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Much ado about...documents
This document provides an overview of moving, archiving, and managing documents in SharePoint. It discusses using document sets to group related documents, setting up document IDs for persistent URLs, and configuring records management features. Shakespeare quotes are included throughout relating to the topics. The agenda covers moving documents between libraries, archiving documents, setting up and filling out document sets, setting up document IDs, and deciding between record center and in-place records management.
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Much ado about...documents
- 1. Much Ado about… … Documents “Weknow what we are, but know not what we may be” - W. Shakespeare
- 2.
- 3. About Me • LizSundet– Business Development Manager-Focal Point Solutions, LLC. • MBA, PMP, CBAP, CSM • Musician: Dog Lover: • Biker: “Throttles, not pedals” • Email: lsundet@earthlink.net • Follow on Twitter: @percusn • Connect with me on LinkedIn • http://www.linkedin.com/in/lizsundet/ • Blog: itsocialbutterfly.wordpress.com
- 4. Agenda: Moving Documents Archiving Documents DocumentSets Document ID’s` Records Management Ado: Trouble or Difficulty
- 5. Use case: Move 100 documentsfrom one library to another…the “easy way”
- 6. No metadata Use “Openwith Explorer
- 8. “I am gone,though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I pray you let me go.” -William Shakespeare Archiving Documents:
- 10. “To Climb SteepHills Requires a slow pace at first” ~ William Shakespeare
- 11. neeIs this relevant? DoI need it in the next few months? Valid Process Project or Legal consideration
- 12.
- 19. Specify a trigger Setthe action Transfer to Archive also able to move to Recycle bin or Trash
- 21. “I can seehe's not in your good books,' said the messenger. 'No, and if he were I would burn my library.” -William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing
- 23. Steps for DocumentSets: • Set up a Library • Turn on ability to view content types • Choose “Add from existing Site Content Types” • Select the drop down for “document set content types” • Add Document Set to the right hand column
- 24. Don’t forget to activatethe Site Collection feature for Document Sets
- 25. All the Documentsin a set will have the same “ingredients”
- 26. Fill in theform Document Set Done
- 27. “I would forgetit fain, But oh, it presses to my memory, Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds.” W. Shakespeare-Romeo and Juliet
- 28. Document ID’s “Though shebe but little, she is fierce!” William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- 30. Setup: Site SettingsSiteCollection Administration Site Collection Features
- 33.
- 34. For pity isthe virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly – Timon of Athens.
- 37.
- 41. Record Center or In-Line? Whatdo you need? What are your requirements?
- 43. To be ornot to be, that is the question
Editor's Notes
- #5 When I first started this presentation, I was actually asked, “What does Ado mean” I have always had a love for Shakespeare and likely the most common use of the term is in his play entitled “Much Ado about…Nothing”. Well, Ado actually means, trouble or difficulty. What’s so appropriate with this word is that there are many times people ask questions on how to do something with documents or document libraries that they haven’t necessarily been shown previously, so they have work arounds that seem to be difficult. When we use some of the items we will cover today, like how to move documents, archiving, or using document sets to organize things and other features that are already in a document library, they find these difficult work arounds to be a little less cumbersome. Now, some of these items are easy to set up and put in place and others take a bit of time to set up in order for it to run smoothly. My goal today is that you take away not only the use cases for these components, but also to be able to set them up when you go back to work appropriately. I am using examples from O365, but I haven’t found any differences in these items when working with an on-prem version in 2013. Other versions, may be slightly different.
- #6 Let’s start with one of my favorite and very easy things to do. That’s to move a document from one library to another. Typically I will get questions from a user that goes something like this: I just put a document in library A, but it is really supposed to go in library Z. Do I really have to download the document to my desktop, delete it from library A, then upload it to library Z? Now, while this doesn’t sound too cumbersome, imagine if it wasn’t just 1 document, but 10 documents, or 100 documents. This actually happened to a marketing manager who had uploaded a bunch of pictures and while they thought they were putting them in the right place, only after they had gotten 87 of them done, did they realize they had the wrong library.
- #7 So my next step was to ask some questions. Do you have any metadata set up in that library in which you have tagged then items? The answer to that was thankfully no in this case, so I offered up the easiest solution I could walk them thru. Open explorer view on each of the libraries. This only works with Internet Explorer, so be sure to use that rather than Chrome or Safari.
- #8 By opening both document libraries in explorer view allows you to select those items you want to move, drag and drop them into the library you want to move them to. Users understand this because it’s very much like they are accustomed in moving files from place to place in file shares. However, this will not necessarily bring over unique metadata if that has been set at the library you are moving from. For something like that you may need to use a tool like Share-Gate that allows you to bring over any metadata associated with the items, but will allow you to move things from library to library just as effectively.
- #9 Continuing along the same lines of moving documents, one of the biggest problems facing organizations today is that they simply have too much information stored in SharePoint. I’m constantly asked, “what’s the best way to archive”. I typically will ask what the retention policy is in their organization, to which the answer is “I don’t know”. Hordes of documents exist in libraries in SharePoint, many of which aren’t being used any longer, yet, no one moves them or simply gets rid of them. Making libraries larger and larger, views exceeding 5000 document limits in SharePoint and yet organizations still can’t figure out how to archive.
- #10 To address this problem, first a little history lesson. In the days of paper files, there were positions in a company called a file clerk. These people were responsible for organizing the vast amounts of documents, putting them in appropriate places in which to be able to find them again. But their jobs didn’t end there. At least once a year, these file clerks would purge documents by going thru each of the file cabinets and looking for documents that were older than a year, or 3 or 5. Whatever was the retention period for those documents. They would store those documents in large boxes with dates on them in off site storage or in another area. Only if a document was needed for legal or other proof would they search the archives. Somehow along they way to going to electronic files, companies forgot about those retention policies and everything was placed in file shares and eventually SharePoint. Days of the file cleark may be over, but the problems of not only being able to find documents, but also how to appropriately store items and more importantly, how to archive documents still exist.
- #11 First lets talk a little strategy. Organizations should have some type of strategy in dealing with electronic documents and you would be surprised how many don’t. Without it, you may be trying to climb uphill fighting battles at every step. Anyone here have a document strategy in their organization? If not, hopefully this inspires you to create a strategy within your company. The strategy should include what documents are included on SharePoint and how long they should exist. I get asked quite often how long we should have documents and typically my response is, no longer than necessary. Set some realistic timeframe and set a process for what happens to these documents after that timeframe is expired. Make sure this is documented, in your governance, as a policy and make it transparent to everyone in the organization. People will have a much easier time accepting policies when they understand the reasons for it and can see and understand the process.
- #12 Work with your users to draw a line in the sand. My suggestion is typically anything older than 3 years will likely not be relevant any longer. This can be shorter or longer perhaps as this is just a good starting point. This is simply the first cut of information. The 2nd thing is to look at anything between 1-3 years old. Ask things like: Is this still relevant Do I need it in the next few months Is there a valid process this document supports Is this part of a project going on or needed for legal consideration If it doesn’t fit any of these or other scenario’s that add value to the business, then they should be considered for archive.
- #13 The other thing to be reminded of is that having a plan in place for archival, doesn’t necessarily mean, throwing it away. There will likely be some documents that need to be archived in the likelihood those documents will be needed again. But, do you REALLY need those company Christmas party pictures from 1999? What value are they adding? Are you going to be held legally responsible for having a document way past the retention dates? These are all things to consider when choosing to archive documents vs simply throwing away. Don’t keep something just because, make sure it adds value. When I think of adding value, I think of PMO documents. These are sometimes invaluable to projects in the future. Requirements can be re-used, systems documentation can be scoured thru to assess if the system is still relative to the business, decision documentation or risk logs can be invaluable down the road. If you have these documents on the same retention period, you may consider items related to PMO separately. But ask yourself, will these notes from a meeting attended 20 years ago by people that are no longer with the company still needed? If not, don’t archive them.
- #14 In O365 in the admin center is where you’ll need to set up the policies in order for your content to move from one place to the archive location. Create a new connection by using a display name and Send to URL. I selected to allow manual submissions from the Send to menu and the send to action to be Move. You can also choose copy or Move and Leave a link if you choose. Your explanation will be included for anything that is moved in order to appear on audit logs as to why it was moved to a location. Looks simple right?? Well, unfortunately it’s a little more complicated than that….
- #15 First you need to set up a site collection or a sub-site if you are on O365 that is a document center. This allows you to centrally store any archived documents. I set mine up and called it Archive. You will then need to go to Site Settings and under Site Actions Manage Site Features
- #16 Activate a feature called Content Organizer. Once this is activated, there’s additional set of features we will look at.
- #17 Under Site Administration, you will find Content Organizer Settings and Content Organizer Rules. This is how you know if you have really activated the feature, because in SharePoint sometimes, it’s can show as active, but it’s really not. This for whatever reason happens to me when I turn on publishing feature. Then I spend a while trying to figure out…is it really on? Do I need to “activate” again? So let’s look at the settings first. The first part allows you to set up things like allowing rules to the target location or using folders to partition out different documents from several locations. Yes apparently Microsoft still believes in folders. Take heed, just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. My favorite item however is on the next part. Can you see it?? It’s the small print at the bottom of the screen where it gives you a web service URL. This is what you need
- #18 To fill in the Sent to URL for the items to be able to move here. Whew! For those of you that are not on O365, the set up will be similar, especially in the Site Features to be set up. You may have to work with your site collection admin however in setting this up in Central Administration.
- #19 Next, on any of the libraries you have in which you want to set up the move to archive location, first Click on Information Management Policy Settings within the Library Settings. You can set different policy settings based on content types. Here, I’ve set them up based on documents since that’s the only thing I have in the document library. This allows you to set up and specify items that are not declared as records. If you have records, those will not move to the archive area since they are kept in the library and typically can not be modified or moved while it’s a record, although this depends on the records setting as well which we will cover later.
- #20 To set the stage, specify the trigger Then set the location in which the document moves to. Again, here you can set things like moving it to the archive location or moving it to the recycle bin or just deleting it altogether. See why it’s important to have a strategy in place?
- #21 The last thing you may want to do is to set up the Document Center so it doesn’t search the documents as part of the content search. This is dependent on the number of documents you have in this document center, but will enable the search functions to work a little better if there are thousands of documents in the document center.
- #22 I can see he’s not in your good books….No and if he were I would burn my library. Fun little quote from Much ado about Nothing which leads us to talk a little more about some additional features of a document library. One of my favorite things is document sets. Who doesn’t like things in sets? Cookies and Milk, Salt and Pepper, Cardigan Sets. Document Sets are great to add as a content type to really organize your library. It can add tremendous value to an organization, but like so many things in SharePoint, they have a specific purpose. So, don’t substitute salt for sugar and don’t over pepper anything as careful consideration is needed before adding to the mix.
- #23 First, let’s talk about some situations in which document sets work so well. You have a PMO that manages projects within your organization. There are some projects that get a project site, but then there are others, that just have a few documents and are small. Those small documents all in one place can get a little cumbersome after a while. Tagging each document with the appropriate project, the project manager, the team, etc. In order to make things a little easier, consider using document sets. Document sets allows you to add documents in a “folder” type of structure, but instead of having to tag each document with metadata, all documents that are associated in a document set get the same properties of metadata added to them automatically. This also works great for managing different customers’ documents, like if you are submitting RFP’s or other bids to keep them all in one place. I’ve also set them up to manage legal documents that are all part of one group for a specific client case and additional content types were then used to add documents right from within the set. These types of situations work great for document sets, but not everything requires a document set. Again, this is a little more advanced than just adding a document to a library so work with your users on how and when to use these.
- #24 The set up for document sets is relatively easy, but again, it’s a little more complex than just adding a document library. First you will need a library already set up or you will need to build one. Then turn on the ability to view content types. I’m not sure why these are always set to a default of not displayed, but they are. You will need to choose your advanced settings from your library settings and select “allow management of content types” Then choose “add from existing Site Content Types” From here you will find a dropdown for “document set content types” and be sure to add Document set to the right hand column by clicking add
- #25 Did something go wrong?? Can’t choose the document set type from the content type drop down? If so, be sure to set the feature for document sets to active on your Site Collection.
- #26 Next, Add the columns. For a project management one for example, I typically add things like Project manager for Who is running the project, Start Date and End Date, perhaps project budget so I can organize by size of the projects and could include things like location or business unit if you prefer. Remember, anything that goes into a document set is part of the properties that make up the entire set, so it doesn’t matter if you have status notes, risk logs or other project documents, everything in it will get the same ingredients.
- #27 Now when you go to create something new in your library, you have the option to use a Document set. Simply fill in the fields on the form when creating a new one based on the columns of data you have set up and wholla! New Document set.
- #28 However, in order to get all the documents in the set to have the same properties, there’s one additional thing you have to make sure to do. This is something I tend to forget when I set up document sets and can make it a bit confusing at first. Once you set up the columns, you need to decide which columns will have “shared” information. Meaning, whatever you set on the document set, each of the documents in that set get the same properties. Otherwise, what’s the point of the document sets, right? So, you will need to go back into the Document set Settings and check the boxes for the columns that are automatically synchronized to all the documents in the set.
- #29 Next we will take a look at Document ID’s. These small tiny little things have such a huge impact managing documents. Though she be but little, she is fierce! And Document ID’s are no different.
- #30 Now let me tell you a little story that typically happens in organizations. You send out an email, with a link to a document on it. It contains notes and other information about a project you have been working on. That document was then moved to a “notes folder” because you needed a little more organization in your document library. It was just filling up with too much stuff. Instead of setting up some metadata and using views, you instead set up a folder. Little did you realize with the addition of the folder, it now “broke the link” to that document. Two weeks later, the executive sponsor of the project calls you and says “I can’t get to the notes you sent a link to from a couple months ago”. Now you’re thinking, really?? That was a couple of months ago, but ok. You search for the notes, which are now in your folder, hoping you have the right ones and resend the link to the executive. This case of “who moved my cheese” happens all the time. Take for another case, if a document is moved to the archive library we talked about earlier. Setting up document ID’s will allow links to documents that were in a non-archive library to still work even if the document has been moved systematically to the archive library.
- #31 So, let’s walk thru the setup of this. First you’ll want to be sure the Document ID service is turned on. This can be found in the Site Settings=> Site Collection Administration Site Collection Features You’ll know this is activated when you can see the Document ID settings under the Site Collection Administration.
- #32 In the document settings, be sure the checkbox for “assign Document ID’s” is selected You can choose to being ID’s with a set of characters, something that could be identifiable to your organization perhaps. Or there will be a random series numbers and letters if you should choose the system to assign. This prevents documents from different site collections to have duplicate ID’s, especially if you have multiple documents from different areas going to places like the archive. The search scope can also be determined. I only have 1 site collection set up in my O365 area, so that’s all I was able to select here. When finished, click ok. You’re document ID’s are now set.
- #33 So, why can’t I see the Document ID on my library? Anyone want to take a guess. You’ll need to add it to the view in order to see the document ID. I typically will also make this the first item that appears in my list view on my library.
- #34 So, let’s take a look at the URL’s. These are both for the exact same document. The top one is connected to the document ID, so the link will always redirect to the document ID no matter where it’s placed in SharePoint. The bottom one uses the name of the document as the trigger or what is called the key indicator. If that document is moved out of the Shared Document’s into the Archive, it will get a different URL, even though the name of the document has stayed the same. This is why links break when documents are moved. And if you think no one would ever do that, I’m here to tell you that it happens all the time. So which would you choose?
- #35 Records. Who remembers records like these? Who still has some of these?? Unfortunately, we still have a need for document records in our organizations. Much of the needs for records stems from legal needs or compliance needs in an organization. Much like the idea for some strategy and governance behind archival of documents, there needs to be some thought into records strategies and governance of records. This is because there are a couple of different ways to declare records in SharePoint, but let’s talk about some common cases in the organization today.
- #36 For starters, your company may require certain documents that are on a yearly audit plan. Each year the document must be reviewed by certain people in the organization to ensure the information is still valid and true. This is typically part of compliance. I once worked for an organization that was ISO certified and there were several documents that had a need for this type of audit once a year. This was really a collaborative space that was used while those documents were in development by several people, it would then go thru an approvals process and finally be declared as a record. Incidentally, the team that I worked with on this called themselves the “blues brothers”, hence the picture, and it was sort of fitting as dealing with those types of records was perhaps the “mission from God” they were on. To accomplish this, a separate library was set up and records were declared “in line”. This is a little different than setting up a records center which has some of the same features, but in a records center, everything is a record, so no collaborative type of work would go on in this area. This is really the key difference between a records center and a record within a library, the content doesn’t move out of a collaborative space to become a record. This also make it a little easier in the mystery of finding those documents.
- #37 So based on the requirements, it’s important to have a strategy in place to handle records. Some questions to ask when developing a strategy are: Is the governance of the collaboration site appropriate for managing records? Is your industry subject to regulatory requirements that mandate records be separated from active documents? Should the administrator of a collaboration site be trusted to manage a site that contains records? How long will the collaboration site be in use? If records will have to be kept for longer than the project is ongoing, choosing an in-place records management strategy means that you will have to maintain the collaboration site even after it is no longer used. Will the project members need frequent access to the documents after the documents have become records? If you use an in-place approach, project members can access documents in the same manner regardless of whether the documents are active or are records. Are records managers in your organization responsible for only records, or are they responsible for all information, regardless of whether it is active or a record? If records managers are responsible only for official records, having a separate records center might be easier for them.
- #38 When setting records within a library, the Record Declaration Settings should be looked at to be able to allow the manual declaration of records from within any document library. This is typically something that needs to change since the default is Use the Site Collection default settings. To find this, go to your library settings and under Permissions and Management, go to Record Declaration Settings
- #39 The other area that you will find useful is the Information Management Policy Settings from within the library. This will allow you to set retention of the content and the sequence of retention stages, very similar to what we looked at in the archiving features. Auditing is typically something that is also enabled to allow documents to have reporting of who edits documents, deletes or moving or copying items.
- #40 Another feature is the ability to put a document on Hold. This feature works when an investigation is needed, many times for legal reasons. I remember when I worked as a project manager for a large construction manufacturing company called Viracon that supplies glass to many of the buildings across the united states. They entered a lawsuit to get paid on work that was done and delivered to a company that didn’t pay. I had to turn over my entire project files, including any electronic files, paper files, emails and notes that pertained to that litigation. The documents were all copied and essentially placed on hold, so much of the same can be done in SharePoint. Once this feature is activated, a new set of additional features can be explored under the settings called Hold.
- #41 The discover and Hold feature can be used to search for any content granularly that includes a particular term. For this I used Mayo Clinic since I do course curriculum for them and have some content in the form of presentations on my SharePoint site. It returned the results and allows me to put these documents on hold. This is just a preview of any of the items that came up in search, but from the Discover and Hold content, it would allow me to add all of the discovery documents to a Hold area. The hold area requires a connection to be set up much like what we covered in the Content Organizer when we set up the Archive library, so you’ll want to be sure to follow those same steps when setting up a hold area. This will then allow you to move the content quickly and easily to a Hold area.
- #42 There are a few other features and differences, but we have covered some of the main ones and yet, we are still left with a question. What do you choose, a record center or in-line records. Well, it wouldn’t be SharePoint without the answer being “it depends”. It depends on your needs in the organization and what the requirements. It depends on what governance you have in place as well. So, please consider your requirements, your use cases that we talked about today before just simply providing a solution. You don’t want a solution to be put in place only to have your users end up with much ado over it.
- #43 One final quote from Willie to remember is “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” I hope that I have thrusted some greatness upon you today to inspire you to do more with your document libraries and solving some business problems I see everyday. I hopefully have shown you that some of these things take time to set up, but aren’t that hard and can be done with a little effort. Thank you!
- #44 Any questions?