Managed Metadata Column in Datasheet View in SharePoint 2013

Managed Metadata Column in Datasheet view in SharePoint 2013

In this article you will see the behaviour of Managed Metadata Columns in the datasheet view in SharePoint 2013.

In SharePoint 2010 when you try to edit the metadata column, an alert will be thrown displaying "The selected cells are read-only." as shown in Figure 1.



Figure 1: Datasheet view of Shared Documents

Thus in the datasheet view managed metadata values cannot be updated which is one of the Managed Metadata Column limitations in SharePoint 2010. But SharePoint 2013 has the capability to edit the Managed Metadata values in datasheet view.

I have a team site in which I have a created a custom list named "Custom". The custom list has the following columns as shown in Figure 2.



Figure 2: List of columns in the Custom list

A Managed Metadata column is mapped to the term set as shown in Figure 3.



Figure 3: Term set

I have created two items in the list as shown in Figure 4.



Figure 4: Items in the custom list

In the ribbon interface click on the List tab and then click on the Quick Edit button.



Figure 5: List ribbon interface

In SharePoint 2013, you will be able to edit the Managed Metadata column value. Select the metadata term and then click on the small orange button that appears when you select the metadata term as shown in Figure 6. You will be able to set, add or remove terms.



Figure 6: Edit the managed metadata value

I am going to replace the existing term with a new term as shown in Figure 7. Click on Ok.



Figure 7: Replace the term

Stop editing the list and you will be able to see the updated metadata value as shown in Figure 8.



Figure 8: Updated managed metadata value

Thus in this article you have seen how to edit the Managed Metadata column value in the datasheet view in SharePoint 2013.