• Overview
  • Features
  • Resources

Benefits: BulkMetadataManager empowers organizations to fully leverage the capabilities of the SharePoint platform, enhancing user productivity and adoption. Utilizing metadata in SharePoint columns allows for efficient filtering, sorting, grouping, and powerful searches. Additionally, it helps organizations meet compliance requirements.

Manage SharePoint metadata in bulk

Select documents

Use CAML query to select documents for processing.

Extract properties from documents

Extract the relevant properties from the documents

Upload metadata to SharePoint

Upload the extract properties as metadata to SharePoint

Product Features

View all features in a single overview

See all features below

Discover how BulkMetadataManager enhances standard SharePoint functionality for managing metadata.

FeatureBulkMetadataManager
Support for emails: msg and eml
Support for documents: docx, xlsx, pptx, vsdx and pdf
Support for images: jpg, png, dng, heic, heif, tiff, jfif and cr2
Support for videos: mp4, mov and wmv
Configurable: Select specific sites/libraries, use wildcards, exclusions, ...
Granular Control: Select files using CAML queries
Performance: Up to 5-10 documents per second
Large List Support: Efficiently handles large lists
Throttling Management: Caters for SharePoint throttling
WhatIf Support: Provides WhatIf functionality
Logging: Comprehensive logging capabilities
Scalability: Designed to be scalable
Extensibility: Extensible to support additional file types (e.g., zip, odt, ...)
System Resources: low-end computer (e.g. laptop, desktop or small VM)

Leverage metadata

BulkMetadataManager offers unique functionality to extract metadata from SharePoint documents and capture these values as SharePoint metadata.
Request a demo

Overview

BulkMetadataManager extracts properties from SharePoint documents (e.g., sent date and subject from emails, keywords from PDF files, last modified date from Office files) and captures these values into SharePoint columns. The application runs on a separate computer system and does not require any user interactions.

Benefits: BulkMetadataManager enables organizations to fully leverage the SharePoint platform, enhancing productivity and user adoption. Using metadata in SharePoint columns allows for efficient filtering, sorting, grouping, and powerful searches. By extracting the created/modified dates from the actual documents (docx, pdf, msg, jpg, etc.) rather than the import date, organizations can ensure data is retained or destroyed in line with legal requirements.

How It Works:

  • Downloads documents based on a CAML query.
  • Extracts the document properties.
  • Uploads the metadata to SharePoint columns.

Common Use Cases:

  • Add metadata (e.g., sent date) to emails stored in SharePoint.
  • Extract order details from PDF files stored in SharePoint.
  • Extract last modified dates from emails, PDF files, and Office files using the properties stored within the files (not the upload date).
  • Make email attachments (pdf, docx, xlsx, pptx, vsdx, xml, csv, txt, zip) searchable.
  • Extract GPS coordinates and ‘Date Taken’ from images/videos to create a digital library in SharePoint.

BulkMetadataManager in-depth

Metadata extraction
The following figures show the document details before and after running the application.

Metadata before Metadata after
SharePoint without metadata SharePoint with metadata

Supported file types and properties
The following properties can be extracted from files stored in SharePoint:

Emails
(msg and eml)
Office Files
(docx, xlsx, pptx and vsdx)
PDF Files
(pdf)
Images
(jpg, png, dng, heic, heif, tiff, jfif and cr2)
Videos
(mp4, mov or wmv)
Subject
From
From address
To
To address
CC
CC address
BCC
BCC address
Message ID
Sent Date
Received Date
Conversation
has Attachment
Importance
Sensitivity
Categories
Attachment count
Attachment names
Attachment contents (unique words)
Title
Tags
Comments
Status
Categories
Subject
Company
Manager
Hyperlink Base
Last Modified
Created
Last Printed
Author
Last Modified By
Revision
Legal Entity
Project
Language
Total Editing Time
Template
Pages
Words
Characters (no spaces)
Characters (with spaces)
Paragraphs
Lines
Application
DocSecurity
AppVersion
Title
Author
Comments
Subject
Keywords
PDF Producer
PDF Version
Fast Web View
Number of Pages
Tagged PDF
Modified
Created
Application
Page Layout
Metadata Date
Format
Document ID
Instance ID
Language
DateTime
GPS Coordinates
GPS Latitude (DD)
GPS Longitude (DD)
GPS Altitude
EXIF properties
XMP properties
IPTC properties
ICC properties
DateTime
GPS Coordinates
GPS Latitude (DD)
GPS Longitude (DD)
GPS Altitude
EXIF properties
XMP properties
IPTC properties
ICC properties

Recover original create and modify dates
BulkMetadataManager allows for using the original create and modify dates present within files as SharePoint Created and Modified dates.
Existing situation
SharePoint with existing create and modify dates

After extraction the original create and modify dates are used as Created and Modified dates
SharePoint with updated create and modify dates

Making Email Attachments Searchable
SharePoint Search does not index all email attachments. Our tests across different tenants indicate that the indexing rate is well below 50%, leading to significant blind spots in the search index. This limitation affects users and compliance officers, as emails may not appear in search results.

BulkMetadataManager addresses this issue by ensuring full visibility of SharePoint data, eliminating blind spots. In short, BulkMetadataManager is essential for complying with privacy and other regulations.

Logging
The application generates multiple log files to provide comprehensive insights:

  • Summary Log File: Contains high-level details.
  • Detailed Log File: Includes specific details for individual documents.
  • WhatIf Log File: Provides details of the extracted properties when the WhatIf property is set to true.

Performance
The application is optimized for high performance through the use of parallel processes for downloading documents and setting metadata, caching, and other optimization techniques. Under optimal conditions, the application can process 10 documents per second. It is designed to handle very large volumes of documents (100,000+). Additionally, the application architecture supports scaling out by utilizing separate computer systems.

BulkMetadataManager can manage throttling by SharePoint Online and will automatically resume operations after the retry-after period has expired. The application also supports large lists that exceed the list view threshold (5,000 items).

Scalability
BulkMetadataManager supports both vertical and horizontal scaling. Vertical scaling allows for increased processing throughput without the need to deploy additional infrastructure. This setup ensures scalability and isolation between instances while maintaining efficient metadata processing.

Horizontal scaling uses different systems to increase the processing throughput.

Horizontal and vertical scaling in BulkMetadataManager

WhatIf
The WhatIf option enables assessment of the application and its configuration without uploading metadata to SharePoint. Extracted document properties are saved to a separate CSV file for further analysis.
BulkMetadataManager WhatIf feature

Deployment
Deployment involves the following steps:

  • Install Application: Install the BulkMetadataManager application (exe) on a separate computer (e.g., small VM, laptop, desktop, …).
  • Add/Deploy Content Type: Add or deploy the Content Type to the SharePoint libraries (if not already present).
  • Configure Metadata Mapping: Set up metadata mapping using a static properties file or tenant properties.
  • Configure INI File: Adjust the ini file for your environment to allow granular control over which sites and/or libraries are processed.
  • Update CAML File: Modify the CAML file to select the documents of interest.
  • Run Tool: Execute the exe tool via the command line.

BulkMetadataManager can also be scheduled using the standard Windows Task Scheduler. This enables metadata extraction from documents regardless of how they were added to SharePoint (via web interface, OneDrive for Business, mobile applications, Power Automate, external applications, etc.).

Granular Control
The use of a CAML query allows for granular control over which documents are processed. BulkMetadataManager will only process documents selected using the CAML query and where the content type is present in the document’s library.

Supported Environments
BulkMetadataManager supports SharePoint Online. Contact us if you have requirements for on-premises SharePoint versions.

Enhancements
The following enhancements will be implemented in future releases:

  • Support for importing metadata from CSV files (to complement the extracted document properties).
  • Support for SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint Server SE.
  • Support for labeling documents (retention/sensitivity).
  • Support for binary Office files (doc, xls, ppt).

Target Audience
BulkMetadataManager is intended for use by SharePoint administrators and site collection administrators. It is not designed for end-users.

For Further Information

Check out the following resources for more details:

In short, BulkMetadataManager offers unique functionality to manage the metadata of your SharePoint documents. It enhances user productivity and ensures compliance with privacy, archiving, and other regulations.