Sharepoint 2010 server comes with two features for allowing navigation based on Metadata. The features are Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters. Navigation Hierarchies provide a tree view interface allowing users to drill down and select an item for filtering where as the Key Filters provide the type ahead facility.This blog explains setting up Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters for a document library in Sharepoint 2010. Note that these features are available only in Sharepoint 2010 server and not in Sharepoint Foundation.
Managed Metadata
To begin with we should add a column to the document library that will contain the metadata used for navigation.Though Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters support column types such as Content Type and Choice we will use a Managed Metadata field as it provides more flexibility. Following are the steps for creating a Managed Metadata column
1. Navigate to the document library to which you want to add the Managed Metadata column
2. From the Library Tools menu select Library and then from the Ribbon select Create Column
3. In the Create Column popup give a column name and select the type as Managed Metadata
4. In the Create Column popup choose the “Customize your term set” option and create your metadata terms
5. Assign metadata to documents within the document library
Once the metadata terms are created and assigned to documents we start setting up Navigation Hierarchies and Key Filters
Navigation Hierarchies
Following are the steps for setting up Navigation Hierarchies
1. In the document library settings page select Metadata navigation settings under General Settings
2. In the Metadata Navigation settings page for the Configure Navigation Hierarchies select the Managed Metadata column you want for navigation
3. If we navigate to the document library the Navigation Hierarchy we created will be available as part of Quick Launch
4. Clicking a Metadata node will filter the document library based on the metadata
Key Filters
Following are the steps for setting up Navigation Hierarchies
1. In the document library settings page select Metadata navigation settings under General Settings
2. In the Metadata Navigation settings page for the Configure Key Filters select the Managed Metadata column you want for navigation
3.If we navigate to the document library the Key Filter we created will be available as part of Quick Launch
4. Entering a Metadata value and clicking the Apply button will filter the document library based on the metadata