Organizing Documents with Views | SharePoint Tutorial pdf

Organizing Documents with Views

Organize documents using views to create more sophisticated displays such as the collapsible tree-view shown in Figure1.
Figure1: Views can group and filter documents to create logical organizations

In order to group files by department as shown in Figure1 you have to enter a department for each file. That’s more work than just putting the file in a folder, but it means that if you want to just display the files for one department, you can do it through a simple view.
To group files by department, complete these tasks:
1. Add a choice or lookup column to the library named Department. 

2. Create a view that groups the documents by department. Again, the steps are the same for libraries as for lists.
3. Set the Department property for each document.
When you add a new column to a library, that column becomes a property that can be set from Word or Excel. Those applications prompt you for the property setting when you save the document to the library as shown in Figure2.

Figure2: New library columns appear as document properties (Office 2003)

In Office 2007, the properties appear in a window at the top of the screen. You are also prompted for those properties when you upload a single file to a library. You are not prompted when you upload documents in bulk – in those cases, the properties are set to the default column value.
Libraries automatically use the built-in Title property from the document to fill in the Title column; all other custom columns filled in using the Web File Properties page.
Required columns show up as required properties, choice and lookup columns display drop-down choices, etc.
Document properties are sometime referred to as metadata, because they describe the contents of the document. Metadata forms the basis for organizing documents logically through views, but it can be hard to gather especially when there are a large number of existing files. You need to balance the effort involved in collecting metadata against the benefits of the views you can create from it.