SharePoint 2010 Document Sets

Microsoft introduced a new way to manage set of documents as a single object called Document Set. This single object can be used for a workflow, metadata, information management policies. In the earlier version of SharePoint (MOSS 2007) user doesn’t have an option to collectively manage related documents as a single object to associate a workflow, metadata or IM policies and download the documents as a single object. Managing individual documents is cumbersome if documents are used for same purpose and requires same metadata, workflow etc.

In SharePoint 2010, multiple documents can be organized into document sets. Document sets are new content types in SharePoint 2010. Each document set can hold multiple documents with share same metadata. The benefit is that, for example, Project documents, which could consist of several documents related to different phases can be bundled in a document set and passed off as a set to an approval workflow. Moreover since it is a content type in itself, metadata and IM policies can be attached at document set level.

Key Benefits of SharePoint 2010 Document Sets:

Ø  Document sets can share the same metadata

Ø  Workflows can be associated to a whole document set

Ø  Manage permissions at Documents set level

 (This avoids the use of folders for managing permissions for specific documents.)

Ø  Versioning the document set instead of the separated documents

Ø  Download all documents of a document set compressed into a ZIP file

Ø  Customizable Welcome Page for all document sets

Here are the steps to create Document set in SharePoint 2010:

In order to use the Documents Sets feature, enable Document Sets Feature at Site collection level.

Navigate to your SharePoint 2010 site collection. Click Site Action and Site Settings.

Click Site Collection features.

Activate Document Sets Feature

As I mentioned in the above statements, documents sets are actually just content types as other document and list content types.

• Create new documents Document Set content type with required metadata and workflow configurations
• And, attach the new content type to SharePoint Document library
Create a new Document Set Content Type:

Navigate back to your SharePoint site. Click Site Actions -> Site Settings.

Under Galleries section, select Site Content Types.

 Click Create.

Type Name and Description for the new Document Set content type and select the parent content type as “Document Set”.

Create necessary Document Set content types.

Make necessary Document Set settings according to your requirements using Document Set settings

Attach Document Set Content Types to Document Library:

Now enable “Allow Management of Content Types” on targeted document library and attach the Document Set content types.

Navigate to your document library. Click Library Settings.

Under General Settings, select Advanced Settings.

In Advanced Settings page, select "Allow Management of Content Types" as "Yes".

Now you can attach the document set content types to document library. To attach the content types, navigate back to settings page, under Content Types section, select "Add from existing site content types". 

Select the available and required Document Set content types from site content types and click Ok to attach the content types to document library.

Now you see the Document Set content types under document library new button.

Here is the snapshot of complete document set:

Document set can hold multiple and multiple types of documents with common settings and properties. This functionality is a great addition with respect to content management features in SharePoint.

SharePoint 2010 Enhanced Lookup Columns

SharePoint 2010 provides enhanced lookup functionality which is not available with SharePoint 2007 lookup fields. When creating a new lookup column type in SharePoint2010, site admin can set up some additional columns that can pull in multiple field values from the list that is being used as the lookup. Similar functionality can be achieved in SharePoint 2007 using Business Data column, but setting up Business Data column is not that user friendly or easy as Lookup columns.

Here is a screenshot of the configuration using a lookup column in Document Library: 

When tagging/updating the metadata of documents or list items user will select only one tag and then additional columns are available in views and on view property pages.

Apart from the additional lookup fields, site admin can also enforce relationships so that it allows a cascade delete or restricts delete if a relationship still exists.

This feature is also new to SharePoint 2010. In SharePoint 2007 lookups, if anybody accidentally deletes the lookup value from the lookup list, all the lists and libraries where the lookup value is used are blanked out. Even admin doesn’t get a clue for the deleted metadata value until he/she finds it in Recycle Bin.

If there is a relationship associated with lookup and column, user cannot delete the lookup values from the lookup list. User get an error message when try to delete an item with relationship configured as Restrict delete.

How to Backup/Restore using STSADM command

The STSADM command is used for backing up and restoring site collections. You can use this command to take the backup with full functionality and restore to new site collection. The way to backup and restore a SharePoint site using this command is:

• Stsadm –o backup –url -filename
• And then at a later date you can restore the site using
• Stsadm –o restore –url -filename

Backup a Site Collection:

• On your SharePoint server hit WINDOWS + R.
• Type “cmd” and click OK.
• In the cmd window navigate to the “C:\Program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin” directory.
• Type stsadm -o backup -url “http://Server001/demo” -filename “C:\MyFirstBackup.bak” -overwrite
• Press Enter

When the backup is completed it will now be sitting in your C:\ with the name MyFirstBackup.bak.

At this point you can copy the file to the other server, or just perform the restore on the same server by following the steps below.

Note before restoring ensure that the target site collection you are restoring onto is a BLANK site. This will allow you to avoid some potential issues with duplicate names and ID’s.

Restore a Site Collection:

• On your SharePoint server hit WINDOWS + R.
• Type “cmd” and click OK.
• In the cmd window navigate to the “C:\Program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin” directory.
• Type stsadm -o restore -url “http://Server001/Newsite” -filename “C:\MyFirstBackup.bak” -overwrite
• Press Enter

When the restore is complete the site collection should now be replicated, or restored.

Note: STSADM is not user friendly with error messages. Check the Application Event Log. The message received in the command window may not be indicative of the true problem.

Optimizing SharePoint search using Managed Properties

I would like to discuss about Optimizing SharePoint search using Managed Properties by configuring the Properties to appear in the Advanced Search. Here are the steps to create Managed Properties and configure it in MOSS 2007 Advanced Search.

1. Go to the central administration -> Shared Services

2. Under the Search Menu, click on Search Settings.

3. In the Configure Search Settings page, click on Metadata Property Mappings.



4. In the Metadata Property Mappings page, click on New Managed Property

5. Enter the Property Name and add the crawled properties that you want to add by clicking on the Add mappings button.


6. Click OK.

Once you have created the new custom managed property, go to the Advanced Search page.
1. Click on Site Settings and then on "Edit Page"
2. Click on Edit Menu of the Webpart and then Select "Modify Shared Web part"
In the Advanced Search Box Pane, click on the Properties Menu and then select the content in the Properties Text Box. In order that your Managed Properties appears in the Properties lists, you need to make changes in the XML file content.



The XML File in Properties has the following structure:

• Find the string:
• <PropertyDef Name="ModifiedBy" DataType="text"
  DisplayName="Last Modified By"/>
• Add the following String below it:
  <PropertyDef Name="MyProperty" DataType="text" DisplayName="MyProperty"/>
• MyProperty denotes the managed property that was created in Search Settings in the Shared Services.
• Find the ResultType node:
  <ResultType DisplayName="All Results" Name="default">
• Add the following string below this:
  <PropertyRef Name="MyProperty" />
• Now you can click on Apply and OK to close the pane.

The property "MyProperty" will appear in the Property list box when All Results is selected.