Creating multiple tags for a document in SharePoint 2007

Question

I'm creating a document library and was hoping to add a Tags column to the main view. I'm having trouble figuring out how to make it actually work like a normal Keyword or Tag should. A document should be able to handle multiple tags, and each tag can act as a link, bringing up all documents that contain that same tag, much like Serverfault works with its tags. Is this possible to do in out of the box Sharepoint? The reason I say out of the box is because my company has locked us out from modifying anything, such as adding plugins or adding developing custom features....

Answer 1

In a kludgy manner this can be done but it will be missing a lot of the features you like from this site. SharePoint 2007 RTM'ed in late 2006 just as AJAX and other technologies were becoming popular, so it's lacking in this area.

1. Create a Tags site collection column. Two options for the type:

   1. Use Choice and display using Checkboxes to allow multiple selections.

   2. Use Lookup and connect it to a custom list containing your tags. Enable 'Allow multiple values'. More complex than the previous option but you can set up nice views and add metadata for your tags if necessary. Ask yourself if you need this as you won't be able to go with the previous option and change later.

2. Add the column to the content types you'd like to enable tagging functionality for. These content types will then gain your new Tags column wherever they are used.

3. Configure the search engine to index the Tags column. Once you've used the Tags column in uploaded documents (for example) and performed a full crawl, it can be added to the Managed Property list.

Downsides with a purely out-of-the-box solution

• Tag list has to be updated manually by an administrator
• No tag suggestions or anything involving AJAX
• Tags won't be displayed in search results unless you can change the Search Results Web Part (although as they are indexed, queries using these tags will get better results)
• No 'tag cloud' or ability to click on a tag and see search results using that tag