Friday, June 27, 2008

How to Use Your Computer - Sharepoint Development Example

Mark Miller at EndUserSharePoint.com has been running with my idea of using separate pages in a Sharepoint area to host a collection of user support documentation: Pages and Sites in SharePoint 2007 (Case Study).

He has turned that into a screen cast using an alternative method of organizing the documents using content types: A Beginner’s Guide to Content Types. The screencast is a great way to show the methods used.

I find the use of content types to be very valuable when use multiple document libraries.

For a single document library like I set up for “Using Your Computer” I find the column and view sorting to work just fine without the content type. If I had the documentation spread across other sites or other libraries, then I would use content types. I find the power of content types to be their ability to reunite information spread across the site collection into one place. For a single document library, it seems to be excessive and adds unneeded complexity.

1 comment:

  1. Doug - I would argue the point that most people don't plan for the growth of their site. The time it takes to create a Content Type, even for one library, is paid back in spades as the site expands.

    I agree with your premise that a Content Type is most useful when aggregating information from various locations in a site collection. However, I would also consider using them for a single library to help manage growth.

    Definitely worth a longer discussion if you'd like to do another guest post.

    Regards,
    Mark
    EndUserSharePoint.com

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