Should I be using SharePoint sub-sites or metadata?

Question

We're starting to use SharePoint 2013 to manage our department's process documentation and I have some questions about best practices for site structure. I'm a little surprised I can't find the answers via web search, since this seems like a basic question every new SharePoint user must deal with.

Moving from a file share environment, I'm trying hard to get out of that mindset and I understand the many benefits of SharePoint over file shares. I also understand why creating folders in SharePoint forces arbitrary divisions on files whereas one large set of documents with metadata lets you filter and group the files based on different needs.

What's confusing me is that I also read that it's better to have too many sub-sites than not enough. It seems like sub-sites can easily become pseudo-folders and I'm not sure where that line is crossed.

Here's an example.

We have a SharePoint site devoted to our department. We've create a sub-site dedicated to an application we developed to load data into our business systems. It mainly holds technical documentation about the application. This application supports many different data sources, each with its own set of user instructions for loading, its own schedule (calendar), contact lists, supporting files, etc. There's no compelling reason to separate them to restrict access. However, there doesn't seem like a lot of value in having them all in the same sub-site, either, since someone working on a job will only want to see the docs and supporting files for that data source. I just can't foresee someone wanting to view supporting files across all data sources, although, I could see someone wanting to see the schedule for all data sources combined.

My question is, should I create separate sub-sites under the application for each data source or do I just store everything in the application sub-site and use metadata and views to group things by data source? Putting all the items for a specific data source into its own sub-site seems to be much simpler to manage and present than having to specify metadata for every new file and creating a lot of views. However, I can't shake the feeling that I'm still using file share thinking. Or maybe I'm just missing some basic concept of SharePoint.

Any advice or links to good discussions of this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

I would recommend that you use metadata and views to separate data in one repository/site.

My reasons are as below:

1. In SharePoint, it is recommended to use metadata than "evil" folders(or subsites in your case). Keep in mind that maintaining multiple subsites requires big administrative efforts in long term, for example, some sites will be inherited while others unique permission.

2. As time passes by and people rotate, it becomes vague that where the data was stored and where the new data should go to, especially with large volume subsites.

3. Since confidentiality is not concerned in your case, keep data centralized and open to people working in related field increases sharing and collaborating phenomenon. In contrast, using subsites increases the possibility of data silos.

4. people are all lazy :). Taken me as example, I dont want to remember all those xyz URLs, I want to go to one place and be able to fetch everything that I need.