Explaining how to use the Term Store

• Part 1 – Setting up Managed Metadata Service
• Part 2 – Explaining how to use the Term Store
• Part 3 – Creating a Site Column with managed Metadata (gotchas with List Definitions)
• Part 4 – Search Refiners with Managed Metadata
• Part 5 – Search CAML query with Managed Metadata
• Update – Creating a Site Column with Managed Metadata using Javascript.

In my previous blog I showed you how to create a Managed Metadata Service. As you saw it wasn’t that difficult. This blog in the series will explain how to use the Term Store Management Tool.

How to find the link to the Term Store

If you are in Central Administration, the link is easy to find, you simply navigate to Application Management, under Service Applications click Manage service applications. Down the list you should see Managed Metadata Service click this link. However if you are not a Farm Administrator you won’t be able to navigate to Central Administration site.

On the Site Collection root site, click Site Actions -> All Site Settings. Under Site Administration there should be a link to Term store management.

However there can be times when this link isn’t showing.

Normally because you have created a Blank site. So what feature activates this link? The feature you are looking for is hidden, and can only be activated via powershell, or via the stsadm command. (stsadm command is really for SharePoint 2007, so below I’ll show you the PowerShell command.

Enable-SPFeature –id "73EF14B1-13A9-416B-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C" –Url <SiteURL>

Explaining the Term Store Structure.

In the above picture it illustrates how the Term Store is structured.

Managed Metadata Service – This is the name of the Term Store. This is when you created your Managed Metadata Service in my previous blog. Each Term Store has 1 SQL database. The properties you can set on a Term Store are adding/removing Term Store Administrators (See Permissions for Term Store Management Tool), you can assign the default language, and specify which other languages to be used within the Term Store. Please note these languages will depend on the Language packs you have installed within the farm.

Group – Under the Term Store you can create multiple groups. Each group are a security boundary, so assigning users to one group doesn’t mean they will have access to another. The properties on the group, allows you to add or remove Group managers or Contributors. (See Permissions for Term Store Management Tool).

Term Set – A term set is a collection of terms. You can have many term sets per Group. When you create a managed metadata column you normally assign the column to a term set. (E.g, Country, Office, Department etc). The properties on the Term Set allows you to set the owner and email address for term suggestions and feedback, any stakeholders for the term set can be added here too. The Submission Policy is by default set to Closed. When closed only metadata managers can add terms to this term set. When it is open, users can add terms from a tagging application. (Similar to the keywords)

Term – Think of the term as the item within the term set. So for country a Term might be United Kingdom, France, Spain. Properties for Term allows you to create a default label for each language, you can also add other labels such as synonyms. This might be United Kingdom synonym would be GBR. If a user searched for GBR or United Kingdom both would resolve to the same Term.

Sub Term – A Term can have one or multiple terms beneath it, so for country a Sub Term for United Kingdom, might be England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland.

Permissions for Term Store Management Tool

Term Store Administrators

When you set up your Managed Metadata Service you would automatically be the Term Store Administrator. You can add additional people to be a Term Store Administrator. By doing so, you will give this users access to create new Term set groups and assign users to the group manager role. As an Administrator, access the Term Store Management Tool, on the landing page, the properties page has a section called Term Store Administrators. It is here where you can additional Administrators.

Group Managers

The group managers are assigned at the Group level and are contributors on this group but can also assign other users to the contributor role. This setting can be found on the Group Properties.

Contributors

The contributors are assigned at the Group level too, they will have full permission to edit term sets and terms within this group.

Adding to the Term Store.

There are two ways in which you can add to the Term Store.

1. Manually
2. Via a CSV import.

To do it manually is simply click on the right of the Group, Term Set or Term which brings up a context menu for that item type.

When you have numerous Terms to enter, you probably find it tedious. Therefore you can do it via a CSV. On the Term Store properties page there is a link to a CSV Sample import. By downloading this and viewing it you can see how to create your Term Set via a CSV

The above is a picture of the sample CSV. To import, once you have created your group by clicking the context menu, you can select Import Term Set. Point it to your CSV file and then after clicking OK, your term set is imported. The picture below shows you the sample term set that Microsoft provides you.

In Part 3 of the blog, I’m going to show you how to use the Term Store for a general site user. Then I’m going to show you how to create a Site Column with List definition using C# code.