How to use Content Organizer in SharePoint 2013

The Content Organizer is a SharePoint feature that can automatically manage some important library tasks. This saves organizations time and effort but is also a useful tool in Business Process Automation. It takes much of the “need to know” away from end users so they can focus on their jobs while SharePoint handles categorization and classification of information.

Content Organizer offers the following features: routing documents to different libraries or folders, Drop Off Library, folder size management and automatic folder creation, duplicate item resolution, and auditing.

Content Organizer is another of the powerful tools offered in SharePoint 2013. This tool allows organizations to manage information automatically. While much of classification and categorization requires thought and intention, many users don’t understand the big picture of an organization information management. Tools like Content Organizer help an Information Management professional to facilitate the automation of the process in order to help reduce human error.

Content Organizer is a Site feature and must be enabled on the site where the function is required.  Upon activation of the feature SharePoint will create a library titled “Drop Off library”.  This is the default drop box for incoming files that will be routed by the Content Organizer.

To Enable Content Organizer:

1. Navigate to the site where you want to use the feature
2. In “Settings”, open “Site Features”.
3. In “Site Features”, locate “Content Organizer” and click “Activate”.
4. After feature activation, you can verify by checking to see if a new app exists named “Drop Off Library”

Make configuration changes to the Content Organizer Settings

1. Open “Settings” and under “Site Administration”, select “Content Organizer Settings”.
2. In the Redirect Users to the Drop Off Library section, select the check box to enforce the Content Organizer. This automatically redirects users to the Drop Off Library when they try to upload a document.
3. In the Sending to Another Site section, select the check box if you want to allow rules to route documents to a different site.
4. In the Folder Partitioning section, select the Create subfolders after a target location has too many items check box to automatically create subfolders after a location has exceeded a specified number of items.
5. In the Number of items in a single folder box, type the number of documents that can be stored in a folder before a new one is created.
6. In the Format of folder name box, specify the naming convention for any new folders that are created.
7. In the Duplicate Submissions section, select whether you want duplicates to use the versioning feature, or whether duplicates should always have unique characters appended to the item’s file name.
8. In the Preserving Context section, select the check box if you want to save audit logs or metadata as an audit entry on the submitted item or document
9. In the Rule Managers section, enter user or group names that are rules managers in your organization. Rule managers must have Manage Web Site permissions access the Content Organizer rules setting page. Find more information about Content Organizer rules in the See Also section.
10. Select the appropriate check boxes to have email messages automatically sent to the rules managers. Content Organizer can send an email message when a submission does not match a rule, or when any content is submitted to the Content Organizer.   NOTE    Email must be configured for the server or service for these checkboxes to be enabled.
11. In the Submission Points section, enter information about other sites or e-mail messaging software that can send content to the current site.

Now that you have Content Organizer configured, and the new Drop Off Library created, you will need to create rules to route information that is uploaded to the Drop Off Library.  My next blog post will explain this process.