Document sets are folders on steroids
When you create columns on a document set and enter values those values will push down to the files below the document set making it a very easy way to metadata tag your files
In this example I have a document list called Graphic Designs
When I create a Document set I want to automatically create 3 template files that I need for every design
- Pricing List
- Photoshop Template
- Sketchup Template
Head over to your SharePoint Home page and click the gear in the upper right corner>Site Information>View all Site Settings
Under the heading Web Designer Galleries click Site Content Types (If it is not there google how to enable the feature there is a lot of help on that)
Click Create Content Type
- Enter a Name
- Name: Document Content Types
- Parent Category: Document Set Content Types
- Content Type: Document Set
When done click Create
After that you can add any custom columns, I will add some example columns
- Design Number – String Data Type
- MSRP – Currency Data Type
- Square Footage – Integer Data Type
- ProductLine – Multi Choice Data Type
(If you will be interacting with this document set in Power Automate then copy the Content Type ID somewhere for later reference)
In the upper menu click Document set settings
I don’t have any customization for the first area so I will skip down to Default content
Click Upload file for each template you want to add
Shared column means that any custom column you created in your document set you can share that same information into the documents in the folder
So in this example information in any of these custom fields will automatically apply to documents inside the document set
The final step is to add the content type to a list
Go into the Advanced Settings of a list and be sure Content Types is set to Yes for Allow management of content types
Next we will click Add from existing site content types
Select Graphic Design Project Content type and add to the right box and click OK
Now when you click New you will see the created Graphic Design Project
When clicking on it you will be requested to fill in the custom fields you have created
After you click Save you will then see your document set folder with the metadata tags you specified (My extra column below after MSRP is a Canadian dollar calculated column)
Then when I click inside the 5555 folder my templates will be there and we can see the fields have inherited the parent folder metadata
Another nice thing is when you sync this document library the syncing directory will be folders
When in a document library click Sync from the menu and click OK to Open One Drive and then you should see your folders
If I put a file from my windows computer in folder 5555 it will inherit the metadata!! Hope you found this helpful!