Why Should You Care About SharePoint Metadata?

Why do I Care About SharePoint Taxonomy and Metadata?Steve

Goldberg

Steve Goldberg, Sales Engineer at Axceler

Software Engineer at Axceler for ControlPoint

Prior to Axceler, was a consultant at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), specializing in SharePoint development

Current Role:

Talk to 30-40 people weekly about how to govern SharePoint

Metadata is always part of a governance plan but it is rarely executed

Twitter: @iamgoldberg Blog: iamgoldberg.com Email: steve.goldberg@axceler.com

Metadata MAKES SharePoint cool

What will help?

Metadata is the fundamental building block to successfully surface data to end users

Taxonomy adds structure Folksonomy refines the model Apply governance as needed (it always is)

Ugh…Definitions

In Biology, taxonomy is the science dealing with description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms.

“However, the term is now applied in a wider sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as wells as to the principles underlying such classification.”

“Metadata provides context for data. Metadata is used to facilitate the understanding, characteristics, and management usage of data.”

Wikipedia.org

So what does that have todo with SharePoint?

Metadata provides real business ROI Improved search Organize content without using the F word More usage of platform features More productivity

How do you measure SharePoint’s success?

End user activity rising on sites More content is being added Implemented business critical workflows Houses secure content

Measuring Success

It’s easy to put a value on quantitative improvements to productivity

It is difficult to put a value on qualitative improvements

What’s causing this?

Ad-hoc content addition leads to junk in portal Content is in different locations Inconsistent taxonomy across farms and site collections No ownership of authored content

Ask yourself…

Do you have content on a network drive? Do you have a deep folder structure in SP? Have you examined your site structure? Are you using the content type hub? Are you supporting social features of SP 2010? Do you need to support multiple languages?

Where do you start?

Taxonomies = term store in SP 2010

Accessible throughCentral Administrationor Site Collection

Managed Metadata Service

Create an enterprise wide taxonomy that is centrally managed

Enterprise Keywords Words or phrases

added to SharePoint

Non-hierarchical

Managed Metadata Predefined by administrator Create, copy, reuse, merge,

deprecate, move, or delete terms

Created manually or imported through interface

Hierarchical Synonyms (labels) Translatable

When to use managed metadata

Finite list of potential values Need synonyms Hierarchical

Value Add Consistent, correct terminology

Users are guided to use pre-set terms Dynamic and consistent (unlike choice columns)

What can I do with all this data?

Search Refinement

The Content Organizer

Workflow

Metadata can be used to drive workflow functionality critical to the business

For strategic environments e.g.: Assign task to certain person based on

column values like Approved Y/N, date submitted, date reviewed, department

Custom workflow is often used to apply metadata

Document Sets

“Like a folder, but better” – SharePoint admins

Groups related content – can synchronize metadata Can be sent to record center to take advantage of

content organizer to route entire set Can version individual documents and the document

set itself- unlike a folder Document set can be part of a workflow instead of

individual documents

Document set settings

How can end users help?Folksonomy The result of personal free tagging of pages

and objects for one’s own retrieval: notes, tags, enterprise keywords column.

What are you doing to make your end users more productive?

What’s folksonomy’s value?

Gives end-users power to derive their own vocabulary and explicit meaning which may have

been originally inferred.

Users are not categorizing. They are connecting items to provide their meaning in their own

context and understanding.

Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy

Business Employee

Taxonomy Folksonomy

SP Object

Promote to Term Store

Every person becomes an expert

Enabling Enterprise Metadata

What are users searching for?

Why are social tools important?

They surface data They provide context They extend the search experience It’s the direction the world is moving in order

to communicate with others

Cloud adoption is changing the focus from maintenance towards productivity and performance - making social a layer

across the enterprise

Documents in your SharePoint environment are never found

Content is put in the wrong lists and libraries Content is duplicated Content is obsolete

SharePoint migraines solved by metadata

Governance!

Metadata needs to be a constantly evolving part of your governance plan

Who is going to update and manage terms and content types?

Who is talking to end users?

AxcelerImproving Collaboration Since 2007

– Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and secure their collaborative platforms

– Delivered award-winning administration and migration software since 1994

– Over 2,500 global customers

Dramatically improve the management of SharePoint

– Innovative products that improve security, scalability, reliability, “deployability”

– Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total cost of ownership

Focus on solving specific SharePoint problems (Administration & Migration)

– Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices– Give administrators the most innovative tools available– Anticipate customers’ needs– Deliver best of breed offerings– Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

Steve Goldbergsteve.goldberg@axceler.com@iamgoldberg

Additional Resources available 11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migrations http://bit.ly/j4Vuln

The Insider’s Guide to Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 http://bit.ly/mIpOBZ

Why Do SharePoint Projects Fail? http://bit.ly/d1mJmw

Best practices for capacity management for SharePoint Server 2010, TechNet http://bit.ly/nvNrig

What to Look for in a SharePoint Management Tool http://bit.ly/l26ida

The Five Secrets to Controlling Your SharePoint Environment http://bit.ly/kzdTjZ

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