The new SharePoint 2010 Managed Metadata service is probably one of the biggest excitement factors for me.  For all the benefits and advantages that 2007 gave, one where I always felt it fell short was the handling of distributed metadata.

For review (and to explain my thinking) in 2007, Metadata management was usually handled in two ways:

First, add text, choice, or Yes/No type of field to enter simple metadata into. Examples of this kind of metadata could be an invoice dollar amount, open / closed status, project stage, etc.  Where this method allowed for the greatest user flexibility, it also caused the greatest headache for administrators trying to keep information ‘tagged’ in a consistent manner.

Second was to utilize Lookup fields to add data that was managed in different lists across a site collection.  Examples of this could be a list of projects, employee directory, or a list of current customers.  One of the biggest limitations on this type of metadata was it being tied to a particular site or site collection (if you made it into a site column) and could only be referenced in a limited scope.  Another big drawback was to filter, create views or interact with the lookup field outside of normal SharePoint channels.  To accomplish this, often administrators would have to resort to custom coding or pricey 3rd party tools.

In comes SharePoint 2010 with its new concept: Managed Metadata Services (MMS), Microsoft’s answer to organizations that need some consistency around how their information is managed and understood.   As I started to play with MMS I realized though it provides great power, it also causes great responsibility.  ( I think someone may of said something similar to this before :) ).  To get your head around what your organizational metadata really is, where it is and how to bring it all together is a both a great challenge and opportunity. Over the next several weeks I am going to be doing regular posts on my new best friend MMS, and how to plan, prepare and implement a solid managed taxonomy and folksonomy strategy.

With Beta 2 now out, I thought I would start out by discussing some of the ‘greats' and exciting features I found that people might find useful as they start working with the MMS.  Since Beta2 is meant to give you an opportunity to ‘learn by doing in 2010’, I thought it best to provide you my thoughts around some of the things I ran into as I played with the latest version.

**Heads Up: This blog posts was done on a pre-Beta2 build, so some things may change / be fixed.  As soon as I have our Beta2 up and running, I will re-run my scenarios and update the blog.

Before I start, let me share a few terms with you that I will be using throughout the series:

Term Store: Refers to one instance of the MMS.  Each term store contains all the managed and unmanaged keywords for the given MMS instance.  A term store can hold up to 1000 total Term Groups per store.

Term Group:  A term group is a collection of term sets and terms.  Term groups can be both managed and unmanaged.  When a new site collection is created, a site collection term set is created in the default MMS.

Term Set: A term set is a collection of terms managed together.  Examples of this type of grouping could be departments, facilities, company teams.  Each term set can have a maximum of 30,000 terms.

Term: A term is the simplest entity in MMS.  A term represents a single word or phrase that describes a complete topic.  Terms can have multiple layers of subterms, such as:

Departments > Finance > Accounts Payable > Payroll
Departments > Finance > Accounts Payable > Collections

A term store can have a maximum of 1 million terms per store.

Tagging: Tagging is a process of creating non-hierarchical keyword or term and assigning it to a piece of information.  Tagging is considered a more organic type of metadata development, allowing users to ‘tag’ important information with metadata that will assist in working with that information in the future.  I will be talking about this concept in great lengths in upcoming posts.

THE MMS GREATS

Great Feature #1 – Managing Term Store from the Site Collection

One thing I love is you can easily manage a MMS term store from any site collection it’s tied to.  This makes it extremely easy to add, edit, remove and work with the term sets while doing your regular site admin duties.  On caveat to this is: if you set-up non-site admins to be a group manager or contributor, you are going to have to teach them how to access MMS from the site admin area.

Great Feature #2 – Importing of structured Metadata

When you first take a look at the MSS, its interface is both easy to understand and work with.  You can easily create a term set and start adding terms one after another. 

Where entering in terms through the UI is a great experience, what about organizations that have thousands of terms they want to add.  MMS has the ability to import a term set through an easy to use process.  Just right click a term group and you can import a formatted CSV (comma separated values) file and be off and running.  How do you create the file?  Well Microsoft is even good enough to provide you with a sample file and how to organize it.

I even found out that you actually do not have to do the hierarchal organization, but instead can do a flat style approach (like below) and achieve the same results.

Once the import is complete, you have all your metadata in a nice, organized term set.

Great Feature #3 – Metadata Navigation

Once you start using MMS and adding metadata to all your information, SharePoint 2010 comes with the capability for you to navigate through document libraries or lists with Metadata navigation.  You can set-up this navigation to provide both a metadata navigation hierarchy and the ability to search for a combination of metadata values.  This feature provides so much opportunity, I will discuss it more and usage strategies in upcoming posts.

Great Feature #4 – Everything you can do with terms

One of the critical aspects of a good metadata practice is to not view it as a static system.  To take full advantage of comprehensive metadata, the system needs to be a living, breathing entity that can adjust as business circumstances change through its life.  With that, one of my hopes that was greatly fulfilled is the many choices you have to work with terms in the MMS once they have been created.

Merge Terms – You have the ability to merge terms together.  This will be huge, especially for organizations that want to use ‘tagging’ a lot as well.  As users add tags, you will most definitely run into issues such as misspellings, synonyms and alternate meanings.  Being able to take those similar tags, bring them into the MMS and merge them into a main term can help you keep your metadata structure clean.  Even better, if you have created other synonym labels for a term, those settings will be merged in as well.

Deprecate Term - Deprecating a term allows us to still use a term, but encourage our users to not use it in the future.  This could be extremely useful, especially if you are using the MMS to manage such data as departments, teams, company products, etc.  How often does a product name change, departments merge, or (sorry to say) a facility closes down.  Now instead of having to do a mass replace or remove, you can just deprecate the corresponding term so its still part of the system, but no longer used.

Move Term – Functions exactly like it sounds…you can move a term or term set to a new location in the current hierarchy or a new term group.  This is also the method you use to start to manage a ‘tag’ that one of your users created.  You move the tag into a managed term group.

Create synonyms – Another area that using MMS really shine is our ability to create synonyms (other labels) for the terms we used.  So instead of always having to refer to a department as Information Technology, users could also type in phrases such as IT, IS, Techies, geeks and still keep the metadata structure consistent.

Well that's it for this post.  Next (probably by tomorrow) I will be posting in some of the Gotchas with 2010 MMS.

SharePoint Designer 2010 has seen some drastic changes with its interface, functionality, and workflow creation.  In this posting I will be focusing on some of the high level enhancements with workflows.  To new SharePoint users some may ask, “What will SharePoint Designer workflow that my 2007 one can’t?”  The simple answer is MUCH, MUCH more.  SharePoint 2010 introduces a new interface and a lot of new features to deploy workflows across your organization more simply.

In SharePoint 2007, users were only able to build workflows that are attached to a single list or document library.  Therefore if a workflow was found to be useful and you wanted to use it over multiple lists, the workflow would have to be re-created step by step for each list (or you had to have a programmer do some complex steps to make it universally available).  SharePoint and SharePoint Designer 2010 provide new features that make this no longer the case.  Within 2010 a user is able to create a workflow tied back to a list or library, a re-useable workflow, or a site workflow.

Workflow tied to a list or library:
This is a workflow created by attaching itself to a list or library.  This works great for a workflow specific to a customized area that does not need to be replicated throughout other sites.  In comparison to SharePoint 2007 there is nothing much new here with the exception of interface enhancements and more available actions (which I’ll be covering in future postings).

Re-Useable Workflow:
New to 2010, this allows users to create a workflow attached to a specific content type or any item within SharePoint.  For example, a reusable workflow could perform an automatic notification and task assignment on any item that contains the word ‘agenda’ within the title.  This provides the benefit of allowing you to work with similar content across your entire system without the need of storing all information in a centralized list or library, yet still be able to take full advantage of workflow processes.

The ability to assign a workflow to a specific content type can save a great amount of time of redundant build-out.  Say you have a fairly advanced workflow with 10 or so steps that give results based on multiple fields with a custom content type.  Instead of having to re-create the workflow for each list where the content type is used, the workflow is tied back to the content type and can always be activated without recreation.

Best Practice recommends creating these new reuseable workflows in the root level site so it can easily be reused on any of its sub-sites. Do take note that once a workflow has been deployed in the subsites of a site collection, you will not be able to move that workflow up to the root site.

Site Workflows:
These workflows are tied directly to content items in a SharePoint 2010 site.  This allows you to create workflows that perform specific functionality on items only in that site. A good example of this type of workflow could be if a site owner wanted to create a specific type of usage logging for a particular site.  The site owner would create the workflow to monitor all content changes on the site and report specific information that may not be picked up in the standard usage reporting provided in SharePoint.

More Enhancements:
Having three different ways to implement workflows is quite an improvement over the previous versions of SharePoint, but I am not done yet.  Although this blog post is just an initial introduction, here are some more great features that caught my eye.

Parallel steps are now a possibility with SharePoint 2010.  This gives users the ability to perform multiple actions simultaneously without having to do everything in a sequential order.  Previously this was only available by developing a custom workflow application in Visual Studio.  This means that you could submit a document for approval by multiple people simultaneously without having to do complex coding to make it function. 

In-line action creation gives users the ability to start typing and allow SharePoint Designer to match up the options it thinks you are looking to perform.  Though this will be something that will take some time to get used to, it can save you a good amount of time while looking for actions or step options instead of having to use drop downs and picker menus previously used in the 2007 version.  For those that do not enjoy this new method, you still have the option to choose actions the previous way.

The last new feature I want to cover in this initial post is the ability to save workflows as a template.  As with many other features, this can save a tremendous amount of time if you have created a complex workflow that you would like to use again for other projects.  This is a feature that I have personally been looking forward to for a long time.  Templating a workflow saves as a packaged WSP file and is able to be re-imported through SharePoint Designer into any other SharePoint 2010 site.

This posting was to start to touch on some of the new features within SharePoint Designer’s workflow functionality.  Other new features include more actions, improved action, more advanced conditions, and more ‘drag and drop’ functionality.  Stay tuned for more posts on workflow enhancements in SharePoint 2010.

I wanted my first blog post on the SharePoint 2010 to be all about the new feature that I was most concerned about from the user perspective….the ribbon interface.  It really scared me that using the ribbon interface in SharePoint would cause many of the initial problems that plagued my adoption (and many others) of the Office 2007 ribbon UI.

Now I have been using Office 2007 for the past 3+ years and was not that fond of the ribbon UI when I started. To me, initially, it was very difficult to figure out what commands went with what tab. Microsoft decided to change not only the interface, but the language they used for many different functional areas of the Office programs. It took me a while, but eventually I started to get the hang of it. I think one of the most important things I took away from that experience was that it was true –things were difficult to find initially…but once I found a particular command / function, it made sense why it was located where it was. So I thought to myself, will the same thing happen with the new SharePoint ribbon UI?

In regards to the new SharePoint UI, one of the first things I would say is ‘I hope you already have Office 2007’.If not, then the new UI is going to take a little bit of getting used to. Working with the ribbon is a different experience than you are used to and takes a little getting the hang of. If you have used Office 2007 or you are a quick learner, I will say that some of the new ribbon features are really quite nice and have some real time-saving aspects.

As you may or may not already know, SharePoint 2010 has been totally Ajax enabled. The new UI uses a ton of pop-up windows for everything from creating new items to working with behind the scenes administrative functions. You will see right away that this alone adds a ton of time saving functions to your daily SharePoint lives.

When you first open up SP 2010, you will immediately notice the new ribbon at the top. You are immediately able to access 3 different tabs by default. The first is BROWSE which allows you to return to the built-in navigation after you have worked on other ribbon tabs.

The 2^nd is the EDIT tab which allows you to edit the aspects of the page, check in / check out, edit permissions and also edit the brand new mobile page view. This is another really cool feature that I will discuss in later posts in which you can change the way the page is viewed and functions in a mobile browser.

The last tab is the SHARE & TRACK tab.On this tab you can access new features such as a more streamlined RSS feed and social media features such as email a link and copy it to other applications. 

There are more tabs that show and that also brings me to my favorite new feature of the SharePoint 2010 UI…its contextual intelligence. Much like in Office 2007, the ribbon interface has the intelligence to understand what aspect of SharePoint you are working with and show you the appropriate functions / commands most frequently used. This allows you quick access to things like creating a new list item, editing or rapidly accessing different views. Having most forms pop-up as a new screen adds another level of quick user interaction to streamline work with SharePoint lists and libraries. My favorite part of the contextual intelligence, though, is that SharePoint is smart enough to work with webparts inline as well. So if I am on a webpart page and click on a webpart view of a list, I immediately have access to all the functions my permissions allow around that list. I can easily create or edit, or switching to the contextual ‘Edit List’ tab on the ribbon I can quickly access base list functions such as permissions, or add new columns and views. Not having to click on the webpart and enter the base list view itself is a HUGE time savings and a great experience from an administrator’s perspective. I think you are going to find a lot of administrators who are going to go gaga over this new feature, especially if you are one that needs to work with lists and library properties across sites all day long. The new feature definitely saves time.

My second new favorite feature of the ribbon UI is the ability to edit a lot of new things. For instance, when you access a list or library, you have the ability to edit the default Display or Edit Forms. This is a concept completely new in 2010 and makes a huge leap forward. For those who have never done this in 2007, previously would need to either do form code to override the defaults or create another form and replace the defaults. Now you can quickly edit the default forms to hide fields, change captions or formatting to make it more usable. With a new feature like this, IT pros are going to need to learn a lot more about UI design to make the changes that will make the whole system easier to use.

My third favorite feature of the ribbon UI is its content management features. Gone are the days of constantly switching screens and going through page refreshes to edit content on your SharePoint page. SP 2010 includes new inline editing features which take full advantage of the ribbon UI. Set a page to EDIT, click in a content webpart and immediately see the ribbon UI change to a word like interface where you can easily change fonts, styles, type size and utilize advance content editing features. Now where this is a great step forward, it is also one that makes me the most nervous, because we all know what can happen if we let our end users run wild with fonts, styles and color. I will be doing some blog posts down the road on how we can modify the ribbon to limit our users choices to keep our look-n-feel consistent across the entire installation.

The last feature I am going to talk about in this first post of my new blog is one that has been long in coming, that is the new webpart insert interface. The webpart interface got a major facelift and now is more streamlined as part of the overall page process.

You can easily insert webparts through a built in interface and no longer have to switch screens or rely on pop-ups to do so.

The coolest new feature with that is your ability to preview your webpart before you add it to see that it is displaying the data or functions you want it to. I found this especially useful when doing development work from a productivity sense. Instead of having to add the webpart each time, if I was pulling up specific data, I could check what would display in the webpart preview window.

Well that is it for my first post of the new blog. Over the coming weeks and months I will be blogging on some of the other new UI features in SP 2010 and also some of its accompanying tools such as SP Designer and Workspaces.