Commenting in response to my Create a New Content Type in SharePoint post, sudhirgg2 is interested in documented best practices related to the subject, and asks:
I am interested in best practices related to multiple content types in the same library when multiple content types have multiple metadata?
Since this isn't an area in which I can claim much in the way of experience, my first stop on the path to enlightenment required a trip to the SharePoint wing of the Bamboo Library. Specifically, it was the definitive work on SharePoint best practices that I was seeking, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Best Practices, by Ben Curry and Bill English. There's an entire chapter dedicated to best practices surrounding Enterprise Content Management (ECM) in the book, several pages of which are related to content types in particular. I'd count as the authors' top two best practices recommendations as being, "don't specify too many columns as required when creating a content type," and "if a content type is already in use, you should be very careful about changing its definition." (Emphasis mine.)
Since I am a full-service and fully-licensed* SharePoint Investigator, my next stop was the ever-popular act of Googling for Answers, which practice led me to several sites which I'd highly recommend checking out for more detailed information on the topic:
- Nick Kellet's Planet MOSS site features an extended post on SharePoint Metadata Best Practices which includes a sizable portion dedicated specifically to Creating and Managing Content Types, and which is packed with best practices recommendations.
- Over on the Mindsharp blogs, the aforementioned Ben Curry provides an incredibly comprehensive post featuring the 25 Most Common SharePoint Server Design Questions. Not surprisingly, more than a few of those 25 questions pertain directly to content types and metadata, and the planning and management of same. As well, Ben provides a number of recommendations for further reading on the topic.
- Finally, how's this for a well-timed recommendation?: Pointbridge is offering a free Webinar on Best Practices for Managing SharePoint Content & Structure tomorrow (Tuesday, 3/31) at 10 a.m. Central Time. Tell 'em SharePoint Blank sent you!
From my reading, it seems that the overwhelming best practices recommendation in this area is to mark as few metadata fields as being required as possible. You want users to include essential metadata, but you don't want to force them to jump through unnecessary hoops in order to do so. It's also entirely possible that having too many required fields could very well defeat the purpose of metadata in the first place. Remember: It is possible to have too much of an otherwise good thing, especially if the entire exercise ultimately becomes excessively unwieldy for everyone involved.
* As used here, the phrase "fully licensed" may be correctly interpreted as being a textbook example of taking creative license, as creative is, in fact, the only license I possess.
Posted
Mar 30 2009, 03:57 PM
by
John Anderson
John Anderson joined Bamboo Solutions as Manager of Content & Syndication in May 2008 after a 12-year career at AOL. New to SharePoint at the time of his hiring, John was tasked with creating a new blog for the just-launched Bamboo Nation community in which he would document his daily SharePoint learning process. Thus was born the end user-centric SharePoint Blank, for which John authored 200 posts within a year, and which he continues to write today. John writes SharePoint Blank in addition to his responsibilities as Bamboo Nation's de facto managing editor and, while he has learned much about SharePoint in his first year, he gleefully awaits the release of SharePoint 2010, and the reset button that release will represent for SharePoint Blank.