On the right side I click on the site Actions Gear and go to Site Settings where I will activate the Site Feature, Metadata Navigation and Filtering.

This site feature is not activated on the Team Site Template so I click Activate.

When I see the blue icon that says Active, I know I’m good to go.

I click the link in the Quick Launch bar to get to the gdpByStateReports Library I configured in previous posts.

I click the Library Tab.

I click the Library Settings Icon.

We are going to use th Metadata navigation settings that is now available on the Library to pivot on these two Metadata columns.

This will allow users to find reports immediately based on Metadata regardless of which older they are in.

I click the Metadata navigation settings link. This link was not available on the Library Settings page until the Metadata Navigation and Filtering Site Feature was activated.

This is the Metadata navigation settings page.

Here we see two main areas: Configure Navigation Hierarchies and Configure Key Filters. These two work hand-in-hand to basically give users multiple levels of filtering in an amazing UI that gets added just below the Quick Launch Bar. (I highlighted some areas of particular importance).

The Navigation Hierarchies and only use: Content Type, Single-value Choice fields, or Managed Metadata Fields and the Key Filters can only use Content Type, Choice Field, Managed Metadata Field, Person or Group Field, Date and Time Field, or Number Field. Between the two if you do some planning with this in mind you can create very powerful User Interfaces out of the box.

We are going to use the StateOfOrigin and YearOfReport choice fields in Both areas and we are going to leave the Folders in the Navigation Hierarchy Fields.

To configure the controls, you select the columns on the left side and click the Add button which moves them over to the right side. When you are done your page should look like the figure above. When it’s ready you can click OK at the bottom of the page. Clicking OK Not Shown.

Now that its all configured we can click the gdpByStateReports link in the breadcrumb where we will see our amazing U.I.

Just below the Quick Launch, Share Point has added the Navigation Hierarchy and Key Filter Controls. I will start by clicking the State Of Origin in the top control.

This expands to show the available fields (the options in choice column) I click on AR (Arkansas)

Immediately the content area of the web page shows all the reports that have the value AR in the StateOfOrigin column, REGARDLESS of which folder they reside in!

With the state of Arkansas Selected in the Hierarchy control (AR) I go to the key Filters click the drop down menu for YearOfReport, You may have noticed that the StateOfOrigin Drop down disappeared because I already filtered on that column.

I select 2010 and click Apply. My results are immediately apparent. I now see all reports for the State of Arkansas from the year 2010, regardless of which Folder the result set resides in.

If I click the link to go back to the Document Library I can see that it resets my controls to their original state an returns the YearOfReport drop down to the U.I.

That’s it! Users can now quickly and efficiently parse through folders with out of the box functionality.