SharePoint How-To Series: Enhanced Content Types

In our last three posts we have spent time looking at some of the core building blocks of SharePoint--namely, Content Types, Site Columns and Managed Metadata.

Those three things are the main building blocks for most things SharePoint related. A content type as we went through previously is really the core construct of everything in SharePoint, from a document, item or a page it is the same. If you remember we created a single content type with multiple site columns associated to it, however we did not utilize the Taxonomy site columns within that Content Type/

So to begin with let’s go back to the Term Store Management and modify what we have.

This is really showing the power pf term sets and what we can do with it, so let’s create a new set that makes a little more sense. Using the same group, right click and choose “New Term Set”.

For this one we will call it “Demographics”.

Now we can start to add values manually, however if we want to import the root term set, we can use the in-built import process. To do this first we need to download the sample file.

This is done by selecting the root node “Managed Metadata Service”, and clicking the link on the right for “View a sample import file”

Once clicked on this will download a CSV file that can be modified and imported back.

Opening this file shows the structure needed for an import file.

To see what this actually looks like we can import it back into the Term Store. Firstly, we need to create a new Group called “Imported Taxonomy”, then right click and choose “Import Term Set”. Browser to the downloaded CSV file and choose ‘OK”.

Once imported the console will refresh and you should now see the following structure.

A full structure is created and now available for us to use. So let’s use this structure within a new site column.  Within the content type click “Add from new site column”.

Create a column of type “Managed Metadata” and we will call the column “DemoTaxonomy”.

When selected the page will refresh and display the options for setting the column to use these values.

Display format can either be the single value or the path to the value. So for our values it could either be:

Single Value – Hamlet

Full Hierarchical Path – Continent > Political Entity > Country > Province or State > County or Region > Hamlet

Once we have set the values, click “OK” and you are sent back to the content type with our new column now listed.

As before simply go back to editing the item properties in the browser and the new column should be displayed.

To populate the value, we can either just type the value or we can use the picker which is accessed from the icon next to the control.

Selecting the value and pressing “Save” will update this property. As we had chosen to display the full path the value selected is actually displayed like this:

Now that we have this column it can be used cross content types, cross sites, cross site collections and web applications. This means we can create a global taxonomy that can be used everywhere. The column can also be used in conjunction with the global “Enterprise Keywords” column to save the selected values directly as social tags that can appear in the social features of SharePoint.

Once this setting is applied the “Enterprise Keywords” column is added to the list and the forms.

These values once added, will be get picked up by internal processes of SharePoint and added to the social capabilities of SharePoint.

All in all, adding even a single column of Taxonomy Values will transform the content type into what I call “Enhanced Content Types”. Adding anything other than normal fields achieves this, like adding Business Data Connectivity fields that pull in line of business data make content types twice as powerful as a regular one.

Don’t forget the upcoming webinar on SharePoint for Beginners where we will cover even more. You can register using the link below.

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