Top Tips for SharePoint Document Management

I recently listened to Hassan Osman’s Podcast episode about ChatGPT and how it can help improve productivity for nonfiction writers. This caught my interest for a couple of reasons, firstly I write a lot. I blog, wrote a book, write reports, document recommendations, etc. You name it, I’ve had a go at writing it. I’m not a natural writer, often spending far to much time crafting words. So how can ChatGPT help? Well, rather than tell you, I thought I’d get ChatGPT to write a blog on Document Management for me. Honestly, this took longer to write than the rest of the post!

Hey ChatGPT “What are some top tips for SharePoint Document Management?”

Here are a few tips for using SharePoint for document management:

  1. Use the search function to quickly find documents: SharePoint has a powerful search function that allows you to find documents based on keywords, file type, and other metadata.
  2. Use document libraries to organize your documents: SharePoint allows you to create document libraries to store and organize your documents. You can create multiple libraries for different types of documents, or create folders within a library to further organize your documents.
  3. Use version control to track changes to your documents: SharePoint allows you to track changes to your documents and see who made those changes. This can be helpful for collaborative projects where multiple people are working on the same documents.
  4. Use metadata to classify and organize your documents: By adding metadata to your documents, you can classify and organize them in a way that makes it easier to find and manage them.
  5. Use alerts to stay informed about changes to your documents: SharePoint allows you to set up alerts so that you are notified when someone makes a change to a document that you are interested in. This can help you stay up to date with what’s happening with your documents.

What is Metadata in SharePoint?

In the context of SharePoint, metadata is information about a document or other item that is stored as a set of properties. Metadata can include information such as the author, the date the document was created, and the document’s subject matter.

In SharePoint, you can use metadata to classify and organize your documents in a way that makes it easier to find and manage them. For example, you could use metadata to tag documents with keywords that describe their content, or to specify the department or project that a document belongs to.

You can create metadata fields in SharePoint to store this information, and then add the metadata to your documents when you upload them to SharePoint. This allows you to use the metadata to search for and filter your documents, and to organize them in views and libraries.

I hope this helps to clarify what metadata is in the context of SharePoint. Let me know if you have any other questions.

How should I organise documents in SharePoint?

There are a few different ways you can organize documents in SharePoint, depending on your needs and preferences. Here are a few options:

  1. Use document libraries: SharePoint allows you to create document libraries to store and organize your documents. You can create multiple libraries for different types of documents, or create folders within a library to further organize your documents.
  2. Use metadata to classify and organize your documents: By adding metadata to your documents, you can classify and organize them in a way that makes it easier to find and manage them. For example, you could use metadata to tag documents with keywords that describe their content, or to specify the department or project that a document belongs to.
  3. Use views to filter and sort your documents: SharePoint allows you to create views that filter and sort your documents based on their metadata. This can be helpful for finding specific documents or for organizing them in a particular way.
  4. Use permissions to control access to your documents: SharePoint allows you to set permissions on your documents so that only certain people can access them. This can be helpful for controlling access to sensitive or confidential documents.

I hope these suggestions are helpful! Let me know if you have any other questions.


There you have it. Three questions asked and answered in moments. I haven’t edited the responses, so what do you think? Is ChatGPT doing a good job? I’ll let you be the judge.

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