Sharepoint 2010 : Administering Enterprise Content Management - Document Management (part 4) - Document Sets , Location-Based Metadata Default Values

1.8 Document Sets

SharePoint 2010 introduces the concept of document sets. Document sets enable you to use Microsoft Office 2010 to manage work products that span multiple documents. Document sets are special types of folders that are used to manage a single deliverable, or work product, that includes multiple documents. You can create document sets using the provided system templates, or you can customize these templates to create document sets specific to your organization or requirements. Versioning allows you to capture the state of the entire document set at various points throughout the content life cycle.

When activated, the document sets feature provides the content types required for creating and using document sets. The feature is available at the site collection level, and the site collection administrator can activate or deactivate it as needed from the Site Collection Features page, which you can open by selecting it from the Site Actions, Site Settings menu.

Because the document sets feature introduces a new content type, you can easily create new derived types based on the system-provided type. Each document set content type includes an additional document set–specific settings page. You can access this page by clicking on the document set content type from within the Site Content Types gallery, which can be found from the Site Settings page. On the Content Type Settings page, click the Document Set Settings link under Settings. Table 4 lists the configuration options available for each document set content type with a brief explanation of each option.

Table 4. Document Set Content Type Configuration Settings

SETTING	EXPLANATION
Allowed Content Types	Select from the list of available site content types to add them to the document set. Only content types specified will be allowed in the document set. To remove the document content type, you must first delete the Default Content item.
Default Content	If you want new document sets created from this content type to include specific items, upload them here and specify their content type. You may upload as many items as you need. You must specify the content type of each item. Think of this as a set of document templates that is included in the document set by default. There is also an option to add the name of the document set to each file name.
Shared Columns	Select which column values for the document set should be automatically synchronized to all documents contained in the set. You may specify the columns to be shared by selecting the check box next to the column name.
Welcome Page Columns	Select which columns to show on the Welcome page for the Document Set. Click each column you want to include from the available columns list and then click Add.
Welcome Page	You can customize the Welcome page used for this document set using either your browser to manipulate Web Parts on the Welcome page or SharePoint Designer to perform more advanced customizations. After completing your customizations, you can apply them to all child list and site content types using the Update List And Site Content Types option on this page.
Update List and Site Content Types	Specify whether all child site and list content types using this type should be updated with the settings on this page. This operation can take a long time, and any customizations made to these values on the child site and list content types will be lost. By default, this option is set to Yes. If you don’t want to lose site and list level customizations already in place, you will need to change this option to No.

When you have configured a new document set content type, you can add it to a document library. To do so, visit the Library Settings page of the target library and click Advanced Settings. Select the option to enable the advanced management of content types and then click OK at the bottom of the page. When you are back on the Library Settings page, click the Add From Existing Site Content Types link in the Content Types section and select the new document set content type from the list.

When it is available within the library, you can create a new document set based on this content type. Simply visit the library by clicking the library’s name in the breadcrumb navigation. Select the Documents menu under Library Tools in the Ribbon and then select the multiselect portion of the New button. Choose the new document set content from the provided menu. Fill out the provided form, including information for any required fields, and click OK. Figure 10 shows the Welcome page of a newly created document set.

Figure 10. The Welcome page of a newly created document set, with included content

1.9 Location-Based Metadata Default Values

SharePoint 2010 introduces the ability to specify default metadata values to be applied to items based on the location in which the item is stored. This simplifies the process of collecting valid metadata from end users. You can specify default column values for each content type or column binding at the root of the library, or alternately, you can specify default values for the root folder location itself. Additionally, you can specify default column values for each folder within the library. These default values are configured using the Change Default Column Values settings page, which can be accessed from the Library Settings page. As shown in Figure 11, the interface provided on this page is split into two sections. The left section is a tree view of the library’s folder structure, where you can select the container for which default values are to be specified. The right section of the interface provides a listing of each available column, its type, and the specified default value for the selected container. Also provided is the source of the default value specified and which content types the column is used in. It is possible to specify different default values for the same column at each level of the container hierarchy.

Figure 11. The Change Default Column Values settings page

It’s important to have a plan when you enter this interface, and to keep track of what you are changing, because it’s easy to think you are changing something at one level when the container selected on the left is actually on another level. If you don’t specify a default value for a given level, the default value will be inherited from the parent, all the way back up to the document library itself.

1.10 Document Center Template

SharePoint 2010 updates the out-of-the-box template for a Document Center site. The new template is preconfigured to enable many of the new document management features covered in this section, including the new metadata-based navigation feature. Use a Document Center site to create, work on, and store documents. This site can become a collaborative repository for authoring documents within a team or a knowledge base for documents across multiple teams.

The Document Center site’s Welcome page has been simplified to make it easier to use. It now includes the Upload A Document button, and the site’s navigation is no longer shown in tree view. By default, the document library is configured to require check-out, and versioning is set to track both major and minor versions.