Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Fourteen - Enterprise Metadata And Keywords Settings In List

Aakash Maurya
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Introduction

This article is the 14th part of my SharePoint series. Here are my previous articles,

In the previous article, I have explained about permission settings available in SharePoint lists and libraries using which users can control the permission and security of the items. Now in this article, I am going to explain about Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings available with lists and libraries.

In this article, I am going to cover the following topics in detail.

Background
Introduction to Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings
Enabling Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings
Using the Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings
Benefits of using Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings
Disabling Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings
Summary

Background

Sometimes, we have to maintain some master data that can be used in every format. If you are writing an article on the SharePoint blog site, then, in that case, every article will have some of the categories or some relevant tags. That tag must be unique and this tag will be useful in classifying the articles. Now consider a scenario where you have two site collections, Site Collection A and Site Collection B. The purpose of both site collections is to contain the article, and every article must have unique tags so that we can identify the article based on the tags. Normally if we are in one site collection then in that case we can make a master list for tag and provide the lookup of that list to our article list (We will be covering lookup and how it works in the upcoming articles in this series, for now, consider lookup like the primary key in SQL that will be used in other lists to provide reference of one list to another). By making a tag master list in both site collections we will increase the data redundancy. So it's not a feasible solution. In order to solve this problem, SharePoint has a very powerful and enterprise-level solution called Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings. Let’s explore Enterprise Metadata and Keyword in detail.

Introduction

Enterprise Metadata and Keyword is a type of column that can be assigned in lists or libraries to capture some relevant information regarding SharePoint lists or library items. For example, if you have a document library then, in that case, you might want to differentiate the type of documents based on some properties, the same is the case with SharePoint lists. In today’s article, we will be using the SharePoint custom list to demonstrate and understand the Enterprise Metadata and Keyword columns. The main advantage of having Enterprise Metadata and Keyword enabled on the lists is the keyword that we create that is managed tenant level in SharePoint Online. And if it's a SharePoint On-Premises environment then, in that case, it is maintained Web Application level.

When you enable Enterprise Metadata columns at lists or libraries then it allows you to type any text and it will auto-populate the already existing keywords as a fill-in dropdown and you can select any of the tags. If you do not select any predefined metadata and choose to create a new one, then just enter the new keyword. And when you will save the item the created keyword will be added into the Enterprise Metadata columns. So next time when you enter a new item and type a few letters in the Enterprise Metadata column then the previous value will be now available. Let’s check in detail how to enable the Enterprise Metadata and Keyword for the SharePoint list.

Enabling Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Setting

In order to demonstrate, I have created a new list with the name “Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings in Contoso Site Collection". The list is specified as follows.

Follow the below steps to enable the Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings.

Step 1. Open the list in which you want to enable the Enterprise Metadata feature. Then, click on the setting gear icon and then click on List Settings, as shown in the below figure.

Enterprise Metadata feature

Step 2. Locate and click on the “Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Setting” link available under the “Permission and Management heading”.

Management heading

Step 3. This will open up the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Setting Page. By default, this setting will be disabled for SharePoint Lists and Libraries. You have to manually enable it by checking on the checkbox that says “Add an Enterprise Keywords column to this list and enable Keyword synchronization”.

Enable Keyword synchronization

Just check the checkbox and click on OK. Once you have clicked on OK, SharePoint will now enable the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords functionality to this list. When you enable this service, SharePoint will create a new column to the list with the name “Enterprise Keywords”. In my list, the column is now added as I have activated the Enterprise Metadata feature.

Checkbox

You can see that the type of the column is Managed Metadata. So it means that the information stored in this column will be directly managed and stored in the term store of the tenant in the case of SharePoint Online (In the case of SharePoint On-Premises it will be stored in the web application term store).

Using Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings in SharePoint lists

Now go to the list where we have enabled the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings and try adding a new item to the list. You will now have a new column with the name “Enterprise Keywords” and the column will suggest some of the predefined values that will be stored previously. In my case, I have already a few items stored in the term store so here it is suggested as autocomplete.

Using Enterprise Metadata

Now, let’s enter the new keyword in the Enterprise Keywords column. I am entering "New Keyword” in the column and saving the item.

New Keyword

Once you have stored the item, try to save one more item in the same list. At this time, you will have your previously entered “New Keyword” already in the autocomplete drop-down.

Autocomplete drop-down

So, in this way, the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings work. This was the basic information regarding enterprise keywords. This keyword is used in fast content searches based on the keyword, it also allows us to organize our data in category wise.

If you want to see where your keywords are being stored, then please follow the below steps.

Step 1. Open the Site Setting of the site, and then click on “Term store management” under the “Site Administration” heading.

Term store management

Step 2. Here you will find your newly added keyword under the Keywords term set (we will be covering the term set in an upcoming article in this series).

Benefit of using Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Settings

There are several benefits of using Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings in SharePoint. Such as.

The information is maintained tenant-wise so you can use this information in any of the sites and any of the subsites throughout the tenant. We have enabled the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings in the Contoso Site collection. Now I have enabled the same setting in my other site collection named “PSM”. There I have a document library and I have enabled the Enterprise Metadata and Keyword Setting in the document library I am trying to update the properties of the document then we will find new columns as “Enterprise Keywords” and you can find the previous value “New Keyword” in the column as Auto Suggested.

Benefit of using Enterprise

This keyword can be used to filter the data by keyword. This will help you organize your data and search the SharePoint items or documents by given keywords.

Disabling Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings

Now let’s assume that we have to disable this setting from any list or library. In order to disable this setting, a normal user will follow the below steps.

Step 1. Open the lists ⇒ List Settings ⇒ Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings.

Step 2. From here, the user will try to uncheck the checkbox. But the checkbox is by default read-only. The user cannot uncheck the checkbox and this user will fail to disable this functionality.

So what is the correct way to disable the Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings from the lists? There is a trick. Please follow these steps to disable it.

Step 1. Open the list setting page as we have discussed in earlier sections. Click on the “Enterprise Keywords” columns from the list as shown in the figure.

Once you click on the column, it will open up the edit column page. And then click on the “Delete” button.

Delete

Once you have deleted this column, again open the list setting page and click on the “Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings” link and now you will see that we have successfully disabled the settings. The option will be again Unchecked.

Unchecked

Note. Although I have demonstrated using SharePoint custom list, it is the same for the SharePoint libraries too.

Summary

In this article, we have explored the concept and usage of Enterprise Metadata and Keywords settings pages. We have also seen what Enterprise Keyword is, how we can use it, how we can enable it, also how we can disable it. Also, I have demonstrated a real-world example of how we can make use of Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings.

In the next article, I am going to cover Information Management Policy settings. If you have any questions or queries regarding Enterprise Metadata and Keywords Settings then please mention them in the comment sections.