Update: Document Sets in Modern Document Libraries

[Lincoln DeMaris]

I am pleased to announce some updates on the plan and timeline for improving the Document Set experience in modern document libraries.

In January, we communicated a March delivery date for these improvements.  We apologize for missing that date.  We’re now planning on rolling out this change in May.  We will be making the official announcement to the Message Center very soon with exact dates.  Thank you all for your patience!

This change allows organizations to use the power of document sets to group related documents together with consistent metadata and structure without having to go back and forth between classic and modern experiences.  

Document sets now look and feel like ordinary folders in modern libraries, and benefit from all the cool new features in modern.  This means that users can drag and drop content to upload to document sets, link to content that lives outside the document set, pin files to the top of the document set, start flows on document set items, and define conditional formatting on document set items.  It also means that the Document Set experience can be customized using SharePoint Framework Extensions, just like all other modern list views.

All the content management rules you can define on document set content types are still supported.  No business processes were harmed in the making of this change!  Document set metadata can be viewed and edited in the details pane while in a document set.  Shared metadata specified in a document set content type continues to work as it always has; values inside shared columns will be copied to items inside the document set.  Columns that are identified as Welcome page columns in the content type are sorted to the top of the details pane, so that users can find them easily.  Content and structure rules specified in the document set content type are also supported, including the default content and default view settings.

Document set versioning functionality will appear under the context menu on document set items in the modern list view, include “Capture Version” and “Version History.”  Other document set-specific actions from the Document Set ribbon are still there, but only in classic.  Just like any other modern list view page, you can click “Return to classic SharePoint” in the lower left hand corner to go back the classic document set experience back.

The one caveat is that customized document set welcome pages are not supported in modern.  This change will not affect document sets that use welcome pages that have been configured with custom HTML or web parts; those welcome pages will still be displayed in classic mode, as they are today. 

[#2]

@Lincoln DeMaris 

Excellent , will be happy to see this in production for end users!

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@Lincoln DeMaris wrote:

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[#3]

Thanks Linc

[#4]

Looking forward to seeing this in production. This will be very beneficial to folks already utilizing document sets in classic mode

[#5]

@Lincoln DeMaris  Thanks for the update. I was just about to roll out document sets to our team but waited so not to put the users through a double change! 

One of  features I really liked about document sets was that each project could have a mini home page. I could then use WebParts to query certain pieces of information and display them on the welcome page. Almost like a synopsis of the project all in one place.  Looking at the move away from Welcome Pages is there a way I can do this within the modern view with web parts that pull documents up using web parts?  

So if a document set is clicked through the normal folder navigation it shows the folder list, the options panel and then a couple of Web Parts with details related just to that document set?

Rather than managing knowledge by copying 'Case Studies' or 'Purchase Orders' from one folder to another we keep everything in one place so not to duplicate content and make sure that the latest file/folder is being accessed.

Could this be achieved with views?The image demonstrates where I was going before I realised that modern was on its way! 

p.s Please update us as regular as you can as I have a large team waiting for this change . 

[#6]

@Lincoln DeMaris  Thanks for the update. I was just about to roll out document sets to our team but waited so not to put the users through a double change! 

One of  features I really liked about document sets was that each project could have a mini home page. I could then use WebParts to query certain pieces of information and display them on the welcome page. Almost like a synopsis of the project all in one place.  Looking at the move away from Welcome Pages is there a way I can do this within the modern view with web parts that pull documents up using web parts?  

So if a document set is clicked through the normal folder navigation it shows the folder list, the options panel and then a couple of Web Parts with details related just to that document set?

Rather than managing knowledge by copying 'Case Studies' or 'Purchase Orders' from one folder to another we keep everything in one place so not to duplicate content and make sure that the latest file/folder is being accessed.

Could this be achieved with views?The image demonstrates where I was going before I realised that modern was on its way! 

p.s Please update us as regular as you can as I have a large team waiting for this change . 

[#7]

@Lincoln DeMaris 

I sure hope this May delivery holds, we are looking at using these, but the classic view is not going over with the management stakeholders. 

No update from Microsoft in the Uservoice discussion thread on this.

Also disconcerting that the 365 road map was updated after this post, and stills says in development?

[#8]

@SWalter2937 We posted the official announcement to the Message Center yesterday.  Modern document sets rollout will begin early May!

@Bannywhey I think that everything you're using Document Sets for, as evidenced by your screenshot, will continue to work with this change.  Document set metadata is displayed in the details pane.  Default content that's specified in your content type will be created by default.  You can configure which view is used to display document set contents.  

[#9]

@Lincoln DeMaris We are planning to implement the document set feature for contract management site in few days time in modern library UI incorporating with field extensions. Could you please let us know the exact date of this release for New Zealand region?

Thanks,

Nowshad

[#10]

Thank you for the update, we are patiently waiting and are looking forward to this release.

Hopefully we can use the move function within Modern libraries to move the Doc Set to another library and or Collection as needed for Archiving purposes like you can with files & Folders.
Something to consider,

Within the enterprise document handling is often tied to a Customer, project, etc. generated from a LOB system. Often this data exists upstream so it would make sense one would wan't to generate the document set, folder, etc. from an upstream process rather than a manual process within SharePoint. I would really like to see the ability to be able to create Document sets & Folders directly from PowerApps. In my opinion most organizations rarely start their enterprise ECM processes from within SP and often begin well before we get to SharePoint. This would really take Document sets to a new level. Currently to do this you have to use a variety of work around's by writing your values to a SharePoint list and 3rd party tools to finally take the values and generate a Doc Set.

[#11]

@Lincoln DeMaris 

Will this enable Flow for Document Sets as well??

[#12]

@Lincoln DeMaris Will you be supporting the ability to assign a retention label to the document set level to ensure disposition of records as a whole document set, rather than individual docs within a document set?

[#13]

@Jonny Caldwell Yes

[#14]

@sjakester Flow on document sets and items in document sets will work the same as Flow on folders and items in folders today.

[#15]

Do we know when this will happen? It is pertinent to a project I have completed recently and though I am no longer working with the customer, they would love to have this month.

[#16]

Great, and will this happen as part of the current road map item or later?

[#17]

@Lincoln DeMarisCool stuff, thanks. I guess the functionality will also include Copy To and Move To for the full document set, like for 'normal' folders?

[#18]

@Lincoln DeMaris  We are hitting a 5000 threshold limit in our libraries that are set up as a modern library but use document sets (which are classic views). Will this limit go away with the update?

[#19]

@Lincoln DeMaris  - Document sets used to update the folder view when clicked on them on "modern" libraries. With this rollout, it does not happen anymore.

It has defaulted to the same experience as a normal folder where, even if a view is set as default for a content type, it doesn't get affected. 

This is bad and I hope this functionality will be brought back for folders and document sets soon.

Regards,

Deepu.