Should i use folders in sharepoint

Missing out on Views : One of the coolest SharePoint features is the ability to have multiple views of your content! You then have flexibility to filter, modify and customize a view that allows you to quickly and easily access the documents and files that you need. If you use folders…you get one view and only one view. If you use metadata properly, you can create many views using whatever properties you choose. This definitely speeds up your workflow. Also, there is no breadcrumb trail on the navigation bar to navigate to the parent folder.

The folder structure is linear. Even then we strongly advocate having only a single level of folders and never, ever more than two,. At this point you have to use your judgement — generally staff work for the company and the company can dictate ways of working; there are rules for not operating machines without guards, even though they can be somewhat inconvenient for operators until it saves one losing an arm ; the digital health of your knowledge is as important.

A suitable policy for use of your intranet can address this — shared content, core business processes, managed information should not allow use of folders in libraries; personal and team working areas may use folders, but should avoid deeply nested folders, should also use flat views where the folder structure is hidden and must be actively managed by the team to avoid duplicates and misfiling.

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First Last. Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe. Turn on suggestions. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Showing results for. Show only Search instead for. Did you mean:. Sign In. Thanks in advance, Oz. Loryan Strant.

Yes and no. There's still a place for metadata, but it does almost appear as if the SharePoint team has given up. The reality is no matter how well you architect your taxonomy within SharePoint - people still want folders.

And unfortunately when you give them a folder-like experience with custom views, when that library is sync'd to the local machine it's all for naught. So my guidance is to use metadata where you can, and use folders where metadata won't work. Oz Oscroft. Tags: metadata. Susan Hanley. Thanks all - really useful insights. Brian Kinsella.

Some tips Attend one of Susan's sessions! Better yet - engage her firm's services. Susan's is a leading practice in this space. Ok Susan - you owe me a drink ; Harness end user instinstics by automatically assigning metadata values using Column Default Value Settings.

Defaults can be set on folder-by-folder, column-by-column bases. Values are inherited from parent folders. Touchless for end users - as long as governance well established and users put files where they belong Layer lightly. I generally keep it to 3 levels max Metadata - even 'metadata light' - is the gift that keeps on giving: Can help bubble up the most relevant content when searching Easy to implement at chosen scopes when using content types and term sets: farm, site collection, subsites, x-site collections Combine closed taxonomies with open folksonomies great way to get user feedback on the fly.

Refer to my blog post for more details: List View Threshold Error… watch your column types! REgarding Thoughts, opinions, discoveries and tips regarding…. REgarding Follow. Written by Joanne Klein Follow. More From Medium. Dhruv Patel. Samrudha Kelkar. Tumin Sheth.