How to Use Content Organizer in SharePoint 2013 Part 2

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.

Creating Rules:

NOTE    You must have at least Site Owner permissions to create rules to route documents.

1. Navigate to the site for which you want to create Content Organizer rules.
   1. Open your Site Settings
   2. On the Site Settings page, under the Site Administration section, click Content Organizer Rules.
   3. On the Content Organizer Rules page, click add in Click to add a new item.
   4. In the Rule Name section, type a name that describes the rule’s conditions and actions.
   5. In the Rule Status and Priority section, choose Active to apply the rule to incoming content. Then, select a priority that will determine how content is routed should it match more than one Content Organizer rule.
      If you do not want this rule to apply to incoming content, choose Inactive.
   6. In the Submission’s Content Type section, associate the rule with a content type. By doing this, submissions to the organizer are labeled with the selected content type and properties used in the conditions of the rule are identified.
   7. Select the appropriate content group. The group that you select determines the content types that you can choose from in the next step
   8. Select the appropriate content type.
   9. If the content type that you selected has a different name on another SharePoint site, select the check box under Alternate names. Then type the name that is used on the other site in the field provided, and click Add. Names for alternate content types appear in the list underneath.
   10. In the Conditions section, select the conditions that a submission’s properties must meet for the rule. You might, for example, want the rule to apply to all documents that have the word “budget” in the title. You can add more conditions by clicking the Add another condition link.
   11. NOTE- The properties available from the Property drop-down list differ according to the content type that you selected in step 6.
   12. In the Target Location section, type or browse for a location to place content that matches the rule. Select the Automatically create a folder check box to group similar documents together in folders. For example, if you have a property that lists all documents for projects in your organization, you can force the organizer to create a separate folder for each project.