Forum Discussion
Managed metadata taxonomy and structure
Hi all,
We have a proposed hierarchical taxonomy for all parts of our organization. Part of them are internal (administrative, such as HR), Program based (what we do, such as foreign country infrastructure improvement) and hybrids (legal contracts with external groups). Several terms cross over these lines (such as contracts, investment, etc.). I am struggling to figure out the best way to implement the taxonomy in our metadata. If I keep it hierarchical, several terms will be defined within a specific group, but are needed in another). If I use that and separate the terms into different term sets, the options for a group will be limited and perhaps several columns will be needed to define a document. If I flatten it and generalize the terms, the terms might be used in different ways. They all have advantages and disadvantages. I am leaning towards a flat term set. What do you think. Any recommendations?
- I’m not at PC to look but what I’ve been doing is not doing it flat and using one of the linking options. So I can have in my case we have areas and then facilities in those areas. The areas show up in the facilities term and they are unchecked for tagging but when people browse the term it’ll say facility a in y area etc.
If you update the name in area tag it reflects in the facility tag etc.
I’m not 100% sure this is best strategy but it seems like it’ll work for me. This was area can still be a selectable tag if you use the areas tag and they can still give heiarchy in the facility tag for search and browsing without being selected.
When I get on pc tomorrow I’ll see if I can do a quick snip on how I do that.ChrisWebbTech It sounds like you are using a mix between hierarchical and faceted taxonomy? That is my thought too. Love to hear more.
shawn_fielding So, kind of hard to explain, but this is basically what I do. I have all my facilities in a Region, which can be part of Area's. So I decided to show the hierarchy this way to the user if they browse. To accomplish, I basically use the "Reuse Term" on the Area Term root and pick the Region, Then turn tagging off for the Region. Then next in each Region in the Area term, I add all the Area's. Once done I go to the Facility Term and "Reuse Term" from the Area Tag. Mark them all Untagable. Then populate my Facilities in each area.
This basically preserves Naming when I rename an Area, it renames in the Facility etc. Same with Region to Area. Then you can see the navigation without tagging Region / Area's, but they will relate to the Facility. You could allow tagging of those if you wanted however for the list in question, but I prefer they add another column and use the Area/Region term directly, since those tags are enabled when using the Term directly.
It's hard to make this in English because this is a complicated topic I still haven't wrapped my head around, but so far I think this is going to work for me. Anyway, hopefully this helps some :).
