Metadata is one of SharePoint's most powerful features. If you've ever attended a SharePoint conference or gone through expert-led SharePoint training, you've certainly heard this term used a few times. Still, you're probably perplexed or wondering how you can use this amazing technology to make your life easier in the real world. It's much more beneficial now that metadata can be used in Microsoft Teams' contemporary SharePoint interface.

What exactly is metadata?  

When you search the term "metadata" on the internet, the most common response is "data about data," which isn't particularly helpful. Metadata is additional information about your files in SharePoint, such as the author, file name, creation date, content type, and file size, to mention a few, that helps you find, retrieve, and organize your enterprise material.

SharePoint taxonomy

A taxonomy is a method for categorizing things in a certain way. A taxonomy organizes words, names, and concepts that define something into groupings and then places them in a hierarchy.

From biological systems to organizational structures, people create taxonomies for practically every type of knowledge. There are several subcategories within each of these primary groups. The entire system functions as a taxonomy when looked at as a whole.

There are really too many ways for organizations to establish taxonomies to list here. They design taxonomies for financial systems, organizational charts, and job classifications for managing personnel, product catalogs, and so forth. All of these taxonomies are information hierarchies with structured hierarchies; formal classification systems that aid in the management of information.

Using SharePoint Manage Metadata

Here's how to use a managed metadata column in your SharePoint project if you've decided it's right for you. To create managed metadata in SharePoint, follow these two steps:

Create a managed metadata column:

A managed metadata column is a unique column that is associated with a particular term set. It can be added to a list or library just like any other column, which can be created from the Site Settings page. Go to the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings, click Site columns, and then Create to create a new Managed Metadata site column. When creating a site column, select the column name and click on Managed Metadata.

Create a term set and link it to the managed metadata column

A term set is a collection of terms with a hierarchical structure that can be managed in the Term Store via a tree control view. The Term Store is not accessible to everyone for security reasons. You must be a Term Store Administrator, Group Manager, Farm Administrator, or Contributor for term sets to access the Term Store. You can either manually create a term set by adding values one at a time or import a term set from a spreadsheet using a .csv template from the Term Store. The process is easy when you have a long list of values for the term set that you're about to create. A term set named "XYZ" has been created in the example below. If necessary, additional terms can be added by selecting the "Create Term" option.

Once you've finished creating the term set, return to the managed metadata column and select the term set you just created, which will link the set of values to that particular column. For example, the "XYZ" term will be linked to the "XYZ" managed metadata column.

Important decisions to make when using a managed metadata column

You'll be presented with a number of choices as you continue to configure your newly generated controlled metadata column and term set. The submission policy and the values that will be accessible for tagging are particularly crucial because they will help to support and improve your taxonomy governance and evolution.

Policy on Submissions

To put some form of taxonomy governance in place, you'll need to figure out how you'll control the term set's values. You have the option of having a closed or open submission policy. Users must have the necessary permissions to add new terms to a closed term list (e.g., Group Manager or Contributor for term sets). This gives you more control over your taxonomy's evolution and makes it more orderly. Depending on the function of the metadata field, an open term set indicates that any user can add new words to the column that is mapped to the term set, posing the risk of the taxonomy increasing uncontrollably. We suggest utilizing a limited word set and allowing consumers to submit suggestions via a different route (e.g., a feedback log or a taxonomy council).

Values that can be used for tagging

You can choose which terms you want to be available for tagging in the Term Store. In other words, instead of allowing users to tag content with both the first and second levels of the taxonomy, you might want to allow them to tag content just with the second-level values. Alternatively, you may want to allow them to tag content with any value within the taxonomy, in which case the box for all values will be checked. This is dependent on the column's function and the type of values. You might have a term set named Country, for example, in which the values are organized first by continent (first-level), then by country (second-level). Uncheck the "available for tagging" box for the first-level continent values if you want users to tag content solely with nations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SharePoint's controlled metadata columns and term store tool give taxonomists and organizations a lot of options and flexibility for implementing and managing their designs, as well as for implementing and evolving their corporate taxonomies more efficiently. It's crucial to remember that managed metadata columns aren't appropriate for all metadata fields. Before settling on a managed metadata column, you might want to examine other choices, such as a choice column. Refer to the Microsoft publications "Introduction to Managed Metadata" and "Create a Managed Metadata Column" for more information and thorough procedures on how to create managed metadata columns.