Working with Large Document Stores in Microsoft SharePoint

Organizations that are using SharePoint to manage all their email messages or all their documents typically find that their SharePoint environment grows very large quite rapidly. They can have millions of documents stored in thousands of site collections, huge site trees, large numbers of document libraries and deeply nested folder structures. With the native web-browser interface of Microsoft SharePoint it is very difficult to visualize these large SharePoint document repositories and to navigate them efficiently.

The WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView makes working with even the largest SharePoint document stores very efficient in both human user and machine resource terms.

WISDOM DMF provides each user with an intuitive tree-view display of their available SharePoint document storage environment. WISDOM totally respects SharePoint permissions - a user's WISDOM tree-view display will not show anything that he / she could not have accessed via the standard SharePoint web browser UI. At the same time WISDOM displays all the areas of SharePoint wherein documents can be stored.

The WISDOM DMF tree-view display makes viewing and working with SharePoint as easy and familiar are using Windows Explorer to view and work with file shares in Windows Explorer. The WISDOM tree-view can cope with very large SharePoint environments - indeed some existing WISDOM DMF customers are major organizations with extensive SharePoint environments. WISDOM has been shown to work well with a document libraries containing over 130,000 folders with more than 20 levels of nesting - just what a big organization might need when they are migrating their File Shares and Public Folders to SharePoint.

WISDOM DMF provides a number of facilities that make it quick and easy to navigate a large SharePoint document store. These include:

• SharePoint Favorites - for one-click navigation to frequently used sites, libraries and folders;


• Filtering - so that WISDOM displays only wanted sub-sites, libraries or sub-folders;


• 'Search Site Tree’ - which harnesses the power of the MOSS Search Engine to rapidly locate a wanted site or library even if you do not know how the SharePoint environment is structured.

WISDOM DMF uses smart caching (both server and client side) and choking techniques to ensure consistently good response times and efficient use of bandwidth when navigating even the largest SharePoint environments.

Moving Files in SharePoint - maintaining Version History

If you are using out-of-the-box Microsoft SharePoint you can move and copy files from one document library to another by cutting and pasting in the Explorer View or by opening in Windows Explorer. Trouble is that this does not preserve any Version History on the files and neither does it prompt for any meta-data required in the destination library.

As part of our WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 MacroView provides WISDOM Explorer, which does a great job on moving and copying files around in SharePoint.

WISDOM Explorer displays an intuitive tree-view of your SharePoint environment so that you can visualise all the document libraries that you have permission to access. WISDOM Explorer let's you drag-and-drop to move (or copy) files from one document library to another. As it does the move or copy WISDOM can re-use any meta-data that it already recorded for the file(s) and will prompt for any new meta-data columns that are defined in the destination document library. WISDOM supports all the meta-data column types that are available in SharePoint, including Business Data columns (if you have the MOSS Enterprise CAL).

WISDOM will also preserve any Version History that is available on the file(s) that you move between document libraries (provided of course that Version History is configured for the destination library).

WISDOM makes moving and copying documents and files in SharePoint easy for users and generally maximises the effectiveness of SharePoint as a document management environment.

Unique Document Numbering in SharePoint

As organizations consider using Microsoft SharePoint to manage their documents they ask whether SharePoint can provide the features of 'traditional' document management systems, such as the ability to assign a unique Document ID to each document or file as it is saved.

Unique Document Numbering is not provided by 'out-of-the-box' Microsoft SharePoint 2007, but it is available as a SharePoint add-on called WISDOM Unique Document Numbering from MacroView, a Microsoft Gold Partner.

Saving or uploading a file to a SharePoint document library that has the WISDOM Unique Document Numbering feature enabled causes the next available unique Document Number to be assigned automatically to the file.

The Document ID can be configured to be unique across all the Site Collections in the organization's SharePoint environment and also to have a Prefix (e.g. to identify documents from a particular server farm). Numbering can also be configured to start from a certain point, which is very useful in situations where you are migrating from an existing DM system.

When a document file is opened into Microsoft Office (Word, Excel or PowerPoint), the unique Document ID is available as a custom Document Property, which can easily be displayed in the footer of the document. Even better for inclusion in a Footer is the Document Reference property that WISDOM creates and maintains. This Document Reference property combines the unique Document ID with the latest Version number and the title of the Document Library where the document is stored.

MacroView also supply a SharePoint add-on called WISDOM DMF, which provides an intuitive tree-view display of the SharePoint environment, and allows you to drag and drop to move files between document libraries. As files are moved, WISDOM maintains existing Document IDs.

WISDOM Unique Document Numbering adds best-practice document numbering to SharePoint document management solutions.