Addressing Difficulty Organizing or Classifying Content

In a traditional file system environment, a user creates a document. For future reference, should the document be stored in a folder based on the subject of the document, in a folder based on document type, in a folder based on the client the document was created for, or in all three places? Decisions of this type need to be made all the time, weighing the consequences of storing the document in one place versus another versus storing multiple copies of the document.

SharePoint solution— Use of topics, global document metadata using the managed metadata service search.

When using SharePoint, using document metadata and topics prevents the document creator from having to worry about where the document is stored. Metadata or specific fields of information that can be stored with the document can be used for information such as subject, client, and document type. Metadata can be enforced across all documents in a farm using the managed metadata service available in SharePoint 2010. Because these fields are searchable, a document can be easily found regardless of what folder it is in.