I like the convenience of using Manage Content and Structure to move batches of files from one document library to another, while maintaining their metadata (custom fields as well as metadata like "modified by" are brought over from the source library to the target library).
However, I have been seeing some strange and concerning results, mostly having to do with content types. In a recent example, I had a library of documents with a yes/no checkbox to allow for displaying certain of the documents in a view on the home page. Another library needed to be merged in with this one, which had the same yes/no checkbox (same column name). I recommended that my client move the files from one library to another using Manage Content and Structure. After she did this, she reported that the documents from the merged library were not apperaing on the home page view even though she had checked "Yes."
When I looked more closely at the document library, I saw that there were now two identical fields for the yes/no choice in the same document library. SharePoint had copied one over and kept the original - and the values were different in each field. (In the field properties, I saw that the system had appended "0" to one of the column names on the back-end.)
In this case, it was a simple matter of making sure all the data matched from one column to another, and then deleting the duplicate column. But in some cases (e.g., when the Move function added the "Publishing Start Date" and "Publishing End Date" fields to a document library) I've had to switch on "Allow management of content types" and hide the extra fields that were added during the move process so that my end-users wouldn't be confused by the newly-added fields.
Consider this a word of warning - Manage Content and Structure may beat Explorer View in terms of convenience and speed when moving batches of files, but it can cause unintended outcomes that could take you more time to troubleshoot and fix in the long run.
We have created a product designed to facilitate tagging/copying/moving of SP content between list, sites and even servers. One of our struggles is to identify which column types we should support. We would love to get some feedback from the user community.
You can learn more about the product and download a beta/trial version at http://www.metavistech.com/classifier
Posted by: Steve Pogrebivsky | February 03, 2009 at 03:44 PM
Steve, thanks very much for letting me know about this product! I'll put it on my SharePoint team's task list to give it a try.
Posted by: sadalit | February 06, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Thanks for this post. In addition to the problems you've outlined, I've found another that is very frustrating (and for which I don't yet have a fix).
The views no longer have an option for displaying "modified" and "created" columns, except in existing views where they were already set to display. Also, these two columns are no longer available in the "sort by" option in views. BIG problem. Anyone have a fix? The other thing I'm noticing in these libraries is that there are now two new columns called "Document Created By" and "Document Modified By" that the system seems to be creating. Why? Very, very frustrating that "content and structure" has more cons than pros... :(
Posted by: Kat | September 29, 2009 at 04:10 PM
Kat, thanks very much for your comment. One of my clients experienced the same issue you describe, after I wrote this post. I needed a quick workaround at the time, and re-created the document library to get those columns back, but I acknowledge this is not the ideal solution. Have you tried adding these site columns back to the existing content types in the document library that is experiencing the issue?
Posted by: sadalit | September 29, 2009 at 04:24 PM
"modified" and "created" weren't options in the list of "site columns" I could add, but "date modified" and "date created" were. I added both, but they didn't contain info. They looked like open fields for you to add a date to. Not what I wanted. :(
I actually found this as I searched for an answer, but I don't know where to "run" the code they provide:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointadmin/thread/ae28c854-c929-4245-a396-a0f4a9e3f57a
We don't have a SharePoint developer, and our IT admin doesn't know where this is supposed to be run. If you have an idea, I can test it out. :) Thanks for the quick reply!
Posted by: Kat | September 29, 2009 at 05:17 PM
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Posted by: Anonymous | January 07, 2010 at 05:54 PM