K-Docs View is one of 4 products in the K-Docs family group, as described in my recent post which provides an overview of the product suite. This product is intended to address the capability gaps in the standard SharePoint Library Web Part as detailed in my article The SharePoint Document Library Web Part – What is it good for!

However, a key limitation I failed to mention in the above linked article, is that hierarchical filtering is not supported by standard SharePoint components.

What is Hierarchical Filtering

Most metadata attributes with which you can tag documents are flat. For example, if you configure a library with a custom choice column for Business Function say, you might settle on a list of options such as:

• Buildings
• Customer Management
• Disposals
• Engineering
• Finance
• Governance
• Human Resource Management
• Operations
• Maintenance
• Production
• Procurement
• Quality Control
• Supply
• Work Health Safety

This is great, as far as it goes, but fails to allow us to define a hierarchy which might logically make sense to users given the way that the organisation functions.

SharePoint allows us to build a hierarchical classification schema, often referred to as a taxonomy, using the Managed Metadata Service (MMS). Using the MMS or more accurately a Term Set within it, we might rearrange this the flat list to provide a structure such as:

• Customer Management
• Finance
• Governance
• Human Resource Management
• Logistics
  • Buildings
  • Disposal
  • Procurement
  • Supply
• Operations
  • Engineering
  • Maintenance
  • Production
  • Quality Control
  • Work Health Safety

This is useful because it means we can tag information at multiple levels of granularity. More generic products such as say an overarching Operations Policy might be tagged with Operations at a high-level, whereas Maintenance Procedures should be tagged more specifically with Maintenance.

SharePoint allows us to tag documents this way but fails to provide a convenient way to use this same structure to filter documents.

Hierarchical Filtering in K-Doc View

However, this is something that can be easy achieved using K-Docs View. To set up Hierarchical Filtering must define a managed metadata column in the source library and the Term Set or Term that provides the anchor for the column must contain Terms which are hierarchically structured. If the Terms are not hierarchically structured, but are rather a simple flat list, the filter controls will appear as flat list of checkboxes rather than a tree filter control.

It is important to note that this MMS column must be configured to Display the entire path to term in the field, as highlighted below:

This is because the web part needs access to the full path to the term, in order to dynamically construct the tree filter control.

If you use a column which is configured to Display term label in the field, the list of filter options will simply be presented as a simple flat list of checkboxes.

Then, as part of the web part configuration, be sure to select the MMS filter column as one of the Selectable Group-By Columns in the Filtering and Grouping section.

And, assuming that there are documents which have been appropriately tagged, you can simply select the appropriate checkboxes to make your filter selections.

In the screenshot below, Work Health Safety is the selected filter and the square inside the Operations node indicates that the selection currently excludes documents tagged at that parent level.

If you also select the parent Operations node the filtered set of documents will then include those tagged at the higher level.

When you click to select a parent node, all child nodes are also selected initially. You then deselect any child nodes which should be excluded from the result set. It’s as easy as that.

About K-Docs

All products in the K-Docs family are Freemium, meaning they are full-functioning solutions which can simply be downloaded and used – you don’ even need to register. You only need to move to a licensed-paid tier if you decide to unlock advanced feature.

Download and try K-Docs View today, what have you got to lose?