SharePoint Metadata — Why Most SME Deployments Get It Wrong and How to Fix It

Most SharePoint metadata approaches fail for the same reason: they're designed as a filing exercise rather than a working tool. Columns are created, a few documents are tagged, and then staff revert to browsing folders because the metadata doesn't surface anything useful.

Here's the approach we use — drawn from building a live system for a wealth management firm with hundreds of existing client folders and a CRM that doesn't integrate natively with SharePoint.

Start with the views you want, not the columns you have

The most important question to ask before designing your metadata model is: what does the finished system show people? Not what columns exist — what views make people's jobs easier.

For the wealth management firm, the answer was:

• My Clients — each adviser sees only their own clients
• Active Clients — all clients with status Active, visible to managers
• Reviews Due — clients whose annual review falls in the next 60 days
• Missing Metadata — folders where required columns haven't been populated yet

Working backwards from those four views tells you exactly which columns you need. Adviser (person column), Client Status (choice column), Review Date (date column), and a calculated compliance column for Missing Metadata. Every other column is secondary.

The CRM matching problem

The firm's client list lives in an external CRM (Enable). SharePoint folder names were created historically — some using full names, some using shortened first names, some with joint client names in different orders. A direct lookup wasn't possible.

The matching solution uses five fields in priority order:

1. Firstname + Surname (exact match)
2. Match Name 1 (a manually curated alternate name field)
3. Match Name 2 (secondary alternate)
4. Surname-only fallback with manual review
5. Unmatched — flagged for manual resolution

XLOOKUP in Excel handles the matching logic, working across the CRM export and the SharePoint folder inventory. Once a folder is matched to a CRM record, the Enable Reference, Star Reference, Adviser, and Client Type are available to write back to SharePoint via Power Automate.

Joint clients: a specific problem worth solving properly

Joint clients — two people with a single shared folder and separate CRM records — create a genuine complexity. You need to store both the Primary Enable Reference and the Secondary Enable Reference against a single SharePoint folder. The metadata model needs a column for each, and the matching logic needs to handle both.

We added Primary Enable Reference and Secondary Enable Reference as separate columns. The matching flow looks for both names in the CRM export when processing a joint folder, and writes both references. Views and filters work on either reference.

Phasing the rollout

Metadata governance projects fail when they try to do everything at once. The approach that works is phased:

• Phase 1: Clean up the folder structure. Move misplaced files, remove duplicates, create the correct library areas. No metadata yet.
• Phase 2: Add the columns. Apply the critical metadata (Client Status, Adviser, Enable Reference) to all active client folders using the CRM match.
• Phase 3: Build the views. Now the metadata exists, surface it — My Clients, Reviews Due, Missing Metadata.
• Phase 4: Automate the maintenance. Flows that update metadata when the CRM changes, flag approaching review dates, and populate metadata on new folder creation.
• Phase 5 (Copilot-ready): With clean metadata and proper permissions in place, Microsoft Copilot can safely search and summarise across client documents without surfacing information to the wrong person.

The views that make it worth doing

Once the metadata is in place, the payoff is immediate. The Reviews Due view — a filtered view showing every client whose review date falls in the next 60 days, sorted by review date, grouped by adviser — replaces a spreadsheet that someone was maintaining manually. It's always current, it's always accurate, and no one needs to update it.

The Missing Metadata view is equally valuable during rollout. It surfaces every folder that's missing a required column — so the team can see exactly how much work remains and track progress. Once rollout is complete, it becomes an ongoing data quality check.