SharePoint 2010 Document Sets: Organize Related Documents for Project Based Work

By David Roe (@druadh20) Mar 17, 2010

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In a recent article, Adam Harmetz, Lead Program Manager for SharePoint Document and Records Management, explained how new document management features in SharePoint 2010 (news, site) build on SharePoint 2007.

In a follow-up to that article Harmetz and Quentin Christensen, Program Manager for SharePoint 2010 Document and Records Management, outline how a new component called Document Sets will help users organize multi-document worksets.

Document Sets In SharePoint 2010

So what are document sets? Document sets are components, similar to folders, that enable users to collaborate on related documents without having to create a new document library or site.

Their purpose is to help organize unmanaged documents and enable collaboration on documents that have all been invested with similar metadata.

Already in use internally in Microsoft and by some of the company’s clients who are doing proof of concept trials with SharePoint 2010 beta, Document Sets sit between documents and sites.

When you access a Document Set you get a web part page that displays the documents like they would be displayed in a document library view. The advantage is that the features that come with a Document Set makes working on a workset quicker and easier to track. Some of those features include:

Common metadata for documents in a document set
Automatic creation of default documents when document sets are set up
A web part page called a welcome page that displays all the content of the document set

Examples of projects where document sets are used include:

Research projects
Software development specifications
Knowledge management repositories
Usability studies

In fact, one of the examples cited is work on Microsoft Office. When working on it, each of the different parts of the project which finally became features were assigned to different teams. The features have specifications, development plans and test plans. Using Document Sets enabled more efficient collaboration between these teams.

Why Use Document Sets?

In a business context, use of document sets will depend on the company or vertical in which they are being used. Completely customizable, they can be adapted for many different processes such as case management or research projects.

Harmetz and Christensen cite the example of a company that regularly has to develop sales campaigns or proposals. Document Sets enable sales teams to create presentations, proposals, spreadsheets or contracts with shared metadata or which require the application of shared workflow processes.

Document Sets make it easy to use columns for metadata on the Document Set itself as well as the documents within the Document Set. And in order to make management of the document set elements even easier, the properties of that set are displayed on the web part page, or welcome page.

Document Sets Features

There are a number of specific features that come with Document Sets that make it easier to manage related documents. Let’s have a quick look.

Welcome Page

The starting point is the default welcome page that contains all the information a user needs about the Document Set and which can be customized according to users’ needs.

SharePoint 2010_welcome page.jpg
An example of a non-customized document set welcome page with a few documents.