Managing SharePoint 2010 Data : Content Types

Content types are a fundamental concept of SharePoint foundation. Any data that you put inside SharePoint gets associated with some content type. Any content type gives you a number of reusable settings. The reusable settings consist of the structure of information, associated workflows, information management policies, field rendering templates, and in the case of documents—document information panels and document formats and templates.

As an example in your organization, you may produce proposals for clients or software defect bug reports. It is possible that both of these are Word documents, but their meanings are quite different. The workflows that they need to be routed through are quite different and the associated collected metadata on each of these can also be quite different. Therefore, it makes sense to differentiate between them as their own content types.

In fact, any content that you put inside of SharePoint automatically gets associated with some content type. At the very base, you have the "item content type," with just one possible column in it called Title. For every document that you upload into SharePoint, it gets associated with that document type content type. So any further content types you create you are basically inheriting from these base content types, or another content type that in turn inherits from these base content types. The document content type also inherits from the item content type, so the granddaddy of all content types is the item content type.

Let's examine this as a practical example. Let's say you're setting up the SharePoint site to collect information about zoo animals. You could just create a custom list and add the necessary columns in it to capture all the metadata necessary for a zoo animal. That would allow you to capture data as the default "item" content type, thus making your zoo animal of about the same category as school supplies. A better way of storing zoo animals would be to give zoo animals their own content type.

To create a content type for zoo animals, visit your SharePoint site at http://sp2010 and click site actions\site settings. Then, under the gallery section click the site content types link and you will see all the existing content types that are currently set up in your SharePoint site. As you can see, even out of the box Microsoft has made plenty of use of content types. Next, click the create button, as shown in Figure 1 to create a new content type.

Figure 1. The Site Content Types Page. The Create Content Type Button.

Fill in the provided form, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. New content type details

As you can see, you've created a new zoo animal content type and are inheriting that content type from the base item content type. Also, you've put this content type in its own group called zoo. Click the OK button to create the new content type. SharePoint will now take you to a page that shows you the details of the newly created content type. The URL of this page will look a little bit like this: /_layouts/ManageContentType.aspx?ctype=0x010070A9BD7BBA699D48B92FE21F1632CC28.

This ctype querystring parameter is the content type ID of your newly created content type. Your ID might be different, but it would start with "0×01". This is because "0×01", is the content type ID for Zoo Animal's parent content type which is the item content type. Also, on the same page you will see a number of other things. You will see a settings section where you can specify additional settings available on the content type such as associated workflows. Under the columns section is where you can set up the structure of your content type, i.e., what columns are available in the content type. When setting up the structure for your content type, you can either choose to add from an existing site column or you can choose to create a new site column. Site columns are what define individual columns in a content type.

Open a new browser window and visit the site settings for your http://sp2010 site one more time. Under the Galleries section, you will see a link for site columns. Clicking on that link will show you all the site columns that have already been set up for you in the SharePoint site. One site column can be used across multiple content types. Perhaps you found out in an earlier zoo that if you mix Carnivores and Herbivores together, somehow you are only left with Carnivores? For the zoo animal content type, intend to differentiate between carnivores and herbivores. In the site columns gallery, click the create button to create a new site column. Go ahead and fill out the form, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. New site column details

As you can see, you're creating a new site column called "Is Meat Eater". This will be a yes/no check box, with the default value of yes. Also, put this site column in its own group called "Zoo".

Note that you can base your new site column on a number of preexisting definitions such as single line of text, multiple lines of text, choice, and so forth. These preexisting definitions are referred to as field types. Go ahead and play with the site columns a little bit and explore some of the additional field types available. I should point out that all your work so far is limited to the individual site collection you're working in, so if you completely mess up your site collection just delete the site collection and recreate it, and you'll start from zero again.

Once you have created that "is meat eater" site column, return to the browser instance where you are managing your "Zoo Animal" content type. If you have accidentally closed the previous browser window, you can find that content type again by visiting the site content types gallery under site settings and clicking on the zoo animal content type under the groups zoo at the bottom of the page.

Back in the zoo animal content type, under the Columns section, click that add from existing site columns link. In the form that shows up, look for the new "Is Meat Eater" site column you had set up previously and add it to your zoo animal content type.

Your content type is now set up. Next let's use it in a list. Create a new custom list called "SharePoint Zoo". The list definition for the custom list determines that there is only one content type associated with the newly created list instance. That single content type is the item content type. Using the ribbon under the list tab, visit the list settings link. On the list settings page, you will see various settings you can manage for the list. Click the advanced settings link under the general settings section. At the very top under advanced settings, you should see a section allowing or disallowing the management of content types in the list. This can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Enabling management of content types

By default, the custom list definition locks its list instances to the content types that are defined in the list definition. Since you need to associate the zoo animal content type with the SharePoint zoo list, choose to allow management content type by selecting the yes radio button, and then hit OK at the bottom of the page.

This will take you back to the list settings page except now a section for the management of content types will become available. This can be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Management of content types

Click the add from existing site content types link and add the zoo animal content type to this list. If you wish, you can associate more content types in the list, delete the existing item content type, or you can change the default content type as well. While still under lists settings, click the item content type link and choose to delete the item content type from the SharePoint zoo list.

NOTE

Did you just delete the item content type ? Yes, you did. What happens to all the other content types that inherit from the item content type? What is important to realize here is that when you associate a content type with a list, a copy of that content type is created in the list. Therefore, if you delete a particular content type from the list settings page, you're only deleting the copy. You're not deleting it from the Content Types gallery from the site settings page. This also means that you can edit a content type by editing the copy of it that has been created in a list. Editing the copy will not affect the master content type in the content type gallery, and thus will not affect everything that inherits from the master. This is a technique that you will find yourself using frequently.

Now let's go back to the SharePoint zoo list and click the add new item link in the SharePoint zoo list. You should see a form, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Your content type in action

As you can see, the definition of the content type now drives the forms of the list. Creating new items in this list will now also automatically associate them with the zoo animal content type. Now you could argue that you could have just created the "is meat eater" column in the list directly. What is the benefit of taking the content type route? There are many benefits. Because your data is now segregated from normal list items, it is more findable, you can execute custom search queries against the content type only, you can associate workflows, and many other such advantages. Let's see one of those in action.

Next, add a few animals in this list. Now let's say you had a business problem of aggregating all instances of the zoo animals from various lists in a singular view. How would you do that?

Because you segregated your data as its own content type it is now possible to do that. In order to do so, go into site actions\site settings and under site collection administration, click the site collections feature link. Then activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature. This will make the content query WebPart available for use. Back on the homepage of the site, drop an instance of the content query WebPart. You will find this WebPart in the content rollup section. Now edit the content query WebPart, and configure it to show all items of the zoo animal content type from all lists that are based on the custom list definition. This can be seen in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Query based on content type

Your final configured WebPart can be seen in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Results of content query

The content query WebPart is an invaluable tool in your arsenal. Play with it a little bit more and see what else you can do.

You just created a new content type through the browser. You might have also noticed that, SharePoint generated a content type ID for you. What if you wanted to control this content type ID? This is important especially considering that you may have multiple environments in which you may want the content type ID to be consistent. Or you may want to content type ID to be consistent across site collections? What if you wanted your content type ID to use a site column that uses a custom field type ? There are many other such scenarios that a developer will find useful in delivering a typical SharePoint project. Let's start by looking at how you would write your own custom field types.