Term Store Management in SharePoint Online Office 365 (Step by Step Tutorial)

Hi folks, in this article, we will discuss in detail about Term Store Management Tool for SharePoint Online.

In detail, we will discuss what a term group, term set, terms, and sub-terms, etc. I will also show you, how to create a term group, term set, terms, sub-terms, etc. by using the term set management tool in SharePoint Online/2013/2016.

So, without any further delay let’s get started.

Term store management SharePoint online

In order to work with Term Store first, we need to understand the purpose of this tool and how vital it’s for every organization in order to manage, maintain and secure the data.

By configuring SharePoint Term Store, we can maintain consistent meta data throughout our sites and it’s one time set up which can be modified if required by admin or whoever has full access.

We can configure Term sets for both managed metadata and navigation in SharePoint. We can perform serval activities stating from creating terms in a term set, manage a term such as copy it or move it, reuse it, delete it, Pin term with children, Merge terms.

term store management tool SharePoint online

The Term Store management tool displays all the global term sets and any local term sets available for the site collections from which you access the Term Store management tool.

Let’s have a look now at the below structure which helps you to understand the complete hierarchy.

It consists of the following major components which we will explore in details.

SharePoint Managed Metadata Services

Managed metadata is hierarchical where Metadata is data about data which tells information about information. In SharePoint Managed Metadata is exposed using a service application known as Managed Metadata service application.

So managed metadata is a collection of a predefined set of values which allows sharing content types on-site collection, Web Application, and Farm level.

SharePoint Taxonomy Term Store

A taxonomy term store is a place which you can access using the Central Administration / Admin Centre / Site. It’s a formal classification of the system which holds taxonomy groups, labels, and terms that describe something, and then arranges the groups into a hierarchy.

All these taxonomies are structured hierarchies of information; formal classification systems that help people handle information and secure some vital information.

SharePoint Term Group

A SharePoint term group is a set of term sets that hold all terms which can be accessed or shared by Site Collections and Subsites. Also, it defines some security boundaries as only accessible to users who have access. With respect to managed metadata, a group is a set of term sets that all share common security requirements.

Only users who have contributor permissions for a specific group can manage term sets that belong to the group or create new term sets within it. Organizations should create groups for term sets that will have unique access or security needs.

SharePoint Term Set

A SharePoint term set is a collection or group of related terms. it can be created locally or globally It depends on where a term set is created. Terms sets can have different scope, depending on where you create the term set.

SharePoint local term sets

Local term sets are created within the context of a site collection and are available for use and visible only to users of that site collection. For example, when you create a term set for a metadata column in a list or library, then the term set is local.

It is available only in the site collection that contains this list or library. For example, a Document library might have a metadata column that shows the kind of documents with different extensions.

SharePoint Global term sets

Global term sets are available for use across all sites that subscribe to a specific Managed Metadata Service application. For example, an organization might create a term set that lists the names of brands in the organization.

SharePoint Terms

A term is a specific word or phrase that is associated with an item on a SharePoint site. It is a single item in a term set. A term has a unique ID and it can have many text labels. There are two types of terms called Managed terms & Enterprise keyword.

There are two types of terms: –

• Managed terms: Managed terms are terms that are a pre-defined set of values. It can be organized by administrators into a hierarchical term set.
• Enterprise keywords: An enterprise keyword is a word or phrase that a user adds to items on a SharePoint site. The collection of enterprise keywords is known as the Keywords set. Typically, users can add any word or phrase to an item as a keyword.

SharePoint Sub terms

SharePoint Sub terms are same as Terms, having a parent-child relationship. We can have many levels as a sub child based on the requirement.

Create SharePoint Online Term Group

Now let’s begin and configure a new Term Group under Term Store using a tool step by step. Here we’re going to create a term set group TSInfo_Products for using in a Services term set.

Following are the steps which will help to create Term Store in SharePoint Online.

For that first, we have to log in to the office 365 portal with valid credentials and go to the SharePoint Admin Center. Then, click on the term store.

Below is the Term Store Management Tool where we can see nothing under Term Store so now let’s create one Group for us quickly.

When you select a Taxonomy group in left-hand side you can see few general properties related to it like Available Service Applications, Sample Import, Term Store Administrator, Default Language, Working Languages and unique Identifier. Which you can set as per your requirements.

You have to click on New Group as below highlighted in order to create.

Now we will create a new group called TSInfo_Products as shown below.

SharePoint term group properties

On the left-hand side, you can see all the properties related to this Group like Group Name, Description, Group Managers, Contributors.

• Group Name: Give name as you want it to appear in the hierarchy. All Owners and Contributes can modify this name if they wish to.
• Description: This is the descriptive text to help users better organize and use term sets in this group.
• Group Managers: These are the names, group names, or e-mail addresses in order to grant group manager permissions. We can Separate multiple users with semicolons. These users will have contributor permissions and will also able to add users to the contributor role.
• Contributors: These users will have full permissions to edit terms and term set hierarchies within this SharePoint term group.
• Unique Identifier: This property you can’t modify but is very useful in order to identify SharePoint Online term Group uniquely.

Once SharePoint term Group is created successfully and set all the properties below actions can be done on this group including.

• New Term Set
• Import Term Set
• Delete Group

Create term set in SharePoint online

So, our next step would be the creation of New Term Set under TSInfo_Products group, so we will select New Term Set and create Local Brands. Once created we can now see some properties related to Term Set like below.

General: Here you can set some general properties related to the term set like Term Set Name, Description, Owner (can have multiple people), Contact.

• Term Set Name: We can type a new name for this term set as you want it to appear in the hierarchy.
• Description: We can type descriptive text to help users understand the intended use of this term set.
• Owner: Here we can add the primary user or group of this term set.
• Contact: We needs to add an e-mail address for term suggestion and feedback. If this field is left blank, the suggestion feature will be disabled.
• Stakeholders: This information is used to track people and groups in the organization that should be notified before major changes are made to the term set. You can enter multiple users or groups.
• Submission Policy: When a term set is closed, only metadata managers can add terms to this term set. When it is open, users can add terms from a tagging application.
• Unique Identifier: We can’t modify this field but is very important as this has a unique identification.

Intended Use: Term set usages, Available for Tagging, use this term set for navigation, use this term set for faceted site navigation

• Term Set Usage: You can hide or display the tabs that users will see when they edit this term set.
• Available for Tagging: This term set is available to be used by end users and content editors of sites consuming this term set. You can check the box if you want this to be available.
• Use this Term Set for Site Navigation: This allows term set to be used for Managed Navigation, which includes features like friendly URLs, target page settings, catalog item page settings, etc. Selecting this enables the “Navigation” and “Term-Driven Pages” tabs.
• Use this Term Set for Faceted Navigation: This allows users to configure contextual refiners, also known as Faceted Navigation. Contextual refiners are used together with Managed Navigation. Selecting this enables the “Faceted Navigation” tab.

Custom Sort: A custom sort can be applied to child terms below this term set. Using a custom sort order will ensure that terms appear in a consistent order, regardless of the language or any changes in default labels. Below you can get two options.

• Use default sort order according to the current language.
• Use custom sort order.

Custom Properties: Use custom properties to store additional data about a term set.

Once Term set is created, we can perform below actions on the term set

• Create Term
• Copy Term Set
• Reuse Terms
• Pin Terms with Children’s
• Move Term Set
• Delete Term Set

SharePoint Create Term

Create Term: In order to create Term under Term Set, we need to select Create Term option and add the Term like we are adding Laptops. Once we add this on a left-hand side, we can set some property specific to this term like shown below.

General- Here you can set some general properties related to Term.

• Available for Tagging- Here We can select whether this term is available to be used by end users for tagging. When unselected this term will be visible but not enabled in tagging tools.
• Language- We need to select here preferable language to Edit this Term.
• Description- We can type descriptive text to help users understand the intended use of this term.
• Default Label- Here we can enter one label as the default for this language.
• Other Labels- We can enter synonyms and abbreviations for this term. (You can enter a word or phrase per line.)
• Member Of- Here we can add the primary user or group of this term as an owner.
• Unique Identifier- We can’t modify this field but is very important as this has a unique identification.

Custom Properties- We use custom properties to store additional data about a term.

• Shared Properties- Shared Properties are available on all reused or pinned instances of this term anywhere in the term store.
• Local Properties- Local Properties are only available for this term in this term set.

Copy Term in SharePoint

Copy Term Set- This will copy all the priorities along with Text. Basically, it’s a replica if the copied term.

Reuse Term in SharePoint

Reuse Term- In order to reuse we need to search an existing term and click OK. By using this action we can save a lot of effort as we are using the existing term and all its properties are automatically synced.

Pin Terms in SharePoint

Pin Terms with Children’s- In order to Pin we need to search the term and click OK.

Move Term in SharePoint

Move Term Set- In order to Move we need to select the term which we need to move and click OK. This will change the order in which we want to see the terms.

Delete Term in SharePoint

Delete Term Set- We can perform delete operation on SharePoint Term. Once we select Delete term, it will ask you to select OK or Cancel. As once we delete it, we won’t be able to recover this term. So, we need to be very careful while performing this action.

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Conclusion

So, in conclusion in this article, we have learned what Term Store Management tool is and how we can access this tool in order to create Group, Term Set, Terms and Sub Terms.

I hope you find this article to be helpful and you have learned something new today. Please comment below if you have any quires related to this post and on which topic you want me to write next. I will definitely try to post another blog.