Using Document Sets to manage document based processes

The right tool for the right job

In SharePoint, I use a couple tools to manage the processes within my organization.  In the case of process automation, my default is to use Nintex, automating the process where it makes sense and improving the user experience where ever possible.  When I have a process that is document based, I will employ document sets, managed metadata and content types to automate the document provisioning for the process and then employ Nintex for additional functionality.

Today, I want to write mainly about Document Sets and how we can use them to make Document management easier within your SharePoint ecosystem.  One of the greatest difficulties we have in document and records management is the classification and application of Metadata; it is the holy grail, so to speak, of document management and is an area where many third party tools exist to perform auto classification.  In reality with Document Sets, Managed Metadata and Content Types and the support of Nintex workflow and forms, we can do almost anything you need for document classification.

Content Types

I first want to talk about Content Types.  Why? Because a Document Set is a Content Type for one and also because part of the reason we use Document Sets is to manage Content Types within a container.  So, let's get to it...
What is a Content Type?  A Content Type is a piece of reusable content that has a predefined selection of attributes (Metadata) assigned to it.  Think of it like a document template, because in reality, that is what most people use content types for.  Something many users do not realize however, is that with content types, you can build a Taxonomy (Hierarchical Structure) of Content and Metadata and that the taxonomy is explicitly required.  Understand that when we deal with content in SharePoint, there is an understanding that an Information Architecture should be designed and created and you need to do it using Content Types and Metadata. So lets quickly go through Content Type creation so it makes a bit more sense, the following steps were created using Office 365, but they are the same for On Premise or SharePoint Online.

Creating a Content Type

1. Go to Site Settings
2. Choose Site content types
   
   
3. In the Site content types screen, you will see all the content types applicable to the site, arranged into groups.  At the very top you will see the Create button, Click it.
   
   
4. Create the Content Type
   
   

Notice when we created the Content Type, it asked us for the Parent Content Type?  That is the implicit Taxonomy I referring to.  We can choose any content type as a parent and like real parents, their attributes are passed on to their children and we can then choose what is important, making the information architecture and the result much easier to manage; that even includes Document Templates.

Now this blog is about Document sets, so that is all I am going to talk about Content types for now, but stay tuned in future blogs, I will provide more insight into Content Types and how to use them.

Document Sets

Now you may be wondering what a Document Set is? well simply put, it is a folder within SharePoint that is used to apply shared metadata to all the objects within that folder.  So for example, lets say you have a project, the project has a project name, a project manager, a project number, a sponsor, a status and perhaps a region or other metadata that tells you about the project.  Some of this information is information you would want to associate to your documents, like to project Name and Project Number. Other information, like the Project Manager and Sponsor are not that important at the document level and don't need to be associated.  A Document Set has the ability to decide what is assigned and what is not when you configure the document set.

Another feature of the Document Set is the ability to assign specific content types that can be created within it, much like you would do in a document library or list.  You can pick and choose what can and can not be created within the document set.  Each content type within the document set has two portions of metadata, the assigned metadata from the document set and the content type metadata that was assigned when you created the content type.  Now you may ask, should I add the document set metadata I want to share to each content type I am going to use?  The answer is No, they are independent and your Document set management will be easier if you don't do that extra work.

Finally Document Sets (and this is the reason for the name) allow you to automatically provision a group of documents as a set.  In other words, every time you say > [Document Set Name] it will create a set of however many documents you decide, all ready for collaboration and all with the document set metadata already assigned.  Okay, so enough about all the things we can do with a document set, we created one when looking at content types, lets see what it can do...

Using a Document Set

 I am going to pick up where we left off from the last example as we clicked OK, if you closed out of it, not to worry, you can get back into the document set by going to site settings, choosing Site content types and then clicking on the content type you originally created.

1. Create all the metadata for the Document Set
   
   
   I will add three pieces of Metadata for the demo, Category, Status and Keywords, all from the Core Document Columns Group.
2.  My intent is that the Category and Keywords are both Metadata fields that are important to the documents that exist in the document set, while the status is only important to the document set itself.  So now I need to go into the Document Set settings (under Settings) and modify the Document Set.
3. Now to describe the Document Set Settings and what each section does, I have labelled an image and will go through each section, it's purpose and what you need to do.  The only one out of order is the Shared Columns, I want to go through that section first.

1. Shared Columns -  As I mentioned, I wanted to have Category and Keywords included with all my documents in the set, this is where I do that.  Checked columns are shared to the contents of the document set, unchecked are not.
2. Allowed Content Types - This is where you choose the content types that are available for creation under the button.
3. Default Content - This is where you add the documents (not templates) that will automatically be added to every new document set created.
4. Welcome Page Columns - Document Sets have a custom welcome page layout, at the top of the page is a folder icon, project name, description and any additional columns you want to add.
5. Welcome Page - The Welcome page can be customized by you, allowing for additional web parts and content.

You now have enough information about Document Sets, start playing with them and you will quickly see way to use them in your organization.  Some additional functionality can also be realized through the use of Nintex forms and workflows and also through the use of Managed Metadata. Stay tuned for future post on how we can use Metadata to create taxonomies, folksonomies and vocabularies, to further add value and structure to our solutions through proper information architecture.

I would be happy to provide answers to this or anything else to do with SharePoint, Information Governance and Information Architecture.  Comments and feedback, good or bad are appreciated, if you like what you see, follow my blog or follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook:

Quantum Power Transmission

Preamble

I was reading an article on NASA testing non-propellant drives for space flight;  which still requires power.  Now for Intra-solar system flight that shouldn't be a problem, we have the sun, which for all intents and purpose is a limitless power supply when using solar cells, but what about when you extend beyond the limits of solar power?  Do we use the power to accelerate to a point and then let it carry us to the next star system?  or do we use another source of power that can sustain the power indefinitely?
I have not seen anyone write about this idea before and I thought I would get it our there and hope someone brighter than me can either build it up or tear it down, either way as long as there is discussion and I get to hear it, I am happy.  I am not a physicist, I am a computer geek, so I am not privy to academia or the world of quantum physics, I am merely a person who thought I should write down an epiphany...

The Premise

The premise for Quantum power transmission is based off Quantum Entanglement, specifically the use of the disentangled quantum pairs.  Based on the experiments conducted, experimental physicists have been able to demonstrate Quantum entangled states on objects as large as buckyballs.



According to Maxwell's relations we know that when moving an electrically charge particle through an electromagnetic field, a charge is generated; this is the premise of an electrical generator and an electric motor (in reverse).  In an electric generator, mechanical power (from wind, water, hand crank, etc.) is converted to electrical power (whether direct or alternating current) by spinning a rotor within or around a Stator.  In electrical power generation this is typically done on a very large scale. 

The Application

Now imagine if you could create nano-generators and nano-motors where the rotors on both are entangled pairs of the other.  When we apply the electrical power to the motor, the rotor would spin causing the entangled pair to also spin, which is the rotor of the generator; this would create an electrical power transmission system across limitless space.  In addition, due to the nano-scaling of the system, it could be more flexible to design for a space craft and should be substantially more stable thanks to a large number of independent generators and motors operating in parallel. 

The Questions

1. Has someone already thought of this?
2. Would any of this cause the rotors to lose their quantum state?
3. Is the theory sound?
4. Can someone smarter than me expand on this?

Thanks for any and all that read this post, I realize it is nothing like any of my other posts, but I just had to write it down.  Please comment and provide feedback, whether good or bad, I appreciate it.  Follow me on twitter if you want to learn about SharePoint and Information Governance @DavidRMcMillan and @DevFactoPortals.

Office Delve, the answer to your unified search prayers

What is Office Delve?

The easiest way to explain Office Delve is to say it is a unified search center for Office 365, but in reality it is much more than that.  Delve is all about collaboration and it learns from your usage (and your organizations usage) to create a relevance hierarchy that works best for you. The more does in Delve, by viewing, editing and sharing each other's documents, the more useful Delve will be for all of you.  What you see in your views in Delve is different from what your colleagues see in theirs, because it is tailored specifically to you.

What does Delve look like?

One of the biggest advantages to Delve over traditional search is the user experience.  Delve is about allowing you to find what you are looking for and it is about making it easy for you to see the information.  Delve provides a user interface that is both intuitive and understandable for users.

Delve provides recent activity when you first load the browser and provides the ability to see, search, group and explore documentation, e-mails and content within your Office 365 ecosystem.

How can I and my team get the most out of Delve?

Remember Delve is adaptive, so the best way to get Delve working for you is by you working with Delve.  Delve doesn't modify access to anything, so you need to ensure that your documents are somewhere within the Office 365 ecosystem, like SharePoint online or One Drive for Business.  You also need to make sure documents you want to share are accessible to the people you intend to use them and finally, just like any search, you still need to concentrate on good metadata behind the scenes.  Delve is adaptive, but it can't read your mind, think of it as an extension of your standard search functionality, a good Information Architecture (IA) will make Delve work better, delve only makes the user experience (UX) portion easier to manage.

For additional information on getting the most out of Delve and making your documents accessible check out Microsoft Support article on it: http://devfac.to/1C7aByT

Update:

In an update this week (March 21, 2015), Delve has added additional content into the search results, you can now see Yammer and web search results in the result sets.  The web search results are based of what you and your coworkers have been navigating to.  It is quite nice to have it all consolidated.

Follow me on Twitter: @DavidRMcMillan and @DevfactoPortals or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/moss.adventures.  Feedback and sharing are always appreciated and encouraged.

 

What is the difference between a hybrid cloud and a blended cloud?

The "Hybrid" Buzz

You know, when Microsoft release their Hybrid cloud offering for Azure, I thought that was great, after all hybrid has become a buzz word in recent years with the hybrid electric cars and such.  But as time went on I started to realize hybrid wasn't a good word for what they were offering with Azure on premise and cloud integration.  I am not saying the offering isn't good, far from it, it is a great approach to transitioning the enterprise to cloud infrastructure and provides something Amazon (AWS) is sorely lacking and has been slow in adopting.  Instead it is the terminology and what it means, the term hybrid is going to end up causing confusion as true cloud hybrid offerings are implemented, so let me explain.

What is a Hybrid?

Merriam-Webster.com defines "Hybrid" as
: an animal or plant that is produced from two animals or plants of different kinds
: something that is formed by combining two or more things


The second definition is true for vehicles and technology.  In short it is taking two "things" and combining them.  Just like the first definition, it is a single new entity from combining two similar things.  In the case of hybrid cars, we took technology from one type of car, a gas (or diesel) powered engine and combined it with the electric motor from an electric car.  The result is not gas and it is not electric, instead it uses both, as a single combined system.  The gas motor is smaller than the original and so is the electric and they are inseparable.

Why #hybridcloud is not hybrid

Now in the definition above we talk about combining two technologies to make a single result, but in reality that doesn't happen in a hybrid cloud solution.  Instead each component, cloud and on premise, remains intact and then additional functionality is added to make them appear seamless.  They are not a single entity, but instead a blending of the two systems.  Now blending is a good thing, it is not bad and in reality if we call it a blended environment, it will reduce confusion with actually hybrid cloud solutions.  Another reason I would consider it not a hybrid is because they are different technology bases.  Apples and Oranges can not be combined to form a hybrid, because they are not similar, but a Tiger and a Lion can be, creating a Liger, why because they are very similar and in the same family of animals.  Cloud and On Premise share some similarities, but they are too different to be combined into a hybrid.

There is a hybrid cloud!

Hybrid cloud solutions do exist and they are going to become more and more prevalent.  It is the reason why I want to differentiate now rather than later, when organization begin implementing private cloud solutions, they will still need some components to exist in the public domain (public cloud) these environments will not be intended to operate independently and will use parts from both "cloud" offerings making a hybrid environment.  This is the next stage in the transition to the cloud for large enterprises as it offers the control they still desire for the control of where data resides, but abstracts the servers from the hardware.

So what about this "Blended Cloud"?

Well a blended cloud is a seamless integration of cloud computing components into your on premise environment. The two exist independently and are combined using tools like ADFS and VPN to make it seem as seamless as possible.  In reality the only way you can tell the difference as a user is by the latency (time it takes to respond) you experience.  This latency can be eliminated however through the use of caching devices, like StorSimple, that analyze the traffic and cache the most commonly used information on the local area network (LAN).

Conclusion

Now I know a few of you out there are saying it is still hybrid (namely my friends at Microsoft) which is fine, I just feel differentiating between them will make for less headache as time goes on.  Thanks for reading, please provide your comments and feedback and follow me on Twitter @DavidRMcMillan and @DevFactoPortals.