Viewing and editing document properties

harmon.ie supports viewing and editing document metadata, also known as properties, columns, or fields. Metadata can be used to organize and filter documents, and help you to locate files on the server.

Viewing properties

harmon.ie gives you quick access to all document metadata from the harmon.ie sidebar's Properties window.

To view the properties of SharePoint documents and folders, select the item(s) in the sidebar, right-click and select Properties, or press Alt+Enter. The Properties window lets you view and edit SharePoint properties of folders, documents, and document sets. When you select other items from the document list, the data in the Properties window automatically updates.

Notes:

• Metadata is not shown for SharePoint subsites and document libraries in the Properties window.
• Persons and groups added using the Person or Group dialog are displayed in the Properties window as defined in SharePoint. For example, you can configure the column in SharePoint to show the selected person’s or group’s e-mail address, instead of name.

Understanding the properties window

• The Properties window categorizes the properties by content type and by the document library where the properties are defined. This grouping of properties can be enabled/disabled from the Properties window’s toolbar by clicking the Show/Hide Categories icon ().
• Required properties are indicated with a red dot. If the value of a required property is empty, you will not be able to check in the document and it will not be available to other SharePoint users.
• Read-only properties are dimmed. This is either because you do not have the permissions to change the property’s value, or because the property is defined as read-only. Documents that are checked out to other users have all properties dimmed.
• When viewing the properties of multiple documents, by default only the properties that are common to all the documents are shown. Click the Show all properties from all selected documents icon () to show all the properties of the documents, including those that belong only to one of the selected documents.
• The value <Multiple Values> indicates that this property has different values in the selected documents.
• SharePoint document libraries that require content approval contain the additional properties Approval Status and Approver Comments. These properties are always listed as read-only. To learn how to approve and reject documents on SharePoint, read Approving documents.

Filtering the properties

By default, all editable properties are shown. Click the Filter menu button () to switch between Show All Properties, Show Editable Properties, and Show Required Properties.

Editing properties

You can edit the value of many property types directly in the grid of the Properties window. For more advanced property types, such as Multiple lines of text, Date and Time, Person or Group, or Hyperlink, select the Edit (…) button next to the selected property value to open a dialog from which you can edit the property value. Changes made in the Properties window are automatically saved on SharePoint.

Tip: when editing the value of managed metadata properties, you can start typing the value and select a matching value from the suggested list.

You can edit the value of multiple documents simultaneously. You will be notified if editing the value failed for some of the documents (for example if one of the documents is checked out to another user and cannot be edited).

Limitation: Currently, it is not possible to edit the Rating of multiple documents simultaneously.

If the document library requires checking out documents before editing, you are prompted to check out the document upon the first editing attempt. After modifying any properties and leaving the document, you are asked to check-in the document to make the changes available to all users. You can also click the Check in / Check out icon () in the Properties window’s toolbar to check the document in or out.

Changing the content type

The first listed property in the Properties window is Content Type. Each document on the SharePoint server is of a specific content type. By selecting a different content type you also change which properties are available for the document. To learn more about SharePoint content types, read Introduction to Content Types.