How to Organize Content in SharePoint

Everyone in your organization agrees: It’s time to organize content in SharePoint.

But your SharePoint is a mess (and by no means are you alone in that). How do you start to organize your content in SharePoint, so it’s structured and intuitive for your users?

In a wild, wild west SharePoint, users are already having difficulty sifting through the mess and finding the documents they need. The last thing you want to do is make it worse.

Here are some key steps to making sure you're following SharePoint best practices.

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Talk to everyone. Your leadership, your users, and outside experts

It’s important to get input from all of the right places within your organization before you start. You also should consult with experts who can direct you to best practices and steer you away from pitfalls.

Start with leadership. Stakeholder executives will give you a good idea of what they expect, what the governance should look like, and if they have any plans for switching platforms in the future.

Next, it’s time to talk to your end-users, the people who are knee-deep in your company’s information every day. You’ll want to work with end-users who are closest to the problem to make sure that any systems and rules they have established make it into your plan to organize content in SharePoint. Accommodate how people are using it, rather than overwriting it.

Finally, chatting with SharePoint experts like KnowledgeLake will help you understand the best road to travel when it comes to organizing SharePoint content.

Create your taxonomy & governance plan company-wide and by department

You should always start with taxonomy and governance. How else would you know how to structure your team sites and document libraries in SharePoint? After having conversations with your leadership, end-users and experts about the governance and taxonomy, actually create the plan. Draw it out and write it down.

As you plan to organize content in SharePoint, pay attention to how rules and processes change by department. It’s vital to accommodate those rules and processes, and to alter them only when it ensures efficiency. What may work for accounting may not work for human resources.

Just do it and keep it simple

Too many content types, metadata fields, folders, etc. will ruin your attempt at organization and ultimately make it worse. After your taxonomy and governance plan is created, review it again with end-users to ensure that it is truly efficient. Don’t be afraid to start slim because you can always add folders, site columns, and even document libraries later on.

Metadata vs folders

Don’t start with a folder structure. There, we said it.

You won’t have the opportunity to truly find what you need in folders. Folder structures are especially difficult when organized by date and not by topic, client, or project. While there are some benefits of using folders, like governance and easier structure and ability to upload documents, it’s important to not just use folders when you organize content in SharePoint.

Instead, use site columns in your SharePoint libraries. Utilize the metadata to help you organize your information in the most efficient way possible. Of course, use folders when they are most useful, but take advantage of the site columns that you can create and use across multiple libraries in your SharePoint site.

Every organization is different

Understand that every organization and company are different, and so ultimately, it’s up to you to uncover exactly what your business needs to organize content in SharePoint. Talk to experts like those of us at KnowledgeLake so you can truly optimize your plan to get out of the wild west of SharePoint and get it organized.

Are you looking for a better way to capture and manage your most important documents in SharePoint?

Learn more about Migrating to SharePoint Online and Scanning to SharePoint