How to Enable Users to Add New Terms to SharePoint Term Store

Recently, after I published a post on how to create a Term in the Term Store using Power Automate, one of my clients reached out with another requirement. They liked the automation, but in their team organization, they don’t use Power Automate. Instead, they wanted a way for users to directly add new terms in the Term Store without needing a flow.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to enable users to add new terms to the Term Store in SharePoint by adjusting permissions and settings.

Enable Users to Add New Terms to the Term Store

Sometimes, not every user has permission to add new terms to the Term Store in SharePoint. By default, only Term Store Administrators or Group Managers can create and manage terms. However, if your team members need the ability to add terms (without using Power Automate), you can simply assign them the right permissions in the Term Store.

To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Go to SharePoint Admin Center, expand Content services. Click the Term store.

Note:

Before enabling users to add new terms, make sure you have already created the Term Group and Term Set in the Term Store.

2. In the Term Store panel, select the Term Group where you want to allow users to add terms. For example, I want to add Business Units to the term set.

3. Go to the Usage settings tab -> Edit the Submission policy.

4. Change it from Closed to Open, then click Save.

Add a Managed Metadata column with Allow users to type new values

For this example, I created a document library called Team Documents.

1. Go to the Team Documents library (or any list/library where you want to use metadata). Add a Managed Metadata column.

2. Click the dropdown next to the column -> Column settings -> Edit.

3. Scroll down and expand More options. Turn on ‘Allow users to type new values’ (the toggle will say ‘Yes’).

Now, let’s see how we can add a new term:

1. Once the setup is complete, go to your document library and upload a file. Open the Properties pane of the file. Click on the tag (Managed Metadata column).

As you can see in this term set, I have one term in HR, but I now want to add IT.

2. Click the three dots next to the Term Set -> New term -> type the new term.
3. After typing the term, click Apply.

Then you can see the IT term added in the Document library.

Also, the new term will be saved in the Term Store and added to the Term Set for future use.

This way, we can create a Term in the Term Store.

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