1. Why do I Care About SharePoint
Taxonomy and Metadata?
Steve Goldberg

2. Steve Goldberg, Sales Engineer at Axceler
 Software Engineer at Axceler for ControlPoint
 Prior to Axceler, was a consultant at Computer Sciences Corporation
(CSC), specializing in SharePoint development
 Current Role:
 Talk to 30-40 people weekly about how to govern SharePoint
 Metadata is always part of a governance plan but it is rarely executed
Twitter: @iamgoldberg Blog: iamgoldberg.com Email: steve.goldberg@axceler.com

4. Metadata MAKES SharePoint cool

5. What will help?
Metadata is the fundamental building block to
successfully surface data to end users
 Taxonomy adds structure
 Folksonomy refines the model
 Apply governance as needed (it always is)

6. Ugh…Definitions
In Biology, taxonomy is the science dealing with description,
identification, naming, and classification of organisms.
 “However, the term is now applied in a wider sense and now may
refer to a classification of things, as wells as to the principles
underlying such classification.”
 “Metadata provides context for data. Metadata is used to facilitate
the understanding, characteristics, and management usage of
data.”
Wikipedia.org

8. So what does that have to
do with SharePoint?
Metadata provides real business ROI
 Improved search
 Organize content without using the F word
 More usage of platform features
 More productivity

9. How do you measure
SharePoint’s success?
 End user activity rising on sites
 More content is being added
 Implemented business critical workflows
 Houses secure content

10. Measuring Success
It’s easy to put a value on quantitative
improvements to productivity
It is difficult to put a value on
qualitative improvements

13. What’s causing this?
 Ad-hoc content addition leads to junk in portal
 Content is in different locations
 Inconsistent taxonomy across farms and site collections
 No ownership of authored content

14. Ask yourself…
 Do you have content on a network drive?
 Do you have a deep folder structure in SP?
 Have you examined your site structure?
 Are you using the content type hub?
 Are you supporting social features of SP 2010?
 Do you need to support multiple languages?

15. Where do you start?
Taxonomies = term store in SP 2010
 Accessible through
Central Administration
or Site Collection

16. Managed Metadata Service
Create an enterprise wide taxonomy that is
centrally managed
Managed Metadata Enterprise Keywords
 Predefined by administrator  Words or phrases
 Create, copy, reuse, merge, added to
deprecate, move, or delete SharePoint
terms  Non-hierarchical
 Created manually or
imported through interface
 Hierarchical
 Synonyms (labels)
 Translatable

17. When to use managed metadata
 Finite list of potential values
 Need synonyms
 Hierarchical
Value Add
 Consistent, correct terminology
 Users are guided to use pre-set terms
 Dynamic and consistent (unlike choice columns)

18. What can I do with all this data?

19. Search Refinement

20. The Content Organizer

23. Workflow
Metadata can be used to drive workflow
functionality critical to the business
 For strategic environments
 e.g.: Assign task to certain person based on
column values like Approved Y/N, date submitted,
date reviewed, department
 Custom workflow is often used to apply metadata

24. Document Sets
“Like a folder, but better” – SharePoint admins
 Groups related content – can synchronize metadata
 Can be sent to record center to take advantage of
content organizer to route entire set
 Can version individual documents and the document
set itself- unlike a folder
 Document set can be part of a workflow instead of
individual documents

25. Document set settings

26. How can end users help?
Folksonomy
 The result of personal free tagging of pages
and objects for one’s own retrieval:
notes, tags, enterprise keywords column.
What are you doing to make your end users
more productive?

28. What’s folksonomy’s value?
Gives end-users power to derive their own
vocabulary and explicit meaning which may
have been originally inferred.
Users are not categorizing. They are connecting
items to provide their meaning in their own
context and understanding.

29. Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy
Business Employee
Taxonomy Folksonomy
SP Object

30. Promote to Term Store
Every person becomes an expert

31. Enabling Enterprise Metadata

32. What are users searching for?

33. Why are social tools important?
 They surface data
 They provide context
 They extend the search experience
 It’s the direction the world is moving in order
to communicate with others
 Cloud adoption is changing the focus from maintenance towards
productivity and performance - making social a layer
across the enterprise

34. SharePoint migraines
solved by metadata
 Documents in your SharePoint environment
are never found
 Content is put in the wrong lists and libraries
 Content is duplicated
 Content is obsolete

35. Governance!
Metadata needs to be a constantly
evolving part of your governance plan
 Who is going to update and manage terms
and content types?
 Who is talking to end users?

37. Axceler
Improving Collaboration Since 2007
– Mission: To enable enterprises to simplify, optimize, and
secure their collaborative platforms
– Delivered award-winning administration and migration
software since 1994
– Over 2,500 global customers
Dramatically improve the management
of SharePoint
– Innovative products that improve security, scalability,
reliability, “deployability”
– Making IT more effective and efficient and lower the total
cost of ownership
Focus on solving specific SharePoint problems
(Administration & Migration)
– Coach enterprises on SharePoint best practices
– Give administrators the most innovative tools available
– Anticipate customers’ needs
– Deliver best of breed offerings
– Stay in lock step with SharePoint development and market trends

38. Steve Goldberg
steve.goldberg@axceler.com
@iamgoldberg
Additional Resources available
 11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migrations http://bit.ly/j4Vuln
 The Insider’s Guide to Upgrading to SharePoint 2010 http://bit.ly/mIpOBZ
 Why Do SharePoint Projects Fail? http://bit.ly/d1mJmw
 Best practices for capacity management for SharePoint Server 2010,
TechNet http://bit.ly/nvNrig
 What to Look for in a SharePoint Management Tool http://bit.ly/l26ida
 The Five Secrets to Controlling Your SharePoint
Environment http://bit.ly/kzdTjZ

40. Join us right after the event at Firehouse Grill
for a free drink, kindly provided by AvePoint
and Rackspace! 1765 East Bayshore Road East
Palo Alto, CA 94303 (Next to Nordstrom Rack).
Drinks to be provided by…..