SharePoint document management principles

SharePoint is well respected as a document management solution for both the large enterprise and smaller SME. However, unless best practice is adhered to and some willingness to change some common document management practices, SharePoint is in danger of becoming just another shared drive and the real benefits of using SharePoint as a document management solution are lost. 

Some common issues faced include:

• Poor user experience
• Security not configured properly or understood
• File duplication
• Overwhelmingly large file repositories
• List view threshold limits reached
• Nested filing structures, making file location hard to find and potential for file duplication
• Lengthy URLs exceeding SharePoint threshold
• Poor search functionality
• Limitations of use such as the lack of filtering and sorting
• Missed opportunities, such as dynamic content surfacing

The process of migrating documents from network file shares to SharePoint is partially to blame. It is common for businesses to simply want to reflect what they have in their file share structure in SharePoint, without understanding how SharePoint is best configured or best practice principles for document management.

To take full advantage of SharePoint, it is recommended to convert network file share structure into a solution architected based on best practices in the SharePoint platform.

The following best practice principles represent a few areas to considered when migrating to SharePoint:

1. DOCUMENT VERSIONING

Document library versioning will ensure a complete version history is kept and maintained. This allows document changes to be tracked and provides a mechanism to allow users to restore from previous versions and view details on past changes made.

Major and minor versions can be maintained, and there is the option to specify how many major and minor versions are to be retained.

Key benefits:

• Provide the option for restoring previous versions of documents as required
• Track changes on documents.

2. INDEXED COLUMNS

When a list or library has a large number of items, you must carefully plan its organisation and how users need to access the data. By planning and using a few key list and library features, you can ensure that users can find information without adversely affecting the performance of the rest of your site.

To improve the performance of a large list or library, you can index a column. An index on a column enables SharePoint to quickly analyse the data in that column, even when working with thousands or even millions of items. For a view to quickly filter through a large number of items, the filter must be applied to a column that is indexed.

Microsoft announced Predictive Indexing [2017] which will change the way large lists and libraries handle throttling. Column indexes will be added automatically behind-the-scenes as you need them based on views you’ve created, columns you’re filtering on, etc. The net effect of this is the limit has been increased from 5000 up to 20000 (if they are added prior to reaching this limit!). You will see the benefits of this if you are viewing a list/library in the modern experience.

Key benefits:

• Indexed columns in document libraries bypasses the 5,000 items list view threshold limit
• Improved performance and helps manage large libraries.

3. DOCUMENT LIBRARY NAMING AND FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS

Document libraries must have a logical name to make the document management solution intuitive to use and ensure content is uploaded into the correct location. This would improve user adoption and collaboration.

It is also important to ensure no spaces are included in document library internal names. On the Internet, spaces are encoded as ‘%20’ in the URL. Spaces are acceptable to be included in the display name for document libraries. Without spaces, the URL is constructed in a more user-friendly manner.

File naming conventions are recommended to be named in a logical manner and short to ensure URL length limits are adhered to. It is highly recommended to not use any special characters in folder names, file names and also in document library names. Special characters such as ampersand, are not to be used. Always use alpha and numeric characters only.

Key benefits:

• Logical naming of document libraries and file names improves navigation and makes the system more intuitive
• Shorter and more user-friendly URLs and no special characters used ensures continual system availability and functionality with improved usability
• A logical file name convention will be successfully searched and search results are easily to understand.

4. STICK TO ONE TYPE OF CONTENT PER LIBRARY

To avoid hours of adding tags to bulk uploads, using one type of content per library can save time. This means organising content distributed across different libraries can aid in reducing time required to tag documents in their corresponding libraries.

Key benefits:

• Structure document libraries to store individual content types, shortening the time required to bulk tag documents
  
• Improves content organisation and find-ability.

5. USE METADATA INSTEAD OF FOLDERS

It is best practice to limit the use of folders. Folders can cause issues such as users misfiling documents, documents getting lost in nested folders, and it’s more time consuming to navigate around document libraries to locate content.

Tagging is preferable because it is more flexible. It also means you can view items by different classifications, which enriches the functionality of your library. Metadata provides the ability to view the list of files in the document library in different ways that allows you to find content more quickly and also produce quality reports that is virtually impossible using folder structures.

Key benefits:

• Better organisation of content
• Ability to filter and group content using metadata
• Provide useful reporting of content in document libraries
• Improved content find-ability
• Eliminates chances of documents getting lost in nested folders
• Minimises chances of content getting misfiled.

6. SITE COLUMNS AND SITE CONTENT TYPES

As a rule of thumb, document libraries should have no more than 5 columns for metadata. Site columns and site content types are definitions that can be re-used across sites (if curated via the Content Type Gallery). This saves set up time and helps minimise admin overhead.

Site content types help structure a document library’s content by defining the metadata required to be captured in the content type, and associating the content type to files in the library.

Key benefits:

• Better organisation of content
• Ability to filter through files in a document library based on content type and metadata
• Re-usability of site columns and site content types across sites
• Push changes made to site columns out across all areas that inherit from the site column
• Push the associated document template and read only settings for a site content type to all areas that inherit from the site content type
• Create views in the document library utilising the content types and metadata columns.

7. CHECK OUT FEATURE

If the organisation requires the ability to co-author on Microsoft Office documents in the library, it is recommended not to turn on the ‘Require Check Out’ setting.

The function of this feature is to prevent alteration of a document by multiple individuals. This is a good feature to have when there is more than one person working on a specific project or to prevent another from making changes to completed work without consulting you about it first.

Key benefits:

• Minimising data conflicts by turning on the require check out feature
• Allowing for co-authoring of Microsoft Office documents when the require check out feature is turned off
• Maintain data integrity.

8. DOCUMENT LIBRARY PERMISSIONS

In document libraries, the permissions recommended to be set up is to adhere to using Microsoft 365 [Office] Groups and Security Groups rather than granting users access directly to the library. This minimises admin overhead from a permissions management perspective.

With this security model, users can be added/removed from the Group(s), which subsequently controls their access levels to the library, depending on the group’s assigned permission levels on the library. Without the need for folders, permissions can be set up directly on the document library (if the library is to have unique permissions different to the site level permissions), otherwise the library’s permissions can inherit from the defined permissions at the site level.

Key benefits:

• Controlling who has access to specific content in document libraries using the SharePoint security model.

9. DOCUMENT LIBRARY VIEWS

When document libraries include metadata and files are tagged appropriately, document library views can be set up to present the content in different ways that will help users find content more quickly and easier. Content such as the most recently modified files can be presented at the top of the default view, saving the user time in finding the document that was last updated in the library.

Views can also provide a great reporting feature on the content in the library.

The All Documents document library view is the default view that typically always has all the metadata properties in the library visible. This view is to be used for doing bulk tagging on the documents in the library, post the bulk upload of files. It can also be considered as the administrative view of the library.

Key benefits:

• Improved content find-ability
• Reporting of content
• Enhanced user productivity
• Bulk tagging of documents in the library post bulk upload
• Surfacing filtered documents on site pages using the Document Library web part.

10. CONFIGURE ALERTS

Alerts can be set up in a document library. They will inform you if someone is trying to change or delete your documents in some form or fashion. It will also keep you up to date on what has been added / changed in the document library through email notifications. The following are the available options to configure for the alert:

Key benefits:

• Stay up to date with content updates in the document library
• Enhance document library collaboration
• Improve productivity.

11. RETENTION LABELS AND POLICIES

Retention Labels [also known as Classification labels] are used to retain, deprecate, or trigger a review of content. They may also be used to mark content as a Record, with strict incumbent policies. Retention labels are published via a Policy which is used to trim the source of data labels apply to and gather a number of labels under one umbrella, possibly labels used in multiple policies. Retention labels are also useful for page content; to manage the site pages library by deleting ephemeral content and safeguarding other content from accidental deletion.

12. USE A MIGRATION TOOL

A shameless punt, but tools such as ShareGate are invaluable for the migration of documents; to generate reports, to map metadata, and create metadata based on existing file structures. There is a free migration tool from Microsoft which is fine for simple data move applications, but it doesn’t have the feature set of ShareGate.

There is of course much more we could touch on such as DLP and records management, but I hope the above gives you a good lead to consider your move to SharePoint as a document management platform.