A beginner’s guide to Metadata

Over the years, no matter the advancements in technology, one thing has endured when it comes to organising content… Folders.

They have existed for so long and many of us are so familiar with them that we cannot fathom organising our content any other way!

Even as many companies migrate their file share to SharePoint, they are retaining this nested folder set up because it’s what they’re used to, they’ve been doing it this way for years and their staff don’t like change.

But what if there was a better way?

Introducing… Metadata

What is it?

Simply put, Metadata is just additional information about a document.

A real-world example is when you search for a laptop on Amazon, each laptop has different information labels associated with it such as Brand, Price, Operating System, Display Size etc. This enables us to easily filter by this information and quickly find what we are looking for.

In the case of SharePoint, an example could be a document called Project Risk Register, which has metadata for Customer Name and Project Name to describe what it’s about.  

Here’s how it would look:

Similarly to the Amazon example, you can use metadata for your documents in SharePoint to filter and easily find what you’re looking for.

So what’s the benefit of Metadata instead of Folders?

Superior Search

To find documents in a nested folder set up, you have to click into folders and sub folders to see what files are inside. Sometimes folders may even be empty!

With Metadata, it’s easy to filter the files and search them however you like.

It also makes it easier for new staff members to navigate and find what they are looking for as they don’t need to try and understand a folder structure where documents are buried and difficult to find.

Moving documents is easy

When using folders in SharePoint, moving documents requires actually moving it from one folder to another, changing the URL in the process and breaking any links.

With Metadata, you can simply assign different metadata to a document, retaining its location and URL.

Single source of truth

Storing documents in one library and using metadata to assign information to them keeps all documents in one place, rather than duplicate documents in different folders and sub folders.

URL Length

The character limit for URLs in SharePoint is 400 characters. This includes the file name as well as the site name, document library name, folder and sub folder names… It’s therefore easy to see how quickly this limit can be reached when using a nested folder set up. Breaching this URL limit will also prevent you from being able to move the document from one location to another.

Metadata on the other hand is not part of the URL and will therefore significantly reduce the URL length.

Grouping

Grouping documents is as close to folders as you can get when using metadata. You can create views of your document library that group documents together based on a category, giving the end user the illusion and familiarity of a folder structure. The best of both worlds!

Things to note

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and getting staff to assign metadata to documents instead of putting them in the right sub folder is definitely a big mindset change.

However, metadata is a great way to future-proof your documentation and avoid turning SharePoint into an expensive fileshare!