SharePoint 2010 Content Types

Content Types basics

A content type is a reusable collection of meta data (columns), workflow, behaviour, and other settings for a category of items or documents in a list or document library. Content types enable you to manage the settings for a category of information in a centralised, reusable way. A content type defines the attributes of a list item, a document, a document set or a folder.

Example of a content type: Test description document content type:

Test description is a document containing step by step test steps that is used when testing an application.The test description Content Type is used for test description documents in a document library that contains system related documentation.
All test descriptions must be tagged with what system the test description tests and who is the owner of the document. These are properties associated with the test description Content Type.
All test descriptions has the same document headings, document header and document footer. It is therefor created a test description document template. This template is associated with the test description Content Type. When creating a new test description in the document library this template is automatically used.
A periodic review is associated with the test description, a review is forced on the document owner before every release of the system (released periodically). This is a workflow associated with the Content Type.
For traceability reasons auditing is also required, every time a test description is changed the id of the test description document is logged. This is an Auditing Policy associated with the Content Type.
The id associated with the Content Type is prefixed with TDD (Test Description Document), this is an example of a custom feature of this Content Type.

This can be specified for a content type:

• Properties to associate with items of its type: columns of the content type, these are displayed when a new document is created and when the document is shown in the document list. The columns are also shown in the Document Information Panel in Office products. Columns can be reused.
• Metadata to associate with items of its type: Metadata is information about a document that is used to categorise and classify your content. Metadata is associated with a content type as a column. A column can be mandatory to ensure that the meta data is provided.
  
• Workflows that can be started from items of its type: e.g. periodic workflow review
  
• Information management policies to associate with items of its type: 
• auditing: logging when an event occurs
• retention policies: define retention stages and an action that happens at the end of each stage, e.g. moving the item to the Recycle Bin, deleting an item or moving an item to another location
• labels to ensure that physical copies of each document are properly identifiable
• print restrictions, to ensure that sensitive employee-related documents are printed only on secure printers 
• Document templates (for document content types)
  
• Custom features: e.g. changing the id pattern

Document libraries and lists can contain multiple content types. SharePoint comes with a set of OOTB Content Types. Content types are organised into a hierarchy that lets one content type inherit its characteristics from another content type. Content types can be shared on different SharePoint sites.