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Microsoft SharePoint Blog
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Introducing SmartFilters for Modern Document Libraries

Chris McNulty's avatar
Chris McNulty
Silver Contributor
Dec 09, 2016

Earlier this year, when we rolled out modern SharePoint document libraries, our goals went beyond just enhanced user experience. Creating modern content management is essential to empower new business value built on SharePoint.  That’s why we’re pleased to announce the availability of SmartFilters for SharePoint modern document libraries, now rolling out to First Release, as announced this morning at SharePoint Fest Chicago.

 

SmartFilters provide dynamic search capabilities based on the rich metadata available inside a document library.

 

 

SmartFilters can be opened by clicking on the “funnel” icon on the right side of the library command bar.  By default, SmartFilters provide a graphically rich way to filter a view of a library by modified date, modified by, and document type.  Additional metadata columns in the view can be selected and also filtered using the SmartFilter.  Finally, SmartFilters can be saved as a custom view for any library.

 

For more information, please visit our support article.  Thanks, and we look forward to your continued feedback.

 

Updated Dec 16, 2016
Version 5.0
Product Updates

14 Comments

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  • Ivan54's avatar
    Ivan54
    Bronze Contributor
    Jan 05, 2017

    What about SmartFilters availability? We don't have it yet in our first release tenant.

  • Peter Vincent's avatar
    Peter Vincent
    Copper Contributor
    Jan 02, 2017

    Agreed. Andrew Gilleran raises a good point here. The new experience has introduced several "clunky" pieces of functionality...

     

    Would it be possible to have the old profile dialog back when uploading but make it work for multiple uploads, with a tick box at the bottom saying "apply tags to all files"?

     

    The market place has been resistant to metadata because of the network-share hangover. At it's core there in an reliance on saving to a "location" - a sub folder many levels deep.

     

    While metedata is/was the perfect solution, adoption rates suffered as the entrenched dependancy on folders is a decades old habit that is hard to kick.

     

    With the advent of teams/groups and this new experience Microsoft has given up fighting the uphill metadata battle and almost reverted to an environment free of metadata. While it's still there in the background Microsoft have all but obscured it with this clunky, google-drive information right hand pannel.

     

     

    Navigation is another equally big can of worms with governance ramifications that go beyond the initail or even sencond thoughts one might have.

  • Andrew Gilleran's avatar
    Andrew Gilleran
    Iron Contributor
    Dec 09, 2016

    And speaking of metadata, what are the plans to help get documents tagged with metadata in an easier fashion with the new experience? Having the right hand info bar in order for users to add the metadata after upload is not a good option. Now we have the smart filters option in the UI as well. Many people liked the option previously where on uploading a doc, a user had to complete metadata options and then save.  Good metadata is what helps the filters work properly in the first place. Looks a bit like the cart before the horse.