☕ SharePoint Tip #5 — Lists, Metadata and Content Types demystified

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Good morning! Here is your 15-minute SharePoint tip for today.

Day 5 | Week 1 — Platform Foundations

Lists, Metadata and Content Types

Today we cover three concepts that separate SharePoint power users from basic users — and that every Product Owner must understand to design good solutions.

SharePoint Lists

A List is like a spreadsheet or simple database table inside SharePoint. No files — just rows of structured data. Common uses:

  • Project trackers
  • Issue and risk logs
  • IT helpdesk requests
  • Employee directories
  • Event calendars
  • Asset registers

Lists have columns (like a spreadsheet), but each column has a defined data type: text, number, date, choice dropdown, person, yes/no, lookup, and more.

Metadata: the alternative to folders

Metadata means data about data. In SharePoint, metadata is stored as columns on a library or list. Instead of organising files into deep folder structures like:

Finance > 2025 > Q1 > Invoices > Approved

You store all invoices in one library and tag each with columns: Year = 2025, Quarter = Q1, Type = Invoice, Status = Approved. Then create a View that filters to exactly what you need.

Benefits: a file can appear in multiple views without being copied. Searching by metadata is instant and precise. No more "I can’t remember which folder it’s in."

Content Types

A Content Type is a reusable template that defines:

  • What columns (metadata) a document should have
  • What document template to use when creating a new file

For example, a "Contract" content type might include columns for: Client Name, Contract Value, Expiry Date, and Status — plus a Word template pre-formatted with your company’s legal header.

Content types can be defined once in the Content Type Hub and reused across all sites in your tenant.

Try it today (5 minutes)

Go to a SharePoint document library. Click + Add column in the column header area. Choose Choice as the column type, name it "Status," and add options: Draft, In Review, Approved. Save it. Now every file in that library can be tagged with a status — and you can filter the view to show only "Approved" files. That’s metadata in action.

As a Product Owner

The shift from folders to metadata is the biggest mindset change for users migrating from a file server. Your job is to design the metadata structure before migration — deciding which columns matter most for findability. We’ll build a full metadata taxonomy in Week 3 when we cover migration planning.

See you tomorrow at 6:00 AM with Tip #6 — SharePoint Search: making content discoverable. Week 1 complete!