In this post, I will dive into the details of the social bookmarking and tagging features of SharePoint 2010.  As I said in a previous post, my aim with this series on SharePoint 2010 Social Computing is to bring a new level of enlightenment to how the features have been designed to work, their intended use, and benefits.

I am actually going to break this discussion up into four separate posts because of the depth of the subject area and the investment Microsoft has made in the features.  The work that Microsoft has done to enable social bookmarking and tagging within SharePoint 2010 is both broad and deep, and a single blog post on the subject would be too long.

Here is how I am going to break up Part 5 of my series into four blog posts:

Part 5a – Intro and Central Database of Bookmarks and Tags For All Users < You are here

Part 5b – Bookmarking and Tagging User Experience

Part 5c – Browsing Bookmarks and Tags

Part 5d – Searching Bookmarks and Tags

(Note: This post begins the fifth part in this series on SharePoint 2010 Social Networking. For the first post and a table of contents, go here.)

To get started on explaining social bookmarking and tagging in SharePoint 2010, I am going to take an approach that some people may not consider very fair to SharePoint, but I believe that you will see by the end of the article that it is a very good way to analyze and understand the features available.  My approach: compare social bookmarking and tagging in SharePoint 2010 to the features of Delicious.

Delicious could be considered the grandfather of all social computing applications.  If not the grandfather, then certainly one of the top two or three from the early days of social computing on the Internet – definitely long before Facebook and Twitter.

At its core, Delicious is a database.  It is a database of URL bookmarks with users and tags associated with them.  It allows users to bookmark interesting content using their favorite web browser(s), assign free form subject-related tags to the bookmark(s), and then save the information to the Delicious database.  The fact that the information is stored in the Delicious centralized database opens up the door for surfacing and sharing of bookmarks and tags among the community of users of the service (hence, the label of “social bookmarking” to describe the service).

Practically speaking, many users have found over the years that a social bookmarking application can help them uncover excellent content on the web that for some reason doesn’t surface easily in the search engines.  I know a lot of people who consider a Google search and a Delicious search as their one-two punch when they are looking for a particular type of hard-to-find content.  They frequently say that if they can’t find any relevant information about what they are looking for by using Google, that often they will find something through Delicious.

Microsoft has communicated over the last year that providing social bookmarking and tagging features was one of the primary goals of SharePoint 2010 Social Computing.  The thought is that if all of an organization’s users contribute to the centralized database of bookmarks and tags, individuals and the organization as a whole will reap significant benefits from this type of sharing of organizational knowledge. (Remember that I said in my first post that social computing in SharePoint 2010 is really more about “knowledge networking” than it is about “social networking”).

So, let’s see how SharePoint 2010 stacks up to the feature-set provided by social bookmarking gold-standard, Delicious. Through the process of doing this, I believe I can do a good job of explaining the details of the SharePoint 2010 approach.

Feature: Centralized Database of Bookmarks and Tags For All Users

(Note: this first bookmarking and tagging feature discussion is a little on the technical side, but is very important to the end-user features that I tackle after this one.)

Delicious:

No question about it, Delicious has this.  Without it, the service wouldn’t work, and we know it has worked quite well and has been quite popular for many years.  I can’t describe the specifics of any of the Delicious database architecture, though, since it is proprietary and not shared by Delicious with the public.  We will just trust that it is solid since it has stood the test of time.

SharePoint Server 2010:

Using SQL Server Management Studio, it is relatively easy to look under the hood of SharePoint Server 2010 and get some architectural details about the databases and tables that underpin bookmarking and tagging,

The dbo.SocialTags table:

Looks like this table is storing a record for each instance of a user tagging/bookmarking a page in SharePoint 2010.  It has a date and time stamp (LastModifiedTime) a tag label text field (InputTermLabel) and a page title field (should be the title of the page bookmarked, but appears as NULL for some reason in the few sample records shown above).

As expected, it also has a foreign key (UrlID) that could be used in joins to a master URL table (dbo.Urls).  This one-to-many data structure should make it easy to retrieve all of the bookmark/tag records for a given URL.

(Important note: By explaining what I see in the SharePoint databases, I am not advocating that anyone directly read or write to the SharePoint tables.  The only supported way of accessing SharePoint data is through the object model and web services published by Microsoft.)

Also as expected, it has a foreign key (User_RecordID) that could be used in joins to a master User table (dbo.UserProfile_Full).  This one-to-many data structure should make it easy to retrieve all of the bookmark/tag records for a given User.

Finally, it has a foreign key (TermID) that could be used in joins to a master Tag Label table (the dbo.ECMTermLabel table in the Managed Metadata Service database).  This one-to-many data structure should make it easy to retrieve all of the bookmark/tag records for a given Tag Label.

So, a quick and dirty* Entity Relationship diagram might look something like this:

* I say “quick and dirty” because this is just my interpretation of the relationships based on what I can surmise from looking at the tables and columns in SQL Server.  To my knowledge, Microsoft does not publish official documentation that describes the relationships or where and how they are used.

Comparison: Bookmarks and Tags Database Design

It looks like SharePoint has well-designed, capable data structures for accomplishing the primary goals of social bookmarking and tagging – storing and easily retrieving shared bookmarks and tags.  We don’t know exactly what the Delicious structures look like, but it is probably a safe bet that it is similar – the data design of this type of application is not exactly “rocket science”.

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SharePoint Server 2010 unleashes new features such as managed metadata and metadata navigation that make metadata even more important. But a big problem for many SharePoint projects is getting metadata onto documents. It is important to consider the tradeoff of metadata vs. user tax. As the number of metadata columns that must be filled in increases it becomes less likely that users will fill in metadata because it is that much additional work to go through and see which columns actually apply. If a large amount of required columns are used then user adoption may be slow because it is so taxing to upload content. In a very open and collaborative scenario this can be detrimental. But as the value of the content and effort to create that content increases, it becomes more likely that users will take the time to fill in the appropriate fields, especially when this operation is not frequent.

For any SharePoint project you should carefully consider what metadata will be needed to perform required operations and for users to find content. Evaluate how long it will take users to fill in that metadata, and evaluate the user impact. If lots of metadata is required but end users do not adopt the system because the overhead for creating content is high it will be difficult to have a successful implementation.

Metadata defaults help with this problem because you can automatically fill in metadata for users. If a particular field will have the same value 50% or more of the time then you should specify a metadata default to help users fill in forms faster. Metadata defaults can be specified for each column at the site level, list level, and folder level. Metadata defaults inherit from each other and the child default will always override. For example if a default is set on a folder and there are defaults for the list and the site column, the default for the folder will be applied. If there are defaults for a column and a list, but no default for a folder then when an item is added to that folder it will get the list default. When users create or upload a new item the metadata default will be applied and be displayed in the edit properties form. The user can then change the property as needed. By planning for and setting metadata defaults early it will be easier to evaluate what the metadata defaults should be and how they can be used to help make it easier to get metadata applied to items.

Metadata defaults are supported on the following column types:

· Single Line of Text

· Choice

· Number

· Currency

· Date and Time

· Yes/no

· Managed Metadata

Setting metadata defaults when editing columns:

When creating or editing a column at the site or list level there is a field to specify a default value. You can specify defaults at the site level, and then override them at the list level.

Setting metadata defaults with the tree control: 

In libraries you can use a tree control to set metadata defaults for the library and per folder. To do this go to library settings and click on the link “Column default value settings”. This will give you a tree control that you can use to navigate the folders in the library. You can set defaults at the root of the library as well as for each individual folder. Folders will inherit default values unless you specify a particular default value for the child folder.

Metadata defaults are a great way to help place metadata on columns. You can even use it to apply defaults on hidden columns so users never even have the option to edit the field, but they can use the metadata to navigate and retrieve content.

Quentin Christensen

Program Manager, Document and Records Management

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Author: Tobias Zimmergren http://www.zimmergren.net | http://www.tozit.com | @zimmergren
Introduction
In this article I will talk about how you can get started with creating custom PowerShell commands for SharePoint 2010 that you can use.
You will see how easy it actually is to build a custom c … (More)
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Do you have a project that you needed to complete yesterday?

If this sounds like you, don’t worry, you are not alone. But why be one of those companies that are always missing deadlines because you do not have enough employees to handle the workload? There is a way to beat this problem, and it is actually quite simple…

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The SharePoint 2010 Mobile View is not useful, actually its hopeless, for Internet Facing sites. Here’s how to switch it off.
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My organisation is looking to invest in a Document Management System.

I have been presented with two similar systems: InVu and Microsoft SharePoint. Does anyone have any experience with these systems?

With little knowledge of what’s out there, can anyone recommend some good systems?

Many thanks

Chosen Answer:

There are actually a lot of issues here. How many users are there, and what OS and apps do they run? Exactly what features do you need? My husband’s office moved to a Sharepoint server and it was a complete and utter disaster because most of the users run Linux and Open Office and other Linux-based apps. Over 50% of the users were unable to do their jobs and resorted to setting up small servers for each group. Also, what kind of sysadmin do you have? Sharepoint is horrible to manage. You’ll need a large and very talented team to keep it running.
by: Fraggle
on: 20th January 11

Greetings,
I was just wondering, I’m debating on which LMS to use. I know moodle is free but very complicated to use. Then there is sharepoint, blackboard, webct, wondershare, etc… Do you guys know of any that is is easy to use and reliable? I would highly appreciate your help.

Chosen Answer:

Moodle is free and actually very easy to use. It’s one of the less complex LMS products available, but it’s less scalable than the big guys. Blackboard has lots of support, but it’s incredibly expensive. I’d avoid Sharepoint like the plague – too buggy and I don’t know anyone who has had a good experience with it. Sakai is free, and one of my managers really likes it. However, it’s the worst, ugliest mess to get installed and I’d avoid it if at all possible.

Personally, I’d go with Moodle if you have a small user base.
by: Fraggle
on: 21st November 10

I am begining the career with sharepoint, but confuse between sharepoint and SQL server. which has better job prospects and future. is most of sharepoint development being outsourced?

Chosen Answer:

To actually answer your question, start with SQL server. There is far more work relating to SQL server than work relating to SharePoint.

Learning SQL server is much more involved as it requires not only proprietary Microsoft SQL knowledge, but database concepts (relational logic, structured query language, normalization, etc).

SharePoint is very simple to learn. It is ASP based webpages pulling data from a SQL Server database.
by: BigHammer
on: 4th June 08

Hi, there are few things i encountered when i using sharepoint 2007 which i dont understand.

1. i created a custom master page, the view of my sharepoint site is different . for IE looks fine but firefox actually the layout of my page looks different from IE. IT have a big blank gap between the content and the menu. anyone encounter this before?

2. how can i create custom page instead of using the page template they provided? as it seems unable to additonal images when i edit in the browser.can i use visual studio instead?

Chosen Answer:

1. Open your master page in SharePoint Designer. Check your tables and design tags to make sure they are correct. If you are unsure of what is causing the trouble, then add this style to each table, one by one, until you find the one that is causing the gap: Style=”border: 1px solid red;” if the red border is around the table that is causeing the error, then play with the design until it works the way you want it. Sometimes gaps can also be caused by mismatched tags (such as not closing a
tag, for example.

2. You can create custom pages by opening the page(s) in SharePoint Designer. The pages that you can customize using the browser are WCM pages, and are found by creating a new site, from the publishing tab, select one of the page layouts there.
by: Monkeyman
on: 21st March 08

I’m trying to place images sideways, so that they scroll sideways…but every time I insert images they automatically drop down beneath the other picture. It’s like it will not allow me to have a horizontal scroll. Please help!

Chosen Answer:

Open the page in Frontpage, and go into code view. Code view is a little text-link-button-thing in FrontPage (or SP Designer), in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

Look for every instance of WIDTH=”100%” and remove them, especially from the

Go to the first instance of table tag, and put “WIDTH=”1500px” (or however wide you want it).

Save your page and it should work.
by: Monkeyman
on: 2nd August 07

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