How to Create Metadata?

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Many of us have been told that metadata is very essential and should be implemented in our SharePoint environment. Furthermore, we are also instructed how to import managed metadata into SharePoint.  You might think that it is that easy to covert nested folders in to metadata magically. However, there is sort of a challenge, which is “how to have the idea of what properties your users exactly want to see”? What columns to exactly set? What are the choices of drop down menus that you plan on creating? Indeed, it is a hassle full task for many of us! This is why our offshore SharePoint developers have inscribed this post to assist you device metadata perfectly. This post is not based on theory that is copied from the web, this is actual steps that our developers followed to help out a SharePoint administrator.

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Defining Metadata- How?

In case you are willing metadata from folders then the solution is right in front of you, Yes in folders itself! Look for the folder names and notice how users name the folders and how folders are organized. The result will be your metadata. To make it simpler… let’s say, if your users are moving important documents to top-level folders and creative sub folders under it by naming them with year then you already have defined 2 columns of metadata. If we take instances of all the sub folders, you can easily appraise the naming pattern of all of them, by which you can create additional metadata easily. Same is applicable for deeply nested folder hierarchies.

Track File Names

The 2nd most probable way is files’ names. Users themselves try to build metadata info while saving files with names. For instance, there may be a file name like this godaddyInvoice20150824. From the file name itself you can itself, you can point out the client name (godaddy), document type (Invoice) and 24-6-2015 is probably the date. Look out for the files that have same naming patters. If you find them then you have devised a lot of metadata.

Self Asking

Let’s understand the Flipkart way. For instance, you are shopping men’s sandals. While shopping from Flipkart, what search term you put in the search box? What we meant here is you must be willing to buy sandals of a particular brand, color, material and style. Guess what… all these are metadata of sandals. As Flipkart’s engineer known that you will be searching using these search terms, they have designed a mechanism, so that you will land on the desired product page easily.

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Like above, same principle applies for SharePoint document libraries. For instance, you have hundreds of policy documents lying in the library then how do you find the one you are looking for. The answer is to use” sort by and filter by”. You can also search by targeting last edit date or last renewal date by the administrator

metadata3Make use of Enterprise Keywords

In case you didn’t find any of the above tips useful then you gotta try your hands on this one, which just try find a concrete wall and bang your head on it!!! On the other hand, you can provide your users with probable metadata definition. That is possible with the functionality called Enterprise Keywords.

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With more than 10 years of industry experience these professionals have the best resources to deliver optimum results. They have been satisfying customers with some of the best SharePoint Strategies. In case you need experts for Offshore development for SharePoint 2016, we have got you covered.

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