SharePoint A-Z : M is for Managed Metadata

aka Term Store. We like to abbreviate the Managed Metadata Service in MMS.

Managed Metadata is metadata that gets created in the SharePoint Admin Centre that can then be used on every single site collection in the tenant.

It is (supposed to be) highly structured and formally managed so everyone can use it properly.

You need to be a dedicated Term Store Administrator to add or edit managed metadata. Even if you have SharePoint Admin rights on your tenant, you still need to yourself as a Term Store Admin to do anything in there.

You get 3 levels of terms, Term Groups, Term Sets and Terms.

Edit them using the menu or elipse.

Add them into a list or library but selecting Managed Metadata from Add a Column.

Click to select the term group. or set or term.

Then configure the rest of the column as required.

Then when using Quick Edit on list / library level, it will look like this. You can either start typing values that will populate, or click the tag to view available options.

You can’t format the fields like you can with a choice field. You’d have to write a whole lot of code to make it colourful like the Doc Type column is.

If you’re going to have a lot of term groups, put a fullstop in front of the biggest one, most official one, most used one, etc. It will bypass the alphabetical list and put it at the top of the log.

Share This Blog

Veronique Palmer

I am based in South Africa and have 18 years fulltime SharePoint experience. I excel at intranet strategy, governance and architecture. The end user experience and strategic goals of the business are top of mind when we design and build intranets using SharePoint Online and other Microsoft 365 applications. Our award-winning consultancy has helped hundreds of businesses all over the world.

Scroll to Top