The Hapless Guide

Clearly, I'm having a rant this morning. Again Folders v Metadata. Moving a whole load of files/folders to the cloud?

We set up libraries.

We add metadata columns to the libraries including lookup lists on vital business information like Customers, Categories etc. At these columns lookups, this ensures that everything is uniformly tagged.(No spelling errors, different conventions, abbreviations, acronyms etc.)

But no one wants to tag all these documents....but not worry as we can set up default values on each folder. GREAT!

I want a list that is accessible to all sites in my site collection. Surely this is a reasonable request, given that there is some fundamental Business lists that should be accessible globally?

Doesn't happen.

Tried creating a 'Site Column' from using the Master List as a lookup source. Although this column is available to my subsites, I can not use it as a source lookup for a library.

There's is loads of talk about the demise of folders and the rise of metadata.

There is even more talk about avoiding folders completely.

This morning I thought about going on a one man crusade against all the blogs advocating metadata by posting messages. Then I thought let's go to my humble Tumblr page.

Here's the crux of my problem:

USERS LIKE ONEDRIVE (for Business) because it replicates the standard desktop experience that they had with network drives.

You cannot search for files/folders using metadata with OneDrive. You can only 'Sync a library'.

Therefore if ALL your files were in the root folder of your library, there is no way to find what you're looking for.

Until Microsoft expands OneDrive to give metadata search options, FOLDERS ARE ALIVE AND WELL IN SHAREPOINT ONLINE!!!

Although I have programmed before, Visual Studio 2013 is a whole new ball game. I am having to learn a whole new development practice, from coding in C#, to structure (MVC) and database design and modification (Entity Framework, code first, Microsoft Azure etc.).

It's difficult.

Typically when learning anything, Google is heavily involved. But it seems that for Sharepoint online (Office365, 2013) combined with VS2013 (with the latest service packs) finding anything that is suitable (or nearly suitable) is tough. Loads of information, but as I'm a complete newbie, even a slight difference in the above scenario causes a lot of head scratching.

It's a fight.

In October 2013, for the first time, I started investigating Sharepoint 2013. It was for a project which shortly after was significantly downgraded to Sharepoint 2007! (Due to hosting company.....politics.....etc.)