An introduction to Meta-Data and Tagging
When you create a news article or upload a document, you have the option to add supplementary information to that resource. This is known as ‘tagging’ or meta-data. For example, you can post a news article and tag the location, department, topic or any other information that the article relates to.
This is particularly useful when end users are searching for articles relating to a topic or department. SharePoint recognises the ‘tags’ and will suggest related content to the user.
When creating a news article, you have the option to edit the ‘Page Properties’ in the edit panel.
Click on the page properties to add a news category, description, location or change the thumbnail.
The same principle applies to documents. When you upload a document to a library, the more information you add, the easier it will be for end users to find your document. You can make certain ‘tagging’ options mandatory for a consistent approach across the organisation.
There are several advantages to employing tagging across the sites in your intranet but the two main advantages we'd like to highlight are:
- Consistent use of metadata: The columns you are using to tag your content are managed in the term store. This is a central place where the terms are created giving you consistency across every site in your intranet as they all refer to the master list of terms. When the same terms are used consistently across sites, it is easier to build robust processes or solutions that rely on metadata.
- Improved content discoverability: When the content across sites in an intranet has consistent metadata, it is easier to find and access business information and data by using search. New search features, such as the refinement panel, which displays on the left-hand side of the search results page, enable users to filter search results based on metadata. You will also benefit from tagging when using our documents hub and news archive.
For more information on creating tags for documents and news articles, see our guide on creating tags: Creating Tags for Documents (perspicuity.co.uk)