Sharepoint 2010 : Administering Enterprise Content Management - Document Management (part 1) - Document Libraries

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a set of capabilities to facilitate the seamless management of the entire content life cycle for unstructured content in Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Both on its own and as a complement to the collaboration capability, ECM provides the larger unified platform within which key content processes occur. ECM is a capability within SharePoint that has been and continues to see significant investment and improvements from Microsoft. SharePoint 2010 provides many enhancements not available in prior versions, as well as a set of new feature areas for managing metadata across your enterprise and for managing digital assets. The core vision behind ECM in SharePoint 2010 is to provide a comprehensive content management solution that empowers all employees and drives compliance across all documents. By facilitating user participation with an easy-to-understand interface, ECM controls the risks associated with unstructured content, including social content, ultimately driving down management costs and the support burden, while also limiting corporate legal exposure.

1. Document Management

The architectural elements that are central to SharePoint, such as document libraries, lists, and items, also provide the basis for many of the document management topics covered in this section. Document libraries were introduced in SharePoint 2003 and became an instant hit for users of the system. By providing an easy way to store and share documents, document libraries empower users by providing additional classification and organizational capabilities such as folders and library level metadata (columns). SharePoint Server 2007 introduced even more advanced capabilities such as versioning, document approval, integration with RMS, and a site level content type and site column capability that allowed site administrators to create implementation-specific schemas for the types of content that were to be stored within the system. These content types and their associated site columns can in turn be rolled down to libraries that employ the same parent content types, allowing for site collection–based metadata management that is completely integrated with the document storage capability.

SharePoint 2010 provides new features that extend those available in SharePoint Server 2007 by enabling the management of metadata across the entire enterprise. This includes the syndication of content types, the centralized management of site columns, and the keywords/values that fill them. The new service application architecture provides the ability for these ECM services to be data-isolated, shared, and subscribed to by Web applications or even site collections. The new architecture also allows services to be consumed across the wide area network (WAN) by remote SharePoint 2010 server farms.

SharePoint 2010 extends document management features in several areas, including the following.

• Open and save functionality

• Document sets

• Navigation

• Location-based metadata defaults

• Improved document center template

In the following sections, you will explore the basics of document management within SharePoint 2010, including a high-level overview of document libraries, key document management concepts, and the fundamental system elements used for document management. You will also review detailed procedures related to the configuration of document management within the system.

1.1 Document Libraries

Document libraries provide the basic building blocks for implementing document management within SharePoint. Document libraries are not the only place where documents can be stored (they can be added as attachments to other lists as well), but they are the designated document storage list type within the system. Within a document library, you can only store documents. Document libraries provide functional capabilities that are specifically designed for working with documents. Following are a few examples of this functionality.

• Check-in/check-out

• Versioning

• Approval

• Workflows

• Information management policies

Although many of these tools are also available with other list templates, the document library template provides access to them from the document management vector. For example, although all lists have workflow capabilities, document libraries come preconfigured with document-specific content types and workflows, ready for enhancing the document management user experience.

Creating a Document Library

To create a document library, visit the target site within which you want to create the library and perform the following steps.

1. From the Site Actions menu, select New Document Library, as shown in Figure 1.

2. Fill out the Name and Description for the new library.

3. In the Navigation section, choose the appropriate option if you want to have the new library available from the quick launch bar within the site.

4. In the Document Version History section, choose the appropriate option if you want to have a version created each time you edit a file in the new library.

5. Specify a document template for all new files created in the library under the Document Template section.

6. Click Create.

Figure 1. Select New Document Library from the Site Actions menu to create a new library.

After your new library is created, you will be forwarded to it. The library will appear as an empty list with a single link available that allows you to add a new document. At the top of the page, you will notice the new contextual Ribbon interface that is part of SharePoint 2010. The Ribbon will expose a Library Tools menu because you are in a document library. This menu will have two submenus.

• Documents (menu) A menu for creating, deleting, uploading, and working with documents in the library.

• Library (menu) A menu for working with the document library itself. This is where you will find the Library Settings button, along with access to library views and workflows.

Adding Documents to a Library

There are many ways to add documents to your new library. The following list provides a summary of the methods available for adding a document.

• Create a new document in the library via the New Document icon on the Ribbon.

• Upload a single document by clicking the Add New Document link within the library.

• Upload a single document by clicking the Upload Document icon on the Ribbon.

• Upload multiple documents by clicking the Upload Multiple Documents icon on the Ribbon, which opens the Upload Multiple Documents dialog box shown in Figure 2. This dialog box lets you either drag and drop files you want to upload or browse the file system for them.

• Save a document to the library directly from a Microsoft Office client application.

Figure 2. Uploading multiple documents to a library using the new drag and drop feature

Adjusting Document Library Settings

There are many tools you can use to manage documents within a document library. Many of these are provided as options that can be enabled or controlled through library settings. To view or change library settings, perform the following steps within the target document library.

1. On the Ribbon, select the Library menu under the Library Tools tab.

2. Click the Library Settings button. (You need Manage List permissions to access this button.)

3. From the Document Library Settings page, you can access the settings and options associated with each item, as listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Document Library Settings

SETTINGS	GROUP	DESCRIPTION
Title, description, and navigation settings	General Settings	Change the name and description, and specify if the library will be included in the Quick Launch.
Versioning settings	General Settings	Specify if content approval and check-out are required for the library and if a document version history is to be kept. Also included are granular options relating to version history and draft item security.
Advanced settings	General Settings	Allow management of content types, adjustment of the default document template, and adjustment of settings for opening documents. Set Custom Send To Destination, Folder options, Search visibility, and offline client availability. Specify if the library will be a Site Assets library, if items can be edited in Datasheet view, and if the library forms should be presented in a dialog box.
Validation settings	General Settings	Specify a formula for evaluation when new items are saved to the list as well as a message present to the user.
Column Default Value settings	General Settings	Specify a default value that is to be applied when new items are added in this location.
Ratings settings	General Settings	Specify if items in the list can be rated. This will create the ratings column for the list.
Audience Targeting settings	General Settings	Enable audience targeting for this list. This will create the targeting column for the list.
Metadata Navigation settings	General Settings	Select a list of available fields for use a navigation hierarchies within the list.
Per-location view settings	General Settings	Specify if this location inherits view settings from its parent, and if not, define the view settings for this location.
Form settings	General Settings	Specific to the use of InfoPath for the customization of the forms used by the list. Only available if supported.
Delete this document library option	Permissions And Management	Delete the document library and its contents, optionally sending them to the Recycle Bin if configured.
Save document library as a template option	Permissions And Management	Save the document library, and optionally its content, as a template. This template is saved to the site collection templates gallery and becomes available when creating a new library.
Permissions for this document library	Permissions And Management	Specify if the document library inherits its permissions from its parent, and if not, specify the permissions for this document library.
Manage files that have no checked-in version	Permissions And Management	Take ownership of files that are checked out to other users.
Workflow settings	Permissions And Management	Adjust list level workflow associations and settings.
Generate file plan report	Permissions And Management	Specify a location to which the file plan report is to be generated and run the report.
Information Management Policy settings	Permissions And Management	Specify library best retention schedules, the source of retention for the library (Content Types or Library and Folders), and source element–specific policies for retention.
RSS settings	Communications	Allow RSS for this list; specify the channel information, document options, columns, and item limit.