Lesson 2: Configure the Managed Metadata Service Application

The Managed Metadata Service (MMS) application plays a critical role in enterprise content management because it supports the two primary components of information architecture: taxonomy and content types. In this lesson, you learn how to use the Managed Metadata Service to manage enterprise metadata, and then you learn how to syndicate content types.

Metadata and Information Architecture

Metadata is, broadly speaking, one or more attributes or properties of an item. The author and modified date attributes of a document are each, and collectively, metadata. Metadata is implemented in SharePoint as columns, and columns can be one of several data types, including text, numeric, date/time, and hyperlink. The process of applying an attribute to content is often called tagging. For these reasons, you will hear a number of synonyms of metadata, including attributes, properties, columns, fields, keywords, and tags. But the term you’ll hear most in relation to the metadata management in SharePoint is term. A term is a word or phrase that can be used as an attribute of an item or document.

Information architecture categorizes information into a coherent structure, typically by creating a hierarchical structure based on metadata that allows the information to be described, managed, located, and understood. A fundamental component of an information architecture is a taxonomy—a structured collection of terms that is centrally defined and tightly managed. A closely related concept is folksonomy, which refers to user-generated tags. Terms can be managed and controlled in a variety of ways, allowing an enterprise to expose a managed taxonomy while allowing user-generated tags (folksonomy). A taxonomy and folksonomy that are designed and managed to support the requirements of a business can allow information architecture to grow organically and to change over time.

SharePoint 2010 introduces the Managed Metadata Service, which centralizes the management of terms and provides features to support taxonomy, folksonomy, and the life cycle of terms. Each Managed Metadata Service application—a farm can have more than one—contains a term store, which is a hierarchical collection of centrally managed terms that you can define and then use as attributes for items and documents across your SharePoint site collections, web applications, and farms.

Within the term store are term sets and terms. A term set is a collection of related terms. You can associate a column of an item or document with a term set. When the user edits the properties of the item or document, the user is able to select one of the terms in the term set.

For example, Figure 5.5 shows a term set named Departments that contains several terms, including Information Technology. The term set and terms are stored and managed centrally as part of the Managed Metadata Service application.

After the term set has been defined, you can create a column that exposes the term set as metadata for an item or document. Figure 5.6 shows a user picking a department from the Departments term set to populate a column named Contoso Department for a document.

The relationship between the term set and the column that exposes the terms in the term set is the most important functional component of the Managed Metadata Service application. This relationship enables an organization to define terms centrally, and to restrict users to a set of predefined terms across site collections, web applications, and even farms. The term managed metadata refers to the fact that terms and term sets can be created and managed independently from the columns that expose the terms in a term set.

An organization might have tens or hundreds of thousands of terms in hundreds or thousands of terms sets. Some of those term sets might be available across the enterprise, whereas others might be restricted to a subset of web applications, and yet others might be shared with other farms or organizations. The Managed Metadata Service application wraps the functional relationship between a term set and metadata columns with features that provide management of terms, including a variety of security settings that determine who can see, use, and modify terms.

One or more term sets is contained within a term group. The term group is the security container. The term group’s Contributors role is assigned to users who will manage the term sets and terms within the group. If your organization has a tightly managed information architecture in which a single individual or team manages terms, you might need only one term group. If, on the other hand, you delegate term management, you need multiple term groups. For example, you might delegate management of the Departments term set to human resources managers, and management of terms related to products to the managers of the marketing organization. To support this example, you create two term groups and assign appropriate managers the Contributors role for the term group.

A Managed Metadata Service application maintains a database that contains the term store for the service application. The term store contains terms in a hierarchical structure consisting of term groups, term sets, and terms. Web applications that connect to the service application will have the opportunity to use any of the terms in the term store. Figure 5-7 portrays the hierarchy of objects in the term store of a Managed Metadata Service application.

Using Terms

Once you have terms—whether in managed taxonomies or user-driven folksonomies—users can begin tagging—assigning terms (metadata) to content. Tags are everywhere in SharePoint Server 2010. You can tag items, documents, pages, and sites from the SharePoint Web interface, or by using SharePoint-aware applications such as Microsoft Office 2010.

SharePoint refers to tagging with several terms, each of which are somewhat ambiguous and are therefore used differently in different contexts. Content tagging or social tagging is the addition of terms to content to describe what it is, what it contains, and what it does. This is in contrast to expertise tagging, which is the association of terms with a person, to describe what the person does, what projects they work on, and what skills they have.

Tags in SharePoint can be public or private. They can be assigned manually by a user, or automatically.

One of the primary reasons to tag content is to make it easier to locate by browsing or by searching. SharePoint uses tags to provide metadata-driven navigation and filtering and to produce a tag cloud control. Tags can be used as search refiners, and tags can be used by the routing rules of the Content Organizer to route content to the appropriate location.

Information Architecture and the Managed Metadata Service Application

The Managed Metadata Service offers features that are important for implementing an enterprise information architecture:

• Managed metadata separates the management of terms themselves from the columns that use the terms.

• You can delegate term management to librarian roles, represented by the term group’s contributor and group manager roles.

• You can support multiple languages. After you have installed a language pack, you can add installed languages as a working language for a term set. Then you can select a term and specify the default label and other labels for each working language. Unlike the default language, you are not required to have a label for every term in a working language.

• Managed terms encourage more consistent use of terminology. Terms are available across content types, site collections, web applications, and even farms. Terms are findable thanks to the term suggestions and term picker that are inherent in the managed metadata control. Finally, terms are used more accurately because they are presented within the context of their term set and can be found using synonyms and abbreviations.

• Terms are dynamic. As soon as a keyword or term is added to the term store, it is available to all enterprise keyword or managed metadata columns in all web applications that connect to the Managed Metadata Service application. Changes to terms, including new labels, synonyms, and merged terms, cascade through the system.

• Managed metadata can be used to refine search results and provide metadata-based navigation, allowing users to locate content more efficiently.

Create and Use Terms: The Big Picture

Now that you have an understanding of the role of terms and the Managed Metadata Service application, let’s take a look at managing and using terms, from beginning to end, at a very high level. We will focus on the main tasks involved with creating and using terms. Then, we will return to the structural components of the Managed Metadata Service to explore each in detail.

Create Terms in a Term Store

You can deploy a Managed Metadata Service application by using the Farm Configuration Wizard, Central Administration, or Windows PowerShell. You learned how to create a Managed Metadata Service application in Lesson 1.

A service application is a deployed instance of a SharePoint web service. The web service runs on one or more SharePoint servers. The service application typically determines the behavior of the service, and provides an administrative interface with which to configure the service. When you deploy a service application such as the Managed Metadata Service, the associated web service does not start automatically on any one server. You must manually start the service on the servers that you want running the service. You learned how to start service instances of a service in Lesson 1.

After you have created the Managed Metadata Service, you can use the Term Store Management Tool as the administrative interface with which to manage terms in the term store.

Open the Term Store Management Tool

To open the Term Store Management Tool, perform the following steps:

1. In the Central Administration Quick Launch, click Application Management.

2. In the Service Applications section, click Manage Service Applications.

3. Click the Managed Metadata Service link.

   You can click the link of either the service application or the service application connection. Both will open the same Term Store Management Tool. Alternately, you can click the row of the service application or application connection, and then click Manage.

   The Term Store Management Tool opens.

4. Confirm that the tool is focused on the metadata application that you want to administer.

   In the Available Service Applications list, select the correct metadata application.

A farm administrator must assign term set administrators. In fact, depending on the method you use to create a new Managed Metadata Service application, you might not be a term set administrator even though you created the application and even if you are a member of the Farm Administrators group. However, as a farm administrator, you can administer all service applications, and therefore you can give yourself permission to the term store.

Assign Term Store Administrators

To grant permission to manage the term store, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. In the Term Store Administrators box, type the names of term set administrators, separated by semicolons.

3. Click Save.

The top-level containers within the term store are term groups. A term group, as you have learned, is a security container. The term group’s Contributors role defines the users that can manage term sets and terms within the term group.

Create a Term Group

To create a term group, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. Expand the term store.

3. Point at the term store and then click the drop-down arrow that appears.

4. Click New Group.

5. Type the name for the term group, and then press Enter.

6. Optionally, configure properties of the term group, and then click Save.

   For example, you can assign users to the Contributors role. These users will be able to access the Term Store Management Tool in Central Administration to manage term sets and terms within the term group.

Within a term group, you can create term sets.

Create a Term Set

To create a term set, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. Expand the term store.

3. Point at the term group within which you want to create a term set, click the drop-down menu of the term group, and then click New Term Set.

4. Type a name for the term set, and then press Enter.

5. Optionally, configure properties of the term group, and then click Save.

   For example, you can configure a term set to be an open or closed term set. If a term set is open, you can allow users to add terms to the term set when tagging items or documents. If a term set is closed, which is the default value, only term group Contributors and Managers and term store Administrators can add terms to the term set, and they must use the Term Store Management Tool to do so.

Within a term set, you can create terms.

Create a Term

To create a term, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. Expand the term store.

3. Expand the term group and the term set within which you want to create the term.

4. Point at the term set or term beneath which you want to create the term, and then click the drop-down arrow that appears.

5. Click Create Term.

6. Type the term, and then press Enter.

After you have created a term set, you can begin to use the terms in the term set as tags for items and documents. To do this, you must add a managed metadata column to a list, library, or content type.

The managed metadata column type is new to SharePoint Server 2010. When you create a managed metadata column, you specify a single term set from which the column’s valid values come. Create a new content type or modify an existing content type, and add the managed metadata column to the content type.

Add a Managed Metadata Column to a Site as a Site Column

To add a managed metadata column as a site column, perform the following steps:

1. Open the site in which you want to use a managed metadata term set.

2. Click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.

3. In the Galleries section, click Site Columns.

4. Click Create.

5. In the Column name box, type a name for the column.

6. In the list of column types, click Managed Metadata.

7. In the Group section, select a column group or create a new column group.

8. In the Term Set Settings section, expand the term store, expand the term group that contains the term set, and then click the term set. You might need to search for a managed term set first in the Use A Managed Term Set box.

   WARNING

   IMPORTANT A MANAGED METADATA COLUMN IS RELATED TO ONE TERM SET

   A managed metadata column can be associated with only one term set, and all terms in the term set will be available as values for the column. If a term set does not meet your needs, you must either modify the term set or create a new term set with the terms you require.

9. Optionally, configure other settings for the column.

   For example, you can specify that the column allows multiple values. Also, if the term set is an open term set, you can configure the column to allow fill-in choices.

10. Click OK.

After you have created a site column associated with a term set, you can add that site column to a content type, or directly to a list or library.

Add a Managed Metadata Site Column to a Site Content Type

To add a managed metadata site column to a site content type, perform the following steps:

1. Click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.

2. In the Galleries section, click Site Content Types.

3. Click the site content type to which you want to add managed metadata.

4. Click Add From Existing Site Columns.

5. In the Select Columns From list, select the column group that contains the managed metadata column.

6. In the Available Columns list, click the managed metadata column, then click Add.

7. Click OK.

Apply Terms to Items or Documents

After adding a managed metadata column to a list, library, or content type, users can apply terms from the term set as values for the column.

The new and edit forms of an item or document will display the managed metadata control for a managed metadata column, and the user interacts with this control to enter the column’s value. Earlier in this chapter, Figure 5.6 shows a managed metadata control.

The managed metadata control enables the user either to type a value or to select a value by hierarchically navigating the term set that is associated with the column. If the user begins typing a value, the AJAX-driven control displays all terms in the associated term set that begin with the characters the user has typed. The name of the term set and the term’s position in the hierarchy are indicated along with the term itself.

If the column’s definition allows multiple values, the user can select more than one term. If the term set is an open term set and the column’s configuration allows fill-in values, the user can create a new term in the term set’s hierarchy.

It is important to note the following about the managed metadata control:

• The control consists of a text box, a browse button, and a term selection page.

• You can type a term into the text box.

• As you type, the control provides suggestions. If the highlighted suggestion is appropriate, you can press Enter. Alternately, you can select any suggestion by using the arrow keys to select the suggestion and then pressing Enter, or by clicking the suggestion.

• If you type a term that does not exist in the term store, your entry is displayed in red with a red, dashed underline. You cannot save the change until you correct the entry.

• You can click the Browse For A Valid Choice button. The term selection page opens, as shown in Figure 5.8. The term selection page shows all terms in the term set. To select a term, click the term, then click Select, and then click OK.

  

  Figure 5.8 The term selection page

• If the term set has an email address in the term set’s Contact property, the term selection page displays a Send Feedback link. The link is a simple <mailto:> hyperlink that opens the user’s email client with the To: address prepopulated with the term set contact’s email address.

• If the term set is an open term set, the Add New Item link appears. Click the term set or term underneath which you want to add a term. Click the Add New Item link, and a new, blank term appears. Type the label for the term, and then press Enter.

Now that you have learned both the concepts and high-level functionality of the Managed Metadata Service, let’s review some important points about terms:

• Terms are stored in a term set, within a term group.

• There can be multiple term sets and term groups within the term store of a Managed Metadata Service application.

• Typically, terms are tightly managed; therefore, term sets are closed by default, meaning that only term group managers and contributors can add, modify, or delete terms in the term set.

• A managed metadata column exposes all terms from only one term set.

Keywords

Often, enterprises want to allow the generation of a folksonomy, within which terms are created by users adding tags to content and people. Terms in a folksonomy are typically unmanaged—users can tag content or people with whatever words and phrases they want to apply.

Folksonomy in SharePoint Server 2010 is supported by keywords. Keywords are terms that are stored in a single, non-hierarchical term set called the keyword set. When content is tagged and a term does not exist, it is added to the keyword set.

Keywords and terms are not really very different. Both are terms that can be used to tag content. Both are stored in the term store. The primary differences are:

• Term sets are typically closed. The keyword set is typically open—users can add keywords to the keyword set when they tag content with words or phrases that do not already exist in the keyword set.

• Terms are typically highly managed. They have numerous properties, about which you will learn later in this lesson. Terms are structured within term sets and term groups, and can be reused across term sets and term groups. Keywords, on the other hand, are unmanaged—they are simply words or phrases used to tag content, and do not support a wide range of additional properties.

• Keywords are added to content in an enterprise keywords column, which is rendered as an enterprise keywords control. Terms in term sets are added to content in managed metadata columns that are rendered as managed metadata control.

Allow Users to Tag Content with Keywords

Content can have one or more managed metadata columns, each exposing terms from a different term set. When you want users to tag content freely by using enterprise keywords, you simply add the predefined enterprise keywords site column to a list, library, or content type.

Add an Enterprise Keywords Column to a Site Content Type

To add an enterprise keywords column to a site content type, perform the following steps:

1. Click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.

2. In the Galleries section, click Site Content Types.

3. Click the site content type to which you want to add an enterprise keywords column.

4. Click Add From Existing Site Columns.

5. In the list of columns, click Enterprise Keywords, and then click Add.

   A message appears.

6. Click OK to add the column.

7. Click OK to close the content type.

Tag Content Using Keywords

After adding an enterprise keywords column to a list, library, or content type, users with permission to modify the content type can apply terms from the keyword set to content, and can add new terms that become part of the keyword set.

The EditForm.aspx page of an item or document will display the managed keyword control for enterprise keyword columns.

It is important to note the following about the control:

• The control consists of a text box, a browse button, and a term selection page.

• As you type, the control provides suggestions. If the highlighted suggestion is appropriate, you can press Enter. Alternately, you can select any suggestion by using the arrow keys to select the suggestion and then pressing Enter, or by clicking the suggestion.

• You can type a word or phrase that does not already exist as a keyword, and it will be added to the keyword set. This is the default behavior of the enterprise keywords column; however, SharePoint can be configured to prevent adding new keywords to the keyword set.

Keywords are typically created by users when they tag content with a word or phrase that is not already in the keyword set. However, if you want to add a keyword directly to the keyword set, you can do so by using the following procedure.

Keyword by Using the Term Store Management Tool

To add a keyword by using the Term Store Management Tool, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. Expand System, and then expand Keywords.

3. Point at the Keywords, and then click the drop-down arrow that appears.

4. Click New Keyword.

5. Type the keyword, and then press Enter.

Manage Terms

Now that you have followed the high-level procedures by which terms and keywords are created and incorporated into items and documents, we can turn our attention to how to administer managed metadata, from the bottom up, starting with the terms themselves.

Term Properties

Terms are more than simply a word or phrase. They are an object with a variety of properties. The properties appear on the properties page of the term.

Modify a Term

To modify the properties of a term, follow this procedure:

1. Open the Term Store Management Tool.

2. Click the term.

3. Modify one or more properties of the term.

4. Click Save.

The properties that you can modify include the following:

• Available For Tagging By default, terms are available to be used for tagging. Why would you create a term and then not make it available? Terms themselves are hierarchical within a term set. That is, a term can have one or more terms as child objects. For example, you might have terms for teams or departments within the IT group. If you have a term hierarchy within a term set, you might want nodes that have child terms to be unavailable for tagging.

• Language If you have a language pack installed, and the term store has the language specified as a working language, you can select each language and modify the Default Label and Other Labels.

• Description Use a description to help users understand when to use the term, and to disambiguate amongst similar terms.

• Default Label The default label for the term for the selected language. The default label is what is referred to as the term. However, as you are learning, the term is more than just the label. In fact, behind the scenes, everything is managed with unique identifiers.

• Other Labels Synonyms and abbreviations for the term for the selected language. When other labels are configured for a term, users can enter any of the synonyms or abbreviations in a managed metadata control, and their entry will be changed into the default label for the term. The other labels even appear as suggestions when a user begins to type into a managed metadata control.

• Member Of A term can be reused in multiple locations. The Member Of list is a list of locations in which the term exists.

• Source When a term exists in more than one location, the term’s properties can be edited in only one—its source. The permissions that apply to the source location affect who can modify the term’s properties.

• Sort Order By default, terms are sorted alphabetically within the parent term set or term. However, you can manually specify the sort order.

Configure a Custom Sort Order for a Term Set

To specify a custom sort order for a term set, perform the following steps:

1. Click the Custom Sort tab.

2. Click Use Custom Sort Order.

3. Modify the sort order.

Term Tasks

You can use the drop-down menus in the term store hierarchy of the Term Store Management Tool to perform the following actions related to terms:

• Create Term Create a new term in a selected term set, or as a child of a selected term. Terms within a term set can also be arranged in a hierarchy.

• Copy Term Create a new term that is a copy of an existing term. The source term’s properties are copied to the new term, and then the new term is a unique object with no relationship or linkage to its original source.

• Move Term Move a term to another location in the term hierarchy.

• Delete Term Remove a term from the term store.

• Deprecate Term Disable the term so that it no longer can be used as a valid term but stays part of the system.

• Merge Term To merge terms, select a source term, then choose Merge Term, and then select a target term. The result is that the source term and its synonyms are added as synonyms of the target term.

• Reuse Term A term can be placed in more than one location in the taxonomic hierarchy. To use a term in a new location—within a term set or as a child of another term—select the target location, then choose Reuse Term, and then select the source term. The source term will be added as a kind of link to the selected target location. Changes to a term’s properties affect every instance of the term. The term’s Source property defines the location in the hierarchy in which the term can be modified, and the permissions on that location determine which users can modify the term. The term’s source can be changed to any of its locations by a user who currently has permission to modify the term.

Enterprise Keywords

As you learned in a previous topic, keywords are stored in a flat, non-hierarchical term set called the keyword set. Keywords have only one property: Available For Tagging. And you can perform only three actions. The first two are New Keyword and Delete Keyword, which are self-explanatory.

The third action is Move Keyword. This allows you to take a keyword and move it into a term set, where it becomes a managed term and acquires all of the additional properties associated with terms. This process is how an organization can organically grow a folksonomy and migrate resulting terms into a taxonomy.

Manage Term Sets

You have learned that a term set is a collection of related terms. Let’s now explore the properties and management tasks of term sets.

Term Set Properties

A term set has a Term Set Name and a Description, as well as an Available For Tagging property. A term set also has the following properties:

• Contact An email address for a contact for the term set. If an email address is entered in the Contact property, the managed metadata control displays a Submit Feedback link in the term picker. A user who wants to submit feedback or request a change to the term set can click the link and an email message is started with the To address populated by the value of the term set contact.

• Submission Policy The submission policy determines whether users can add terms to the term set from the managed metadata control. If a submission policy is open, the managed metadata control displays an Add New Item link. So if a user wants to tag content with a term that is not already in the term set for a managed metadata column, the user can add a new term on the fly. This allows for folksonomy within the context of a managed term set. The newly added term will be available to other managed metadata columns that reference the same term set.

  NOTE

  ENABLE USERS TO ADD TERMS

  For a user to add a new item to a term set, the term set must have an open submission policy, the managed metadata column must allow fill-in choices, and the user must have permission to change an item or document that contains the managed metadata column.

• Owner, Stakeholders These two properties—as well as Contact—are informational only. They are used to document individuals or groups who are associated with the term set. These two properties do not assign any permissions whatsoever to the term set.

Term Set Tasks

From a design perspective, the most important point to remember is that a term set is used as the source of terms for a managed metadata column. A managed metadata column can use only one term set, and all terms that are available for tagging within that term set can be applied as values to the column.

Therefore, anytime you need a column with managed metadata, you should check to see whether a term set already exists that meets your needs exactly—that has the appropriate labels and properties—and, if not, create a new term set. Remember that terms can be reused in more than one term set.

Earlier in the lesson, you learned the procedure to create a term set. The term set’s drop-down menu allows you to perform the following actions on the term set:

• Delete Term Set Delete the term set and its terms.

• Move Term Set Move a term set to another term group.

• Copy Term Set Create a new term set with the same properties as the source term set. All terms in the source term set are added, as reused terms, to the new term set. This allows you to create variations on a term set for scenarios in which a managed metadata column needs to contain a superset, subset, or other variation of terms that are already in use in another term set.

Manage Term Groups

You have learned that a term group is a collection of one or more term sets. A term group has a Group Name and a Description. Most importantly, the term group defines two roles:

• Contributors Contributors have full permission to edit terms and term set hierarchies within the term group.

• Group Managers Contributor permissions plus the ability to import term sets. Group Managers can also add users to the Contributors role.

You can create a term group from the term store, by following the procedure listed earlier in this lesson. The term group’s drop-down menu allows you to perform the following actions on the term group:

• Delete Term Group Delete the term group.

• Import Term Set Import a term set using a comma-separated values (.csv) file. A sample import file can be found in the root of the term store. In Term Store Management, in the properties pane, click the term store, and then click View A Sample Import File.

Manage the Term Store

Each Managed Metadata Service application has one term store. Metadata service applications cannot share term stores. The term store properties define the following:

• Term Store Administrators Term store administrators have full control over the term store. Term Store Administrators can perform all actions of group managers, can create and delete term groups, and can assign users to the group managers role. Term store administrators can also modify the default and working languages of a term set.

• Default Language Each term store must have a default language specified and every term must have a label defined in the default language.

• Working Languages After you have installed a language pack, you can add installed languages as a working language for a term set. Then you can select a term and specify the default label and other labels for each working language. Unlike the default language, you are not required to have a label for every term in a working language.

  Terms are not added to a term store by default when you add a language pack. There is no automatic translation service. You must manually configure the labels for terms in each language that you want a term set to expose.

  When a term has labels in multiple languages, the language of the site determines which labels are visible. For example, if the Department term set has terms defined in both French and English, an English-language team site will allow users to use English terms from the term set in a managed metadata column, and a French team site will allow users to use French terms from the term set.

To create a term store, you must create a Managed Metadata Service application. The steps for this procedure are listed earlier in this lesson. You also learned earlier in the lesson that a farm administrator must assign term store administrators.

To delete a term store, you must delete the Managed Metadata Service application.

Delete a Managed Metadata Service Application

To delete a Managed Metadata Service application, perform the following steps:

1. In the Central Administration Quick Launch, click Application Management.

2. In the Service Applications section, click Manage Service Applications.

3. Click the service application to delete.

4. In the ribbon, click Delete to open the Delete Service Application page.

5. Optionally, select the Delete Data Associated With The Service Applications check box.

6. Click OK.

Local Term Sets

Term sets can be global or local. A global term set is what we have been examining thus far—a term set that is maintained using the Term Store Management Tool and available to all web applications that connect to the Managed Metadata Service application.

A local term set is maintained in the term store, but it is created and managed within a site collection, rather than within the Term Store Management Tool. The resulting term set is available to all sites in the site collection, but not to other site collections. Using a local term set has advantages over legacy methods for tagging data—for example, choice and lookup fields—because the local term set is maintained by the Managed Metadata Service, so you can define synonyms and manage terms just as you would a global term set. Users who are site collection administrators have permissions to create local term sets.

To create a local term set, add a managed metadata column to a list, library, or content type. When asked to specify the term set for the column, click Customize Your Term Set.

Term Store Design

Now you have explored each component in the term store hierarchy, shown earlier in Figure 5.7. Let’s review the characteristics of each component from the perspective of term store design.

• One or more terms are contained in a term set. Terms can also be created as child objects of other terms.

• A term set is a group of related terms, and is the scope of a managed metadata column. When you add a managed metadata column to a content type, list, or library that will use tags, you specify the term set that will be used in the column. Each managed metadata column can use terms from only one term set, and all terms in the term set are available.

• One or more term sets are contained in a term group.

• A term group is a security container that manages who can modify term sets and terms. You can specify, for a term group, who has permission to modify the term sets and terms in the term group.

• One or more term groups are contained in a term store.

• A term store is the database that contains the terms for a Managed Metadata Service application.

• The keyword set is a flat, non-hierarchical term set that is used to apply terms to enterprise keyword columns. The managed keyword control displayed by an enterprise keyword column exposes terms from the keyword set as well as all other term sets that are available to the web application.

Because permissions to modify terms are applied at the term group level, and because SharePoint 2010 supports multi-tenancy for the Managed Metadata Service application, most organizations will need only one term store, in one Managed Metadata Service application.

Many organizations will need only one term store, in one Managed Metadata Service application. You might need an additional term stores for several reasons. The following sections explore these reasons. Remember that you must deploy an additional Managed Metadata Service application to create an additional term store. A farm can have zero or more Managed Metadata Service applications, and web applications can connect to zero or more Managed Metadata Service applications in the farm.

Scalability Guidelines

You will require an additional Managed Metadata Service application and term store if you exceed the following performance-related scalability guidelines of a term store:

• No more than 1,000 term sets per term store

• No more than 30,000 terms per term set

• No more than 1,000,000 terms per term store

Administrative Separation

Additionally, you will require an additional term store if you want to completely isolate the administration of a term store or the terms within a term store. As you have learned, the term store’s administrators have full control of the term store—they can create, delete, and manage terms and assign term group contributors and managers. If you require a term store with a unique set of administrators, you must create an additional Managed Metadata Service application.

Term Isolation

You must also create an additional Managed Metadata term store if you want to completely hide terms from a part of your organization. Let’s assume that the Research and Development (R&D) department wants to maintain a separate term store to contain terms related to R&D and to products under development. They do not want terms to be visible in any way outside of the R&D web applications. This is not possible to support within a single term store.

End users can only see terms from term sets that are used by managed metadata columns. However, if you use an enterprise keywords column, end users can potentially see terms from all term sets. When a user starts typing a keyword, the AJAX-driven suggestions are derived from all term sets.

Furthermore, any user that can add a column to a list, library, or content type can see all term sets in the Managed Metadata Service application in the control that is used to select the term set for a managed metadata column.

To address the requirement for complete isolation of terms, you can deploy a second Managed Metadata Service application for the R&D term store. A farm can have more than one Managed Metadata Service application and a web application can connect to more than one Managed Metadata Service application proxy. You can connect the web applications used by the R&D department to both the R&D Managed Metadata Service and to the enterprise-wide Managed Metadata Service. Term sets from both term stores can be used to tag content within the R&D Web applications. Other web applications will connect only to the enterprise-wide Managed Metadata Service application, and will have no visibility into the R&D term store.

A separate Managed Metadata Service application creates a completely partitioned term store. Separate term stores create security isolation of data. Farm administrators give web applications visibility into appropriate term stores when they connect web applications to MMS service applications.

An alternative to separate term stores hosted by separate Managed Metadata Service applications is to implement multi-tenancy. Multi-tenancy is beyond the scope of this book, but in sum it allows a single database to be partitioned between consumers of a service.

Cross-Farm Scalability

Another important driver towards multiple term stores is the fact that separate Managed Metadata Service applications and term stores provide various levels of service scalability. Web applications in the farm and from other farms connect to the term store, so if, for example, you need a term set to span multiple farms, but other term stores are used only within one farm—and perhaps contain terms that you do not want visible to enterprise keyword fields in the other farm—then you should create a separate metadata application and term store to publish to both farms.

Content Type Syndication

It is common that sites in different site collections require similar content types. For example, the Legal department at Contoso creates a template for non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and a content type for NDAs that uses the template and declares all new NDAs as records. Each of Contoso’s business units have SharePoint site collections with document libraries in which NDAs will be maintained. The content type can be published, in a manner of speaking, from the Legal department to all Contoso business units.

Sharing content types across site collections, web applications, and farms was quite challenging in SharePoint 2007. The Managed Metadata Service makes it easy in SharePoint 2010.

Each Managed Metadata Service application has a Content Type Hub property that specifies the URL of a site collection from which to publish content types. All other web applications that connect to the Managed Metadata Service receive copies of the content type from the content type hub, and updates made at the hub can be propagated.

You must take several steps to publish content types. These steps are described in the following sections.

Specify the Content Type Hub

Each Managed Metadata Service application has a Content Type Hub property that specifies the URL of a site collection from which to publish content types.

Configure the Content Type Hub of a Managed Metadata Service Application

To configure the content type hub of a Managed Metadata Service application, perform the following steps:

1. In the Central Administration Quick Launch, click Application Management.

2. In the Service Applications section, click Manage Service Applications.

3. Click the row of the Managed Metadata Service application.

   Do not click the name of the service application. The name is a link that opens the Term Store Management Tool.

4. In the ribbon, click Properties.

5. In the Content Type Hub box, type the URL of the site collection from which the service application will consume content types.

6. Select the Report Syndication Import Errors From Site Collections Using This Service Application check box.

   When a web application tries to import the content types from its Managed Metadata Service applications, and encounters an error, the error is always logged to that web application. This option creates a second error associated with the content type hub site collection, so that import errors from all subscriber sites are centralized and can be viewed in one place: the hub.

7. Click OK.

Configure Web Applications to Consume Content Types

Although the Managed Metadata Service application controls whether content types are published, and from which site collection, the application connection controls whether web applications using that connection subscribe to the content types that are being published.

Configure Content Type Subscription for a Managed Metadata Service Application Connection

1. In the Central Administration Quick Launch, click Application Management.

2. In the Service Applications section, click Manage Service Applications.

3. Click the row of the Managed Metadata Service application connection.

   Do not click the name of the service application connection. The name is a link that opens the Term Store Management Tool.

4. In the ribbon, click Properties.

5. Select the Consumes Content Types From The Content Type Gallery check box.

6. Click OK.

Publish a Content Type

After a site collection has been designated as a content type hub, content types in the site collection can be published to the Managed Metadata Service application, and thereby made available to other web applications that use that Managed Metadata Service application.

Publish a Content Type

1. In the content type hub site collection, click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.

2. Click Site Content Types.

3. Click the content type that you want to publish.

4. Click Manage Publishing For This Content Type.

5. Click Publish.

6. Click OK.

The same Manage Publishing For This Content Type command can be used to republish, or update, a content type, and to unpublish a content type.

Run the Timer Jobs

Two timer jobs are responsible for content type syndication: The Content Type Hub job finds new content types in the designated content type hub. The Content Type Subscriber job—there is one for each web application in the farm—imports content types from the content type hub of each Managed Metadata Service application to which the web application subscribes. If you do not want to wait for content type syndication jobs to run, you can run them manually.

Manually Run Timer Jobs for Content Type Syndication

To manually run timer jobs for content type syndication, perform the following steps:

1. In Central Administration, click Monitoring.

2. Click Review Job Definitions.

3. Click Content Type Hub.

4. Click Run Now.

5. Wait a few moments for the job to complete.

   Optionally, you can click Content Type Hub to return to the job definition. Refresh the page and monitor the Last Run Time property. When it updates to the current time, the job is complete.

6. Click Content Type Subscriber on the row for the subscriber web application.

7. Click Run Now.

8. Wait a few moments for the job to complete.

   Optionally, you can click Content Type Subscriber to return to the job definition. Refresh the page and monitor the Last Run Time property. When it updates to the current time, the job is complete.

Design Content Type Syndication

Earlier in this lesson, we proposed that many organizations will require only one term store, and therefore only one Managed Metadata Service application. However, when you factor content type syndication into your design, the equation can change. Each Managed Metadata Service application can publish content types from only one content type hub. If you want content types from multiple site collections to be published, you must create additional Managed Metadata Service applications, each with a unique content type hub. Web applications in the farm can connect to each of the Managed Metadata Service applications from which they require content types.

In such a model, additional Managed Metadata Service applications are providing only content type syndication functionality. Managing unique term stores is not inherently required, so the additional term stores can remain empty.

Alternately, you can create a single site collection that serves as the content type hub for the enterprise, and each organization that wants to define content types can do so within that site collection. The site collection is, in effect, dedicated to content type publishing, and does not contain any user-facing pages, lists, or libraries.

Figure 5.9 shows a Managed Metadata Service application that provides enterprise-wide taxonomy and folksonomy, as well as content types that are managed in a centrally defined, dedicated site collection. A second Managed Metadata Service application is used to publish content types that are managed by the legal department, but contains no terms. A third Managed Metadata Service application contains terms that the R&D department wants to isolate from the rest of the organization. And a fourth Managed Metadata Service application contains terms and content types that are published to a farm that is shared with a partner organization.

Practice Implement the Managed Metadata Service Application

Practices are designed to guide you through important procedures. The instructions in the Training Kit are high-level instructions that will challenge you to think carefully and to apply the procedures that are covered in this lesson, and elsewhere in the Training Kit. If you need assistance, consult the detailed, step-by-step instructions in the Practice Answers on the companion media.

In this practice, you will deploy a Managed Metadata Service application.

Prepare for the Practice

Before you perform this practice, you must ensure that your lab environment has been built according to the instructions found in the Introduction to this Training Kit. You must also have performed the practice in Lesson 1 of this chapter. You must be logged off of SP2010-WFE1 before beginning the exercises.

EXERCISE 1 Delegate Permission to Administer the Term Store

When you create the Managed Metadata Service application by using the Farm Configuration Wizard, you are an administrator of the application, but you are not an administrator of the term store itself, by default. You created the Managed Metadata service application manually, but in this exercise, you verify that you have the ability to administer the term store.

1. Log on to SP2010-WFE1 as CONTOSO\SP_Admin with the password Pa$$w0rd.

2. Verify that your account, CONTOSO\SP_Admin, is assigned the Term Store Administrators role for the Managed Metadata Service – Enterprise service application.

EXERCISE 2 Add Terms to the Term Store

In this exercise, you create term groups, term sets, and terms.

1. Create a term group named Organization, and a term set named Departments. Add the following terms to the term set: Finance, HR, IT, Engineering, and Sales.

2. Create a term group named Sales and Marketing Terms. Create a term set named Customers and add the following terms to the term set: Litware, Fabrikam, Tailspin Toys, Worldwide Importers. Add the following terms as child terms of Worldwide Importers: Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia.

EXERCISE 3 Import Terms to the Term Store

In this exercise, you import a term set.

1. Import the following term set into the Sales and Marketing Terms term group: C:\70667TK\Practice Files\05_02\ContosoProducts.csv.

2. Open the CSV file with Notepad, examine the format of the file, and compare the file to the resulting imported term set.

EXERCISE 4 Add a Managed Metadata Column to a Site

In this exercise, you add the two managed metadata columns you created to a site.

1. In a new tab of Internet Explorer, browse to http://intranet.contoso.com/sites/SharePoint.

2. Add a site column. Use the following specifications and guidance:

• Column name: Contoso Customer.

• Column type: Managed Metadata

• Group: Contoso Managed Metadata Columns

• Term set: Sales And Marketing Terms

3. Add a content type. Use the following specifications and guidance:

• Content type name: Contoso Proposal

• Parent content type: Document

• Group: Contoso Enterprise Wide Content Types

• Add the Contoso Customer site column to the content type

EXERCISE 5 Configure Content Type Syndication

In this exercise, you configure content type syndication.

1. Configure the properties of the Managed Metadata service application to specify the content type hub http://intranet.contoso.com/sites/SharePoint. Configure reporting of syndication errors to the content type hub site collection.

2. Configure the properties of the Managed Metadata service application connection to specify that web applications will subscribe to published content types.

EXERCISE 6 Publish a Content Type

In this exercise, you publish a content type, and you see the content type in another site collection.

1. Switch to the tab of Internet Explorer that shows the http://intranet.contoso.com/sites/SharePoint website. Confirm that the Customer Proposal content type is published.

   The content type cannot yet be unpublished or republished because the Content Type Hub timer job has not yet run.

2. Switch to Central Administration. Run the two timer jobs required to publish content types and for the Teams Web application to receive the content types.

   Verify that the Content Type Hub job has completed before running the Content Type Subscriber job. Ensure that you run the Content Type Subscriber job from the Contoso Teams Web application. Verify that the subscriber job has completed.

3. Browse to the content type gallery of the website http://intranet.contoso.com/sites/SharePoint. Observe that in the Contoso Enterprise Wide Content Types group, the Customer Proposal appears. Open the content type and observe that you cannot alter columns, information management policies, or workflows for the content type from the subscribing site collection.

EXERCISE 7 Add a Content Type to a Library

In this exercise, you create a document library for proposals and configure the library to use the Contoso Proposal content type.

1. Create a document library named Proposals.

2. Enable management of content types. Delete the default content type, Document, and add the content type Customer Proposal.

EXERCISE 8 Use a Managed Metadata Control

In this exercise, you add a proposal to the Proposals library and specify the customer by using the Managed Metadata control.

1. Upload a proposal to the Proposals library C:\70667TK\Practice Files\05_01\Litware Proposal.

2. In the Contoso Customer managed metadata control, type LIT and then wait. Observe that Litware is suggested. Press Enter to accept the suggestion. Then delete the text. Click the Browse For A Valid Choice button, and then select Litware.

EXERCISE 9 Create the CHAPTER 05 Snapshot

The CHAPTER 05 snapshot captures the state of the environment at the end of Chapter 5. Perform this procedure for each of the following virtual machines: SP2010-WFE1, CONTOSO-DC.

1. Shut down the virtual machine.

2. Unmount any ISO image currently mounted to the CD/DVD drive. Use the “Unmount an ISO Image” procedure in the Lab Environment Build Guide on the companion media.

3. Create a snapshot named CHAPTER 05. Use the “Create a Snapshot” procedure in the Lab Environment Build Guide on the companion media.

Lesson Summary

• The Managed Metadata Service plays two roles that are important to support an enterprise information architecture. First, it provides a centralized store of terms for taxonomy and folksonomy. Second, it publishes content types from a content type to allow central definition of content types.

• Each Managed Metadata Service application has one term store.

• Within the term store are zero or more term groups. Users can be assigned the Contributors role for a term group, and can then modify term sets and terms within the term group.

• Term sets collect related terms. A managed metadata column exposes all terms in a term set. Terms in a term set can be arranged in a hierarchical structure.

• The Keywords set supports folksonomy. When an Enterprise Keywords column is used, a user can tag content with any term in any term set, and the user can add a new term, which will be added to the Keywords set.

• A site can define a managed metadata column that uses a local term set—a term set available only to the site.

• Content type syndication requires configuration of the Managed Metadata Service application and of the application connection. By default, all content types in the content type hub are configured as published. The Content Type Hub job publishes content types, and the Content Type Subscriber job for each web application retrieves published content types.

Lesson Review

You can use the following questions to test your knowledge of the information in Lesson 2: Configure the Managed Metadata Service Application. The questions are also available on the companion media in a practice test if you prefer to review them in electronic form.

1. You want to allow sales managers to add customers as terms so that content can be tagged with customer names. You do not want sales managers to change any other collections of terms. What must you create? (Choose all that apply. Each correct answer is part of the complete solution.)

1. An additional Managed Metadata service application.

2. A term store.

3. A term group.

4. A term set.

5. A keywords set.

2. You want to share content types that have been created in the legal site collection with the human resources site collection. Both site collections are in a single web application. What must you configure? (Choose all that apply.)

1. Nothing. Content types can be shared between site collections without additional configuration.

2. Add the human resources site collection as the content type hub for the Managed Metadata service application.

3. Add the legal site collection as the content type hub for the Managed Metadata service application.

4. Create a content deployment job from the legal site collection to the human resources site collection.

5. Configure the application connection of the Managed Metadata Service application.