Forum Discussion
MicrosoftNew help article: Prioritize content management tasks with attention views
Current behavior in SharePoint when requiring fields in a document library is all over the place, and until it's corrected I can't recommend that organizations require any fields. The Attention Views, as I've seen them implemented, don't really address the underlying problem.
Specifically, in a document library with a required column:
- If you create a new document from the New button, in an Office Online application such as Word or PowerPoint, the user is not prompted to fill in metadata and the document is automatically checked out. It is not realistic to expect the user to know to both fill in the field and then subsequently check the document in. This workflow is a disaster, even with the Attention view. Alternatively, you could change default behavior to Open in Desktop Application for all libraries, where as I understand only Word will prompt for metadata - since the elimination of the Document Information Panel other MS document types will still not prompt for required fields,, and documents will STILL be checked out.
- If you upload a document using the Upload Document prompt, the document is NOT checked out even though the required field has not been filled in. The attention view is useful, but it's extremely confusing to users that "required" fields are not required to finish uploading the document. It's more like a "suggested" field.
I don't mean to knock the Attention View, but it seems like the underlying issues need to be addressed before this can be used as a tool. Probably the simplest way to make the workflow coherent would be to check out documents without required metadata consistently, and to allow both metadata entry and check-in from within the Attention View. Even better would be to prompt for metadata during the creation/upload process as was the standard for SharePoint for many many years.
MicrosoftThanks for the feedback. Our goal is to align more and more file creation actions to the behavior of file upload in modern libraries. We will soon be announcing a change to the behavior of creating new files. Creating new files in modern document libraries with required metadata in Office Online will no longer check out the file to the user. Initially, the Attention View will be the primary way the user in this scenario will be notified that there are missing required properties and hence work to do. Down the road, we want to prompt the user inside Office Online to fill out properties and provide the means to do so in the app.
Thanks very much for the reply. I'm glad you're working on this issue, but I'm concerned that things seem to be moving further away from required fields actually being required, which I think is very important, at least as an option.
I would very much like to see required fields be actually required in order to successfully create/upload documents. For instance:
1) New> Word Online document> Save. Attention pane prompts, "this document will not be visible to other users until you complete the required fields." User cannot click "Check In" at bottom of pane unless the fields are entered. When you roll out metadata within Office Online, the same concept would apply - you cannot exit the document and check in until fields are filled.
2) Upload > Choose Document > Attention Pane > user fills in fields and selects check in > only then does document upload to library. Could this at least be an option instead of the current behavior of checking in without anything being filled out?
These are basically how SharePoint has traditionally functioned in terms of required fields - with enforcement and consequences.
Asking users to fill in fields as an option after they have successfully uploaded and shared a document means in practice very little metadata will be applied, and doesn't really meet the needs of those who want to actually require fields.