This article describes the SharePoint 2010 document center… a SharePoint template intended “[…] to centrally manage documents in your enterprise.”
The document center template can be seen as a kind of starting point. There are a few limitations like out-of-the-box document IDs which are only unique in a site collection, content type need to derive from the document content type (otherwise there are no unique IDs) or that you can only search for an ID using the complete ID instead of parts of it. You can’t use the document ID to sort or filter the view of a library.
Although there are limitations the template can be enhanced. Don't get this wrong: There are thousands of use cases for a document center and Microsoft can meet them all.
The document center site template is available for
The document center allows you to store and retrieve documents with an unique ID. You can use it in large-scale authoring environment or a large-scale content archive. It’s interesting to see how it works with the records center and the managed meta data together.
Anyway this basic template is a starting point. If you need to meet additional requirements a solution like MatchPoint builds may fulfil them.
SharePoint 2010
Screenshots
Here are some screenshots where you can see how the document center looks like:
Common tasks
If you need to do some common tasks as a site member or site owner please have a look at the following tasks including possible differences between SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010:
SharePoint template functionality
The Document ID Service allows you to automatically associate unique IDs with uploaded documents and to retrieve them independent of their location (inside your site collection).
If you activate the Document ID Service you can change the document ID under the site collection administration.
If you change the ID a timer job will do the actual work which may take some time since they run daily.
You can retrieve a document by entering the complete ID into the box:
The filter inside a document library on the left side (see picture 3 above) can be activated and deactivated by the Metadata Navigation and Filtering feature:
Features:
- You can uniquely identify documents.
- Different document libraries are supported.
- The document IDs can be enhanced by a developer.
Limitations:
- Out-of-the-box document IDs are only unique in a site collection (Source).
- Your content type needs to derive from the document content type, otherwise there are no unique IDs. This means list items can’t have unique IDs.
- If you try to find a document by ID you need the complete ID… only parts of it won’t work.
- You can’t use the document ID to sort or filter the view of a library.
Next to the features described above the Document Sets and Library and Folder Based Retention features are enabled after the site has been created:
- Document ID Service
- Document Sets
- Library and Folder Based Retention
- Metadata Navigation and Filtering
You can also create a records center and send documents to them where the document ID will be kept.
SharePoint template development
If you want to use a custom design you can use Deploying Branding Solutions for SharePoint 2010 Sites Using Sandboxed Solutions to brand your document center.
If you need to create a custom document ID provider you can take a look at the following resources:
Resources
Summary
The document center allows you to store and retrieve documents with an unique ID.
You can use it in large-scale authoring environment or a large-scale content archive (source).
It’s interesting to see how it works with the records center and the managed meta data together.
Please take a look at another SharePoint template.