Usability & user interfaces for document management in SharePoint
Usability is a big topic and this page may expand to several. For now I’ll focus on usability for email and document filing. See the related posts section for more …
Document management centres around managing emails and managing documents.
Email management
For most this really means email filing. And if you want to file your emails along with your documents in SharePoint then you have probably already noticed that while you can save emails directly to SharePoint the email attributes are not automatically extracted, you have to fill them in yourself. To automate that you have to go to the third party Add-Ins (see below).
Document management
Filing documents is a bit easier than filing emails, as you expect to have to fill in any metadata. And there are a number of ways to create a new document in the location you are in.
It gets a bit more complicated when you have to fill in metadata as Sharepoint only prompts you for it in a few scenarios which means you have to remember to go back and fill it in.
And if you are working on documents all the time you probably are in Word and prefer not to have to leave Word to create or file your Word document to the correct location.
Below is a summary of what you can and can’t do with some of the most common ways of accessing Sharepoint:
The Web Browser ExpandIn the browser you will be asked for content type when creating a new document, and then after editing it you’ll need to go back into the library to update any metadata
Microsoft Teams ExpandMicrosoft Teams is cool. All that project related functionality in one place, and the ability to have multiple projects each with multiple channels is really cool. But ….
Yes, but,… when it comes to managing files it is only as good as the browser. If you are into zero profiling then it’s fine, but if you meed to set metadata then it gets a bit clunky.
Word, Excel & PowerPoint on PC & Mac, iOS & Android ExpandEvery time I look at what you can and can’t do in the different versions of Word there is improvement. Microsoft is doing a lot of work here and improvements quietly keep appearing.
For example, whether you are on a PC or Mac, or even tablet or phone, you will find the same list of:
- recent files
- recent locations
- pinned recent locations (really useful as you can ensure those places you need less often are always there for you)
- pinned recent files
You can also navigate top down from the various site collections. It is a bit slow but it does work.
Saving metadata is not so advanced – a lot of improvement on the PC version of Word, and indicators there is work going on with the Mac version.
When you save the document from a PC you are asked for content type, and most of the column values appear in File > Info > Show all properties. If the file is in SharePoint Online (August 2019) you can update values of choice columns, and managed metadata (it wasn’t there last time I looked)! You can’t change content type, and user field values need to be set in the web browser, but it’s getting better.
However if you are on a Mac, or a tablet, or using Word in the browser, forget about selecting content type or entering metadata, you’ll need to do that later.[[Sometimes you can access some of the metadata but it is currently unreliable (August 2019)]]
Of course if you use zero profiling then it doesn’t matter which device you use as default content type and default column values take care of things.
But if you do want to enter the metadata when saving a document for the first time you need to look at the 3rd party AddIns like MacroView.
Outlook on PC or Mac, iOS and Android Expand
If you drag an email to a SharePoint library from Outlook it will be added as an eml file by Outlook for Mac, and an msg by Outlook for PC. No metadata is extracted.
To get the metadata you’ll need one of the 3rd party AddIns like MacroView, Repstor, etc.
AddIns to Word, Outlook etc – MacroView, Repstor, Harmon.ie, etc ExpandThese AddIns are the SharePoint equivalents to the AddIns for iManage, OpenText etc. They show you the SharePoint structure, let you select nodes for saving, or drag emails for automatic filing.
They range in functionality and sophistication so it is worth thinking through what you need.
I worked for MacroView for 6 years so I know and like their product well – it is probably the most functional and customisable, though it takes care to hide that functionality behind context sensitive right click menus so as to keep the UI more intuitive.
Pros
Cons
Technical note
Italic
Third party MS Office Add-Ins like MacroView, Repstor, OnePlace, etc ExpandThird party Add-Ins for Microsoft Office come in two main variants:
- Add-Ins for Outlook that allow you to file emails from within Outlook and have the email attributes (From, To, Subject, Received time, etc) extracted
- Add-Ins for Word, Excel & PowerPoint that allow you to easily navigate SharePoint from File > Open, File > Save etc.
See my article on third party Add-Ins.
Disclosure: I worked for MacroView for a few years so I have a natural bias towards recommending their software when appropriate as I know it well.
OneDrive ExpandOne drive synchronises the OneDrive folder on your computer with the OneDrive library in your SharePoint. So you can work on your C drive and have it automatically synchronised to SharePoint.
While this won’t often conform with an organisation’s “best practise” guide, I’ve found there are times it is very useful. You do need to be aware of who can see your OneDrive files in SharePoint, but you can always change the permissions.
Technical note
If you’re on Windows 10 you can include other file paths in your OneDrive files by putting a “symbolic link” in your local OneDrive folder pointing to another file path and OneDrive will automatically include it. More on symbolic links.