Microsoft® SharePoint® Designer 2010 Unleashed

Managing Site Columns

Site columns, like content types, are core to a successful SharePoint 2010 deployment. Columns capture metadata, which is essential to defining content and documents added to lists and libraries throughout site collections. For those of you not familiar with metadata, the brief definition is that metadata describes content. For instance, metadata defines the date a document or list item was created and modified, or the author name of a document. Metadata is also the backbone to establishing successful search criteria, including building powerful filtering queries and defining search scopes within site collections.

SharePoint columns can either be applied directly to a list or library, though it is more effective to apply ...