SharePoint 2007: Implementing Simple Tagging

This blog post just covers a very simple "tagging" example that I've been using in our SharePoint 2007 Reporting Services server to allow the sharing of reports between different areas. For example in Finance we have a simple report that gets GL Journal Entry lines for a specific Account Code combination that is useful to many of the teams in Finance so they all want access to it. Using tags each team can have it's own view of reports that include the "shared" report.

Let's start with looking at how our current environment is configured. Basically we have a single Document Library (Reports LIVE) which contains all our reports and we've added various additional fields to the SharePoint library such that when you edit the document it looks like this;

Report Properties (SharePoint 2007)

As you can see we had a slight disagreement on how we should work. I championed the "tag everything, categorise nothing" position and sadly had to compromise on "Categorise on Business Process, and Tag Teams Within The Process" - of course we quickly had to turn the categories into a multi-select but otherwise it seems to work just fine (of course I still think I was right - but doesn't every software engineer?!).


The field I'm going to be storing tags in is the "Keyword(s)" field, as you can see it's not mandatory (as sometimes a Process is so distinct that after you've defined the process category then tagging is just irrelevant) and for the report specified above it's actually blank - we're going to change that.


I've picked an Expense report (from Oracle Internet Expenses) deliberately as I know that it is used by two teams; expenses, and accounts payable.  At the moment all the teams in Finance (General Ledger, Purchasing, Inventory, Audit, etc) all have the report visible in their lists.


The first step is to enter some keywords. I'm using ";" as a separator so I've entering "expenses;payables" (note the lack of a space);

Adding Keywords To The Report

Now that the changes have been saved go to the drop down at the top right of the document library and choose "Create View". I'm going to create a view called "Finance: Payables" that will contain any report that has been tagged with "payables";

New View for Finance (Accounts Payable)

Select the columns you'd like to display and then scroll down to the Filter section and choose to show the items when column "Keyword(s)" contains "payables";

Building a View Filter

Now save the new view and you should see the report you've tagged. To properly implement this you then need to create a new view to pick up the reports tagged with "expenses" - then you'll see the same report appearing in both views but not, if you continue the example further and create views for other groups, in those views.

Of course you're totally reliant on everyone spelling (and typing!) everything correctly - something that's far from guaranteed - but it does give you a way of dynamically categorising your items and sharing them between different groups. Something using folders won't let you do.

SharePoint: Hiding Unwanted Content-Type Columns in Sharepoint 2007 Document Libraries

This Knol provides very simple step-by-step instructions on how to "hide" columns related to the content type in a document library. Hidden columns are not displayed (other than in the properties of the document library, not individual items). The most common use I have found for this is to hide the "Title" column in document libraries where this would simply be a duplicate of the file name.


Go into the properties of your document library. For the purposes of this example I'm going to use a Document Library that is used to save SQL Server Reporting Services Datasets;

The column I intend to "remove" is called "Title - HIDDEN" and is shown above (second from top).

Scroll up on the document library properties and look at the section titled "Content Types";

For this specific document library I am looking at there is a single content type. In this case "Report Builder Report". Click on this to edit it;

Scroll down until you get to the "Columns" section;

Click on the "Title" column to edit it;

In the "Column Settings" section you have three options; Required (Must contain information), Optional (May contain information) - usually the default, and Hidden (Will not appear in forms).

NOTE: Now as the column will still, technically, be attached to the list (it just won't be displayed) I find it useful to append "- HIDDEN" to the name of the column so people don't expect to see it and don't go and edit the properties (which, be warned, makes it visible again).

Select "Hidden (Will not appear in forms)" and click "OK".

Go back to your document library and either create a new item or edit the properties of an existing item - the field is no longer available.

SharePoint: Create a Document Library for a Specific Content Type in SharePoint 2007

This blog post gives a few simple instructions on how to work with Document Libraries and Content Types. As an example this post shows you how to create a new document library just for "Report Data Source" objects from SQL Server Reporting Services.


Navigate to your site and select "View All Site Content";

Then select the "Create" button (centre of the above image);

Select "Document Library" (highlighted above);

Enter the details for your new document library.

NOTE: "Document Template" at the bottom right. Unless it will benefit all your users to have a default document type I'd be tempted to (and usually do) change this to "None".

After the details have been entered click "Create";

Now we've got the document library use the "Settings" drop down and click "Document Library Properties";

Click on "Advanced Settings " (under "General Settings" - on the middle left);

The top item is "Content Types" and this will initially be set to "No". Change this to "Yes" and then click "OK";

A new section "Content Types" has now appeared. The only available content type as the moment is "Document". Click "Add from existing site content types";

Select the content type you wish to add in the list and move it into the "Content types to add" list. Then click "OK";

As you can now see we have two content types listed; Document and Report Data Source. Click on "Document";

Click on "Delete this content type" (under "Settings" in the middle section);

Click "OK";

You are now left with the single content type for your document library (it has automatically been made the default).