Fixing the Mess under the Bed!

Minimize the impact of the human factor.
Although document libraries and lists can be enriched with metadata columns, descriptive metadata and term sets require manual creation and maintenance by end users.

In planning a SharePoint site, defining how content is organized—rather than whether it can be easily accessed by users—is often where enterprise content managers spend the most time. In order for your SharePoint to have an impact at the enterprise level, the same level of attention must also be given to the metadata, the information management model and the end-user search experience.

The Business Value of Automatic Metadata Creation

Enabling automatic and contextually correct metadata generation as a native SharePoint feature has a number of benefits for both users and the organization at large, from day-to-day productivity, to strategic information management:

• Documents are consistently and reliably tagged, automatically, when they are submitted to SharePoint;
• Users are able to more effectively navigate and identify content; and
• Applied as an enterprise metadata platform, all information repositories are more valuable.

A seamless integration is all that is required for adding automatic descriptive metadata generation to your SharePoint deployment. There is no added complexity for users. The workflow will be faster because documents will be automatically tagged anytime new content is uploaded, when existing content is updated or when content is migrated, from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 for example. Contextually correct, semantic metadata, available as an additional feature, can be automatically generated to populate the term sets, enabling even greater, more intuitive findability for content.

By adding contextually correct metadata, organizations can leverage information within the application in a consistent way by allowing for the automatic tagging of content that adheres to the corporate metadata model.

But adding metadata is only one part of the story—it is only useful if users can take advantage of it.

The point at which a user needs something—which is when the typical SharePoint experience begins—is where metadata is most relevant. If they are looking for a specific document, a user won’t browse a document library list. Instead, they will go directly to their team site to search for it. Browsing the content repository through context-related tags and categories enabled by metadata will allow users to get to the content they need, faster.

The second part of the story: Fully integrated web parts and display templates immediately improve the search experience. By exposing the granularity of content generated metadata as part of the search experience, accessing SharePoint content is faster and easier. By augmenting the search interface beyond the list to include faceted search that incorporates categories, entities and topics automatically discovered in content, search results are more precise and relevant for users. In turn, better search results generate trust and confidence in the enterprise platform, increasing the value of the company’s investment.

A note on taxonomy creation:
Categorizing content based on a relevant taxonomy and using one or more of the descriptive metadata to store the main topics of the document is probably the most important part of an effective metadata strategy in SharePoint. However, in many deployments, striving for a perfect taxonomy shadows the more important goal of ensuring it will effectively meet business objectives.

Unfortunately, the search for this perfect taxonomy often ignores two factors that are essential for ensuring a taxonomy does its job: relevance (is the taxonomy relevant to our content?) and ease of maintaining (can I easily add new categories or change my taxonomy?). The same set of technologies that provide effective automation in adding descriptive metadata, for example, can also define a pragmatic, business-oriented, content driven taxonomy. By analyzing the content available, highlighting the most relevant concepts, topics and entities, etc., and with the addition of user friendly interfaces, these tools can be of great help in making taxonomy creation a pragmatic business task instead of the endless academic discussion described above.

Investing in platforms like SharePoint that enable more effective sharing and reuse of enterprise information is not just useful, it’s strategic for any organization. Such an investment depends on ensuring the platform’s effectiveness doesn’t decline with the rate of adoption, nor fluctuate with the quantity of information stored.

Maximizing the business value of your SharePoint investment also means investing in the findability and strategic management of your content and its metadata for the long term.

At the heart of a winning strategy are two important tools: an effective taxonomy and a rich and precise set of contextually correct, descriptive metadata that adhere to the corporate model. Choosing a software that automates these activities, ensures that the most granular detail is available and not left behind by manual processes for the life of your deployment.

The ROI of putting such a strategy in place can be seen across the spectrum, from greater satisfaction from users able to find what they need, to better enterprise use of information assets, which in turn fuels better decision making and helps the enterprise be more competitive.