How to add Navigation Hierarchies

Locating information quickly and efficiently is the goal for any successful organization. SharePoint 2010 handles this task brilliantly with its metadata service, refinement searches, tags, etc. On top of that, I believe this nice little addition of configuring navigation hierarchies for lists and documents libraries will be one of the first things utilized out of the gates. Think about a library with thousands of items and being only a few clicks away from the document you need! Here is a walkthrough on how to configure navigation hierarchies:

Limitations:

• Navigation hierarchies can only be based off of the following column types: content type, single-value choice field, or managed metadata field

What we have to start with:

• A document library storing companywide policies and standards
• A single-value choice field column called Division for each branch or department in my company

   

Now, let’s configure the navigation hierarchy:

From the ribbon UI, click Library Settings under the Library tab

Select Metadata navigation settings

Under Configure Navigation Hierarchies, add the column over to the Selected Hierarchy Fields and click Ok

Go back to your list or document library and you will see on the left hand side a tree view listing your field

Click the field to expand its values

Click on one of the metadata values to filter the list view!

And within five minutes you have a list or library that can be filtered!