Chapter 11

Configuring the Managed Metadata Service

IN THIS CHAPTER, YOU WILL LEARN TO:

• CONFIGURE CONTENT TYPE SYNDICATION
  • Creating the Content Type Syndication Hub
  • Configuring the Content Type Hub
• CONFIGURE TERM SETS
  • Using the Term Store Tool
  • Creating a Term Set Group
  • Creating a Term Set
  • Importing and Exporting a Term Set
  • Creating and Configuring a Term
• USE TERM SETS
  • Creating a Managed Metadata Column
  • Using a Managed Metadata Column
  • Configuring Metadata Navigation
• MANAGE ENTERPRISE KEYWORDS
  • Enabling Keyword Tagging
  • Viewing Keywords
  • Modifying, Deleting, and Moving Keywords
  • Blocking Keywords

One of the key features that sets SharePoint document management apart from storing documents on a file server is the ability to attach custom metadata. Metadata is the term used for the descriptive attributes or properties of files, separate from the content in the files. Metadata is sometimes embedded in the file format, as in the case with the Author and Keywords properties found on Microsoft Office documents. In some cases (such as PDF files), the file formats allow for custom properties to be created on files.

Prior to SharePoint 2010, however, no method existed to ensure that all the file formats stored by an organization supported the exact same set of properties. This made it difficult to rely on the metadata for document management and searching because you could never be sure that all the files you needed had been assigned the values you were looking for.

SharePoint 2010 introduces Content Type Syndication, which allows a single set of content types to be used throughout all site collections. In addition, the Term Sets feature lets you create centralized lists of values for use in metadata columns. In this chapter, we will look at both of these features and the service that supports them, known as the Managed Metadata Service. We will also explain the Enterprise Keywords feature, which supports free-form tagging of documents with metadata.