SharePoint Folders & Metadata

Advantages and Disadvantages

Grouped by Created By

Grouped by Document Type

Same data, different views

Grouped Metadata

One static view

Folders

SharePoint Folder Advantages

1. User Adoption. People are comfortable with folders and metadata is a huge mind shift.

2. Varying Permission Model. Permissions can be set at the folder level and documents residing in a folder would inherit the permissions of that folder.

3. Bulk upload. It can be challenging to mass update tags on a document while it is easy to drag and drop into a folder.

4. Default metadata tagging. Default values to for metadata can be set based on the folder that the file is located in.

SharePoint Folder Disadvantages

1. Usability. Nested folder structure is only known to the person who created it. Too many sub-folders can tend to “hide” things if the user does not know the structure.

2. URL length limitation. SharePoint adds all folder and sub-folder names to URL. Overall URL length is limited to 259 characters. You are out of luck if you create too many sub-folders.

3. File URL. Moving file from one folder to another means change of file URL.

4. Forced Grouping. Every file HAS to belong to a folder. A folder cannot account for a file that falls into multiple categories. With folders you would need to deposit multiple copies of the same file into different folders.

5. Lack of display flexibility. With folders, you get one view: the folder view. Users have various preferences on structuring info and you are at the mercy of the person who created the folder structure.

6. Can’t Sort & Filter. Since your files are buried in the folders, you can’t benefit from sorting and filtering capabilities of document library headers.

7. Change is hard. It’s hard to change folder structure, while changing metadata is easy.

8. Lost documents.You can “lose” documents when placed in the wrong folder and the only thing that can be search on is the file name and title. (is also true for metadata)

SharePoint Folder Disadvantages

9. Folder Names. Folder names cannot contain special characters.

10.Lack of control of taxonomy. A folder structure can be altered by any team member (create/delete/move/rename).

11.Workflows. Workflows cannot be performed on folders.

12.Visibility. You can not see how many documents there are in a folder and time could be spent clicking through nested folders just to arrive at an empty one.

13.Data Integrity. When you allow users to create own folders, you are prone to data integrity issues (i.e. same piece of information like “Program Phase” can be used incorrectly or spelled differently. This would cause duplication and loss of time and efficiency for an organization.

SharePoint Folder Disadvantages

1. Slice and Dice Data. Content can be viewed by whatever dimension the user wants and is not restricted to 1 folder view. The user has the power sort and filter the content based on their goal for finding the content. This separates how the data is viewed vs is how it is stored.

2. Alternate Views. Public and Personal views can be created for content to save the sorted and filtered data in the way that best fits the appropriate audiences of the content.

3. Tag Multiple Values. Metadata fields can contain more than 1 value allowing you to tag the content to multiple audiences.

4. Scalable. If a piece of metadata needs to be added to multiple pieces of content it can be applied at a high level and will aggregate down. (i.e. if a Year folder needs to be added in multiple folder structures it would need to be added to all appropriate sub-folders instead of just adding the new year to the metadata column)

5. Governance. Governance around the metadata fields can be held at a higher level so it can be maintained consistently.

SharePoint Metadata Advantages

1. User Adoption. The concept of manually tagging a document with metadata is a new methodology and can lead to high risk of users not getting the most out of the solution.

2. Incorrect Tags. Incorrectly tagging a piece of content can be just as bad as putting a document into a wrong folder. This misclassifies the content and can lead to it being “lost” and not easily found.

3. Bulk Moving. There are no out of the box SharePoint solutions that allow you to move large amounts of documents between libraries and also edit the metadata at the same time.

4. Security. Content cannot be secured by a certain metadata field. For example, if a user tags a document using an audience field of “Restricted” that will have no correlation to actually restricting that document to a certain set of users.

5. Power User Control. All power users know how to create folders but very few know how to follow best practices for creating columns with appropriate metadata fields.

SharePoint Metadata Disadvantages

• SharePoint folders can be used but should be the exception and not the rule.

• Try and keep the folder hierarchy as flat and minimal as possible, but views don’t need to be limited to metadata exclusively. These methods can be mixed to produce great results.

SharePoint Folders & Metadata

Requirements MatrixRequirement Recommended

SolutionReason

I need to classify a document into multiple categories Metadata You cannot put a document into multiple folders without duplicating it.

I need to sort, filter, or refine documents in a view or a search

Metadata You cannot sort and filter content in folders

I need to use special characters to classify a document or document location

Metadata You cannot have special characters in folder names

I need to control the document classification structure Metadata You cannot restrict the ability for users to add/update/delete folders

I need to know how many documents fall under a classification

Metadata You cannot view how many documents are in multiple folders

I need to replicate classification of documents multiple between libraries or sites

Metadata Metadata columns can be managed at a higher level so content across libraries or sites can use the same set of choices in a column

I need to perform workflows based on a document classification

Metadata Workflows cannot be performed on folders

I need to move a very large number of documents into 1 location

Folders & Metadata You can use windows explorer to move multiple documents and can set default values for metadata based on a folder so documents that are moved into a folder will automatically get tagged

I need to secure a set of documents inside of a document library

Folders & Metadata Folders can have security applied to them but a thought around whether a separate document library instead of a folder would work