Two posts in one day is a one-time event for me. Only because this was previously started did I finish it today. It's on the new Document ID Service in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and is a continuation of my ECM Features That Rock in SharePoint 2010 series. If you'd like to read the previous posts you can find those here:
ECM Features that Rock in SharePoint 2010: Enterprise Managed Metadata Part 1
ECM features that Rock in SharePoint 2010: Enterprise Managed Metadata Part 2
ECM Features That Rock in SharePoint 2010: Business Connectivity Services Part 1
ECM Features That Rock in SharePoint 2010: Business Connectivity Services Part 2
ECM Features That Rock in SharePoint 2010: List Validations
ECM Features That Rock in SharePoint 2010: Document Sets
First off, why is the Document ID Server so important? Out of the box it may not strike too many people as a feature that rocks because you are usually searching and finding what you need using KnowledgeLake software, other searching software or even just browsing libraries. However many integrations need a way to link to a document in a Document Library and guarantee they can still find the same document if it moved, its name is changed or maybe the library it existed in was renamed. All of these scenarios would have broken the URL link to the document in previous versions. However, the Document ID service will provide both a unique ID and a unique URL for the document that stays persistent as long as it stays in the Site Collection.
How does it work? Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 (not available in SharePoint Foundation) provides a new service that assigns IDs to documents per Site Collection. The feature will need to first be turned on for each Site Collection needing unique ID for its documents. To do this select Site Action | Site Settings:
From the Site Setting page select the link under Site Collection Administration that says Site collection features:
Scroll down to the Document ID Service and activate it:
Browse back to the Site Settings page and under Site Collection Administration select Document ID settings:
There are four options on this page. The first is whether or not to assign Document IDs to documents. Assumedly this should be checked. The second option, which is a text box asks what Document IDs should begin with. I recommend setting this to something unique for each site which will guarantee any linking will always have a unique ID in the enterprise. This won't matter for the URL as it will be unique by Site Collection anyway.
The next check box can be selected if there are already documents in the Site Collection that need to have IDs assigned. Since this can take a while the configuration of the Document ID features uses a job to complete the configuration.
The last option is just about search scope and the default setting (All Sites) will usually work.
The Document ID service is now configured on the site collection.
WARNING: At this point the jobs have not run to setup the Document ID columns in the site, nor assign any IDs to existing documents. I tried to run the jobs manually and although they did not throw any errors, the logs said they started in stopped in the exact same second in time. Something didn't work. However if you wait for the jobs to run on schedule they seem to work just fine. You can reschedule the jobs (by default, mine were set for 9pm and 10pm) from Central Administration although that is out of the scope of this article.
Once the jobs run successfully, a new column will be assigned to all Document Libraries. Each document in the libraries will now have the associated column and a unique ID. In the case of my site I set all Document IDs to start with MYSITE and the URL will be specific to that document. If the URL is selected the document will be launched.
The new URL stays with the document throughout its life in the site collection. Previously in SharePoint, the only URL that existed was tied to the location and name of the document and if it changed the URL changed with it. With Document IDs there are two URLs for this document:
New Document ID based URL: http://mss2010clc/_layouts/DocIdRedir.aspx?ID=MYSITE-1-3
Old document location based URL: http://mss2010clc/Shared%20Documents/Buyers%20Laboratory%20-%20News%20Article.pdf
To demonstrate the new URL I'm going to edit the documents properties, changing the Name.
If I know look again at the two URLs I get the same Document ID URL, but a different location/name based URL.
New Document ID based URL: http://mss2010clc/_layouts/DocIdRedir.aspx?ID=MYSITE-1-3
Old document location based URL: http://mss2010clc/Shared%20Documents/News%20Article.pdf
KnowledgeLake
Like most other new ECM features in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, KnowledgeLake will be taking advantage of the Document ID. In upcoming software releases we will use the document ID to keep a consistent link to documents for Document Encryption, Redaction and Annotation capabilities. Previously this was very difficult to accomplish because there was no permanent link to documents stored in SharePoint Document Libraries.
Thank you for reading.
- Chris Caplinger