Using the Managed Metadata Service in your SharePoint 2010 Sites-Part 3

We come to the conclusion of our 3 part series in configuring the Managed Metadata Service Application in SharePoint 2010 and today is where all the hard work comes into play. We shift our focus away from Central Administration and I will be providing you with examples on how we can utilise our managed metadata within our SharePoint sites.

If you have happened to miss out on the first two articles in this series, click on the links below for some light catch up reading;

1. Configuring the Managed Metadata Service Application in SharePoint 2010-Part 1
2. Configuring the Managed Metadata Service Application in SharePoint 2010-Part 2

I mentioned way back in part 1 of this series that the Managed Metadata’s primary purpose is to provide you with a central location to store your metadata that can be later utilised in ANY SharePoint site. Notice that the word “any” is in caps! This flexibility is one step ahead of what we referred to as Content Types and Site Columns in SharePoint 2007 where it wasn’t as straight forward.

1. Adding Managed Metadata to a SharePoint List or Library

   Let’s navigate to a List in which we would like to add our Managed Metadata as a column. Navigate to the List or Library in question and click on List under List Tools in the Ribbon and then click on Create Column.

   

   Enter a name for your Column. In my example I will call it State as I will be using the State Term Set which we created in Part 2 and select Managed Metadata as your column type.

   

   Set your “Display format” so it either displays just the term label or the entire path.

   Under Term Set Settings, select your Term Set. You can also utilise the search facility in the event you have a large number of Term Sets.

   

   Finally select whether you want to Allow Fill-in, which is only available if your Term Set was set to allow it. This is handled by the Submission Policy set to Open, (discussed in Part 2).

   

   Click OK once done.

   I will now proceed to add a new item in my fairly bland Custom List via Add new item.

   

   You have the option to click on the browse button on the right or you can begin typing in which it will provide you with Suggestions. In the above screen capture I began typing in one of the “other labels” or commonly referred to as synonyms which we discussed in detail in Part 2. The end result will be the actual “Default Label” Term listed in the Taxonomy Term Store in Central Administration. E.G. I was typing in “New South Wales” and the default label in the Term Store was set to “NSW”.

   

   One thing to note is the “Send Feedback” link, which is visible if you click on the browse button beside your metadata field. This allows users to provide feedback if an email address was specified under “Contact” in the properties of the Term via the Term Store Management Tool.

   

   There are a couple of neat navigation enhancements made available out of the box in SharePoint 2010 which tightly integrates with our Metadata. Commonly referred to as Metadata Navigation, these options are listed under our List Settings.

   Navigate to List Settings / General Settings / Metadata navigation settings.

   

   Within this screen we can specify which fields we want to utilise and incorporate in our Navigation Hierarchies and or Key Filters which are both displayed below the Quick Launch. Both allow for enhanced and easy drill down when filtering your list. I have gone ahead and added our “State” Metadata field to both Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters as examples.

   

   Example of a Navigation Hierarchy.

   

   Example of Key Filters.

   

   Well, that’s just about it on the Managed Metadata service application. I hope you have enjoyed this 3 part series in which you can now take away and utilise within your own deployments. Taxonomy in SharePoint 2010 has definitely come along way, easily allowing you to create and maintain your metadata in an organised fashion.

   Until next time.. Happy SharePointing!

   Articles in this series

2. Configuring the Managed Metadata Service Application in SharePoint 2010-Part 1
3. Configuring the Managed Metadata Service Application in SharePoint 2010-Part 2