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About this lesson

Learn what metadata is and how we can use it to search for content in our SharePoint team site. 

Quick reference

Working with Metadata

Many people used to see SharePoint as a place just to store documents. However, SharePoint has many other uses and sites can hold all different types of content. As we add more content the ability to be able to search for information becomes more important. We can search for files and other content using metadata. Metadata is a set of keywords and criteria that defines the document. The column headings and fields are also metadata that can be used to find files and content on the site. 

When to use

We use metadata whenever we want to search for specific content on a SharePoint team site. 

Instructions

Metadata in File Explorer

Let's start with an example of metadata using something that is more familiar: File Explorer. If we open File Explorer and select a folder that contains files, we can see the metadata: File name, file size, modified by, author, modified date, etc. 

If we are looking for Excel files within a folder in File Explorer we could type .xls into the search bar to search for all files of that type. The search ribbon gives us access to search on all different types of metadata and narrows down our search. 

Searching in SharePoint Document Library

We have something similar in SharePoint. When we are within the document library, we can see a search bar at the top of the window. We can type keywords and use metadata here to search for specific files and folders within the document. Remember, all column headings are also considered metadata. 

  • Type .xls into the search bar to search for all Excel files in the document library. 
  • Click the cross to clear the search. 
  • Type 'Expenses' to search for the Expenses Claim form. 

Searching Across a SharePoint Site

We can search across the entire site, by ensuring we are clicked on the Home page before running the search. 

  • From the Quick Launch Menu, click Home. 
  • In the search bar, type 'Webinar'. 

SharePoint has found a match in the calendar.

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  • 00:04 Back in the day when SharePoint was first being realized.
  • 00:07 Many people used to see SharePoint as simply a place to store documents.
  • 00:13 And I myself have experienced that in my many years of training SharePoint.
  • 00:17 I find that people are quite surprised as to how much SharePoint can actually do.
  • 00:21 And there is so much more to it than just a place to store documents.
  • 00:26 Your SharePoint site can hold all different types of content.
  • 00:30 And as our site starts to build, and we start to add more and more content.
  • 00:34 The ability to be able to search for specific files,
  • 00:37 and other pieces of content becomes more important.
  • 00:41 And that's what I want to talk about in this lesson.
  • 00:44 And I want to introduce you to the concept of metadata.
  • 00:48 Now, metadata might be a term that you're familiar with already,
  • 00:52 It's a term that gets thrown around quite a lot.
  • 00:55 But what I find is that most people don't really understand what it is.
  • 00:59 Metadata in the simplest form is a set of keywords.
  • 01:03 So something that might describe a document, and
  • 01:06 you can then use those keywords to search for that specific document.
  • 01:11 For example, if I have a document that is all about trees,
  • 01:15 I might tag that document with metadata.
  • 01:18 Like, document trees, oaks, elms, things like that.
  • 01:24 So if I then type in any of those search terms.
  • 01:27 Because those are listed in the metadata for
  • 01:29 the document is going to find the file that I want.
  • 01:32 And we can already see this in action when we use File Explorer.
  • 01:37 Now, just as a very quick example, I've opened up File Explorer, and
  • 01:41 this is just my downloads folder.
  • 01:44 And in File Explorer, you will always have a search bar at the top,
  • 01:47 you can see mine is in the top right hand corner.
  • 01:49 It currently says, search downloads.
  • 01:52 And when I click in here,
  • 01:53 I can use this to type in certain keywords to find the files that I'm looking for.
  • 02:00 So maybe I want to dig out of this big long list all
  • 02:04 of the files of the type .XLS.
  • 02:07 Maybe I'm looking for Excel files.
  • 02:10 What I can do here is type in .XLSX, and hit Enter, and
  • 02:14 it's going to pull back all of the files that it finds.
  • 02:18 You'll also notice that when I'm clicked in this search area.
  • 02:21 I have a search ribbon at the top which will allow me to search on all
  • 02:25 different metrics, and all of this is meta data.
  • 02:28 The file type, the file size, when it was last modified,
  • 02:32 all of those properties can be used to search for files.
  • 02:36 So how does that translate to SharePoint libraries?
  • 02:40 Well, we also have a similar search feature at the top of the screen.
  • 02:44 You can see currently it says, search this library.
  • 02:47 And all of the column headings that you can see in this library
  • 02:51 are classified as metadata.
  • 02:53 So the name is metadata, modified by the file size.
  • 02:59 Even columns that I don't currently have showing are all metadata that
  • 03:04 reside in the background of these files.
  • 03:07 So again here if I wanted to search this library,
  • 03:11 I can simply click at the top just here, type in XLSX, and hit Enter.
  • 03:16 And it's going to pull back just the Excel files..
  • 03:20 What if I'm looking for the expenses claim form?
  • 03:22 Well, I can type in expenses, hit Enter, and there it is.
  • 03:26 Now, this is just searching within this specific library.
  • 03:30 What if I'm clicked on the homepage?
  • 03:33 Well, now notice that I'm searching the entire site.
  • 03:37 So what if I type in Webinar, and hit Enter, what am I going to get?
  • 03:43 What it's going to show me something that I have in my calendar.
  • 03:47 And that is that I'm running the introduction to SharePoint as a Webinar.
  • 03:51 So using metadata or keywords, I can search for pretty much everything,
  • 03:56 either within the individual sections of my site all throughout the entire site.

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