Managed Metadata: How to create Term Sets and Terms

In my previous post I have given an introduction to Term Store Management Tool.  In this post I will describe creating Term Sets and Terms.

The foremost thing admins or SharePoint Users doing in Terms Store Management Tool is creating Term Sets and Terms.

In order to create a term set navigate to Term Store Management Tool either by going to Central admin’s managed metadata service application or through Site Settings page in a site collection, you will see the following screen.

To create a Terms Set we need a Group. Right click on Term store such as “Managed Metadata Service” and click “New Group” in the context menu that appears.

New group will appear in the Tree. I have create a Group call Vehicle.

Admin can add multiple users or user groups to manage a group in term store called Group managers. Group managers can add contributors to a group and perform all activities like creating Term Sets and Terms. Contributor are set of users or user groups who can add\edit Term Sets and Terms.

A group can contain multiple Term Sets. Right click on Group name and Click “New Term Set”. User can also import existing Terms Sets. This feature is more useful while migrating terms sets.

In the vehicle Group I have created a Term Set called “Cars”.

A number of properties are available to be set for Term Set. On the General Tab, Owner of the Term Set is the one who manages the Term Set and can restrict users to perform task in Term Set. The current user creating the Term Set automatically comes here. Stakeholders can be given if some needs to be informed of changed made to term set. Submission Policy is important if Admin wants all users to add new Terms in term set then open should be selected.

On the Intended Use tab, an option for Terms to be available for tagging and the other for availability of Terms to be used as Site navigation are available. Many SharePoint sites use Terms set for Site Navigation so this can used as required.

Next one is Custom Sort tab, where sorting option can be set for terms under the specific Term Set. Terms can be sorted according to selected languages or irrespective of a language.

Custom Properties tab offers to add custom properties for terms. These properties are key value pair and are available for all term in a term set.

Now we can Create a new Term in the newly create Term set called Cars. Right click on Cars Term Set and select Create Term from the context menu.

A single term set can be restricted from tagging by uncheck the first option “Available for Tagging” on the General tab. Language can be selected from the dropdown. Only the installed languages appear here. Synonyms for the Term label or description of abbreviations can be given in Other Labels field.

Custom Properties tab offer to add multiple custom properties other than the given. Custom properties defined in Term Set along with the one uniquely declared for this specific Term.

Once all the properties are set Term is ready for use.