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Content Management

Changing a site column or content type group to the _Hidden group

Content types and columns use Groups to organize them. These are used so things are easier to find as there are a lot of default columns and content types (600+ columns and 80+ content types). As you turn on more features you will continue to get other content types and columns added to your site for you to use. You can access the site column and site content type through the Site Settings page.

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Once you go into either page you will see the information organized by Groups with a Show Groups drop down on the top right of the page to easily filter.

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What you WON’T see on either of these pages are a collection hidden content types and columns.  A good example is the overall Title column for the Item content type. This is a very crucial column that is used across many site content types. So if you change the Title column at the site level, it will cascade to all of your content types and lists that are using that column. I have worked with many clients that did not fully understand what they were updating when they did this so it’s fairly common to see a field like this renamed. If you go into the site columns page you will not see this column because it is part of the _Hidden group. If I go in through site content types -> Item -> Title column, you will see that the column exists in the _Hidden group.

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To change the group of this column you can either select an existing group or create a new group.

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Once you make your changes the column or content type that you changed will now be viewable under the site columns or site content types page in the group that you selected.

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Now what if you wanted to change this back or add a new column or content type to the _Hidden group? When you go back to the edit page you will see that under the Existing group drop down you don’t have the _Hidden option.

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All you need to do is type “_Hidden” in the New group text box and it will move it into the _Hidden group and it will NOT create a new group.

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Now when you go back to the site columns or site content types page you will no longer see what you moved to the _Hidden group.

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Steps to hide content from Delve in Office 365

When Delve was released by Microsoft it was pretty groundbreaking in the content management world. There was finally a tool that would help people find content no matter where it was located. This is one of the primary struggles that I work with clients with all the time. People love to think that adding custom managed metadata and building a super complex information architecture will allow people to find content easier. In some use cases this works but as a daily business practice this can drive people away. And once you break down those ECM walls you end up with unorganized chaos. As an ECM guy my palms get sweaty just thinking about some of the setups I have worked on where millions of files are strewn across file shares with no good way to ever find anything. So when Delve came along and basically said; “I don’t care where your content is – here are the files that I think you should be using.” this lessened the need of an in-depth ECM process and at the same time opened up people’s eyes around content security. I don’t want to go too much into Delve as a whole but here is some quick info and handy links before I break down how to hide content.

What is Office Delve?

  • Delve helps you discover the information that’s likely to be most interesting to you right now – across Office 365. Find information about people – and through people – and help others find you.
  • You don’t have to remember the title of a document or where it’s stored. Delve shows you documents no matter where they’re stored in OneDrive for Business or in Sites in Office 365.
  • Delve never changes any permissions, so you’ll only see documents that you already have access to. Other people will not see your private documents.
  • Office Delve for Office 365 admins

Hiding content from Delve

You may have a scenario in which you don’t want content to appear in Delve no matter what. Some examples could be high volume transactional processing files or payroll tracking information. Thankfully Microsoft has given us a simple way to hide content from Delve by using a site column called HideFromDelve. This can be done at the library level as well but I wanted to provide instructions so end users can have the power to add this column after it has been created once.

Important note: This will only hide content from the Delve app itself. The document will still be viewable via search and the Office Graph.

  1. Navigate to the site that has a library of files in which you want to be able to hide them from Delve
  2. Use the gear in the top right to go to Site Settings

  3. Under Web Designer Galleries, click on Site columns

  4. Click Create


  5. Enter the column information and click Ok, the name and type have to be EXACT for this to work.
    1. Name: HideFromDelve
    2. Type: Yes/No (checkbox)
    3. Default value: No


  6. Navigate to the library that you want to hide content and go to Library Settings via the ribbon


  7. Under the list of columns, click the link Add from existing site columns

  8. Scrolls down in the Available site columns list and select the newly created HideFromDelve column and click the add button to move it across. Then click Ok

  9. Navigate back to your library and you can begin marking documents to be hidden from Delve. The quickest way to do this is through the Quick Edit view.

  10. After the next scheduled crawl, the document will no longer appear in Delve!

Don’t create a SharePoint site with the URL “con”

This might not be news to everyone but this issue was a new one for me. I went to go create a site for a client around the state of Connecticut. I had created multiple other sites using the first 3 characters of the state name; ARI, WIS, etc. So I then went to go create a site with the URL of “con” ……

And then……

Server Error in ‘/ Application with a 404 cannot be found error! At first glance this makes no sense. Your site exists, you can see it in site contents:

I found out that this was due to a reserved words list. This list is not directly within SharePoint, but within the fundamental rules of naming files in Microsoft, regardless of file system. Here are the words that you cannot use as the name of a site, library or list.

CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9

If you have created one of these sites you can still delete them through Site Settings -> Content and Structure.

Select your sub site and click Delete.

Adjusting Email Notifications For SharePoint 2013 Task Lists

When looking at the settings of a SharePoint 2013 task list you no longer have the option to enable email notifications.  This used to be found under List Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Send e-mail when ownership is assigned.

This is what it looks like in 2010.

tasknotifications

This can be still be turned on using Powershell in SharePoint 2013.  Here is the powershell to perform that task along with a link back to the source of the script.  Thanks to the creator of the script karimSP!

$site=Get-SPSite "http://sharepoint2013/"
$web=$site.OpenWeb()
$list=$web.Lists.TryGetList("Tasks")
if($list -ne $null)
{
 $list.EnableAssignToEmail =$true
 $list.Update()
}

Adjusting when the assigned to task email is fired

20  Fortunately we have the ability to change the types of event that fire these emails in powershell.  The primary use case I used this for is too only send task emails on creation of the item (Add).

The available options for when notifications are sent are listed in the SPEventType enumeration and they are:

Member Name Description
Add Additions to the list or list item. (0x00000001)
Modify All changes made in a list or list item. (0x00000002)
Delete Deletion of a list or list item. (0x00000004)
Discussion Changes in Web discussions. (0x00000FF0)
All All events pertaining to the list or list item. (-1)

 

Powershell to update the events

I have included variables at the top of the script that you can enter depending on the location of the task list(s) along with which ones you want to update.  Make sure you run the powershell to activate the assigned to email, the script above, prior to running this script.

##################################################################
# NAME: SharePoint2013TaskAlertEventTypes.ps1
# DESCRIPTION: Script to adjust SharePoint 2013 task list email notifications on different events
# AUTHOR: Drew Madelung
# LAST UPDATED: 11/11/2015
##################################################################

# ***IMPORTANT*** The powershell to enable assigned email notifications must be done prior to this script being ran

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell

# Set variables - EXAMPLE variables are set
$sitecollectionUrl = "http://sharepoint2013"
# Eventtypes can be: All, Add, Modify, Delete, Discussion
$eventType = "Add"

# Optional variables - if not used, all event types for all assigned to task alert email notifcations on the listed site will be updated
$subsiteUrl = "/subsite"
$listUrl = "lists/tasks"

$site = Get-SPSite $sitecollectionUrl

# Get subsite if entered
if ($subsiteurl -eq "") { $web = $site.OpenWeb() } else { $web = $site.OpenWeb($subsiteUrl) }

$a = $web.Alerts

foreach ($alert in $a)
{
 $alerttemplate = $alert.DynamicRecipient
 if ($alerttemplate -eq "AssignedTo") {
 if ($listUrl -eq "") {
 $alert.EventType = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventType]::$eventType
 $alert.Update()
 Write-Host 'Updated event type to' $eventType 'for the list' $alert.list
 }
 
 else {
 if ($alert.ListUrl -eq $listUrl) { 
 $alert.EventType = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventType]::$eventType
 $alert.Update()
 Write-Host 'Updated event type to' $eventType 'for the list' $alert.list
 } 
 } 
 } 
}
$web.Dispose()
$site.Dispose()            Write-Host 'Updated event type to' $eventType 'for the list' $alert.list
            }
            
        else {
            if ($alert.ListUrl -eq $listUrl) { 
              $alert.EventType = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEventType]::$eventType
              $alert.Update()
              Write-Host 'Updated event type to' $eventType 'for the list' $alert.list
            }    
        }    
    }    
}
$web.Dispose()
$site.Dispose()

Link to download powershell script

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If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for this script please let me know!

Not folders or metadata, why not folders & metadata?

SharePoint is built and ready for content management but it can be a challenge to take advantage of the tools it provides. The question of whether folders or metadata should be used is a question that is asked over and over in every SharePoint project and SharePoint community. The 2 primary methods for organizing content in a document library is with folders and metadata. This is a topic that is very important and can make or break a successful SharePoint project roll-out. Everyone always asks what is the best strategy? Most SharePointers will quickly jump to “Folders are bad! Metadata is good!”. As a consultant must say though, it depends.

Are folders evil?

Everyone knows what content management using folders looks like. Managing content in folders was happening well before computers. When I was in middle school I had my trapper keeper and then awesome folders for each of my classes. I had my primary folder which was my trapper keeper and my nested folders for my classes. That same premise was done in basic file shares in computers. That premise has since been migrated into content management solutions like SharePoint. Content is stored in a collection of nested folders in a document library and organized in a way that probably made sense to the person who set them up, but may or may not make sense to others.

There are multiple disadvantages to folders which are highly publicized. There are more that can be discussed but these are the major ones that come up the most.

  • URL length limitation   —   Overall URL length is limited to 256 characters
  • Forced grouping   —   Everything file HAS to belong to a folder and cannot fall into multiple categories
  • File URL   —   Moving a file from one folder to another means the URL of the file changes
  • Folder naming   —  Folder names cannot contain special characters
  • Workflows   —   They cannot be performed on folders
  • Lack of control of information architecture or taxonomy   —   A folder can be edited by anyone with contribute rights which could break a standard
  • Internal knowledge   —   When people turn over information is lost which can include the original rationale behind a folder structure

What about this metadata thing?

Metadata is one of the strongest factors that places SharePoint amongst the top collaboration platforms. Metadata allows for the tagging of content with attributes that classify the content. For example an mp3 loaded onto a computer has attributes like Artist, Album Title, Track length. These attributes help describe what song it is so you can quickly listen to what you want. Can you imagine going through a deep folder structure just to get to your songs? How about not being able to quickly sort by artist or doing a search by most plays? This metadata tagging has great advantages for content management. As with music tagging, once you apply metadata to documents it is then possible to provide better searching, filtering, categorization, grouping, and sorting. This allows you to look at data in different ways with the capability of enterprise metadata across multiple documents.

But metadata may not fit everyone’s needs. There is a large planning and discovery phase that has to occur prior to launching a metadata structure to ensure it covers all different kinds of content across teams. After the discovery this structure needs to be developed and implemented. And after it is developed it will require more advanced change management and training than if folders were just being used. This can be a very new philosophy to people that can be challenge to understand as it is being adopted.

So what about those folders again?

After knowing the disadvantages of folders and advantages of metadata there is another point that needs to be made which is the advantage of folders. Foremost with any SharePoint projects is end-user adoption and acceptance. It should be a goal to have sustained adoption of your project. This involves an extended adoption that does not drop off over time. People love folders and at times taking a strict stance against folders can just push people away from your sites. You could build the fastest, prettiest, most secure SharePoint farm in the world but it would be completely pointless unless people use it. And user-adoption is not the only advantage of folders.

  • Permissions   —   They can be set at the folder level and any documents residing in that folder inherit permissions
  • Default metadata tagging   —   Default values for metadata can be set based on the folder it is located in
  • Bulk upload   —   It is easy to drag and drop many files into a folder either via the browser or in explorer view

Can we use both?

YES!  It is completely possible and in some circumstances best to use both. Why not give an end user the comfort of putting a document into a folder and automatically adding metadata when they do it? Why not build an admin view where the content owners upload their documents in a folder structure but end users have a view which “shows items in all folders” with sorting and filtering?

Now using a hybrid approach you still fall under the same disadvantages stated earlier in this post. That means proper governance and maintenance of an approach like this is required for it to succeed. There cannot be deeply nested folders or many changes to the structure. There needs to be proper planning up front for the long term goals of the library, folders, and content to ensure a sustained solution.

One solution that we at Concurrency provide is the creation of an effective content management strategy. This strategy will help decide the best use cases for taking advantage of all of the tools that SharePoint has to offer while ensuring end-user adoption and a successful SharePoint project.