• Various implementation limits (more later)
Term Store Manager

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Management

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• Create a .csv file with columns Key, Synonym and Language
• Key = term (single or multiple words) that you want to trigger a synonym for when
the term occurs in a query
• Synonym = synonym (single or multiple words) that you want to add to the query if
the term specified in the Key column occurs in a query
• Language (optional) = abbreviation for the language for which the synonym should
apply
• Commonly used to expand acronyms
• Use to automatically include variations of a search term into the query
• For example, for specific terminology used in your organization
Thesaurus
Key, Synonym, Language
IE, Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer, IE
UN, United Nations, en
UN, Vereinte Nationen, de
BAM, billing and account management
billing and account management, billing and accounts

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• As with SharePoint 2010
• Wraps up many crucial IA elements
• Very useful for
• Users
• Information architects
• Records managers
• Administrators
• Controls two distinct functions
• Content type hubs
• Term Store
Managed Metadata Service (MMS)

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MMS Organisation

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• Term sets:
• Term set import functions exist – via csv
• No term set export – need bespoke scripts
• Not suitable for large implementations?
• Integrated add-ins from Smartlogic, Concept Search (maybe)
• Other taxonomy tools – PoolParty, Synaptica, MultiTes etc.
• Metadata management:
• Smartlogic (maybe), Concept Search (maybe)
Management

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Wrap-up

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• There are many configuration options – too many?
• They are not very well integrated with each other…
• ..So you have to do this manually (to a degree)
• Therefore:
• Having an IA is crucial
• Ongoing management of the IA also crucial
• There are some tools to help – but they are not simple
Final thoughts

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Questions?
marc.stephenson@metataxis.com
www.metataxis.com
Metataxis