Create or customise a site content type

Applies to: SharePoint Online, Office for business, Office 365 Admin, Office 365 Small Business, Office 365 Small Business Admin, SharePoint Server 2016, SharePoint Foundation 2013, SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise.

Site content types help make it easy to provide consistency across a site. As a site owner, you create or customise a content type with the characteristics that you want, such as a certain template, specific metadata, and so on. For example, when a user chooses an item from the New Item or New Document menu, you can ensure that customised content is used.

To learn more about content types, see Introduction to content types and content type publishing.

Important:  To create site content types for a site, you must have Full Control for that site. To create site content types for the top-level site in a site collection, you must be a site collection administrator.

To create a site content type that people can use everywhere on a site, follow these steps:

Create a content type

1. Visit the site for which you want to create a site content type.

2. Choose Settings  , and then pick Site Settings.

3. Below Web Designer Galleries, click Site content types.

The Gallery shows all the existing site content types, grouped in categories. The one that you choose becomes the parent group of your new content type.

4. In the Show Group box, pick the group that you want to use and then choose Create.

5. On the New Site Content page, state a name and description for the new content type.

6. In the Parent Content Type section, choose the name of the parent group and then choose the Parent Content Type.

7. In the Group section, confirm if you want to place the new content type in an existing group, or to design a new group.

8. Click OK.

Once SharePoint forms the new content type, it launches the Site Content Type page for it, where you can customise it further.

Change the name of a site content type

1. Find the home page of the site that has the content type that you want to rename.

2. Pick Settings  , and then select Site Settings.

3. In the Web Designer Galleries group, click Site Content Types.

4. On the Site Contents Types page, press your sought name of the content type.

5. On the Site Content Type Information page, under Settings, select Name, description, and group.

6. In the Name text box of the Name and description section, alter content type’s name.

7. After you finish, press OK.

Associate a document template with a site content type

To guarantee that documents have standardised content across a site and its subsites, you can connect a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint template with a site content type.

For example, you might want employees to use a standard Excel template once they design a weekly timesheet. If you associate the template with a Timesheet content type, each time someone uses the Timesheet content type, the right template is instantly loaded in the worksheet.

You can further minimise the legwork for users by inserting the Timesheet content type to a library. From there, users can access the correct timesheet simply by clicking Timesheet on the New Documents menu. To learn how to do this, see Add a content type to a list or library.

To associate a template with a site content type, follow these steps.

1. Find your desired site to associate a template with a site content type.

2. Click the Settings button  , and then choose Site Settings.

3. Below Web Designer Galleries, press Site content types.

4. Select your preferred name of the content type to modify by associating a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint template.

5. Beneath Settings, select Advanced settings.

6. State the template’s location:

• If the template is stored on your site, press Enter the URL of an existing document template, and then enter the URL for your target template to use.

• If the document template is stored on your local computer, press Upload a new document template, and then choose Browse. In the Choose File dialogue box, find your relevant file to use, pick it, and then choose Open.

7. Below Update all content types inheriting from this type?, choose Yes if you want to update each content type that derive from this content type with the document template.

8. Select OK.

Add columns to a site content type

The columns for a content type signify metadata. To create a metadata element, make a new column.

For example, your organisation might want to track specific metadata for purchase orders, like account number, project number, and project manager. If you create columns for this information to the purchase order content type, SharePoint notifies users to supply the information once they save their work. As well as this, if you insert the content type to a list or library, you can construct a view to present the columns.

Note: To create a column to a content type, you have to initially pick the content type. If you are unable to choose the content types that emerge, the site acquires its content types from a parent site. To insert a column to the content type, you must edit it on the parent site.

1. Find your specific site to insert a column to a site content type.

2. Click Settings  , and then click Site Settings.

3. Under Web Designer Galleries, click Site content types.

4. Click the name of your preferred content type to add a column.

5. Under Columns, pick Add from existing site columns.

6. In the Select Columns section, below Select columns from, click the parent group for the column.

7. Under Available columns, pick your desired column name , and then press Add.

8. In the Update List and Site Content Types section, consider whether you want to update all content types that replicate from this site content type by ticking Yes or No.

Set up the Document Information Panel for a site content type

The Document Information Panel is available for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in Microsoft Office 2010 and later. The Document Information Panel presents an InfoPath form on these documents where you can type metadata information in the panel.

For example, suppose that you want to make sure that salespeople provide the company name and phone number for every sales proposal. You can create a Proposal content type, and include company name and phone number in the Document Information Panel. When they open a Proposal document, users enter or update the required name and phone number. When they save the document, SharePoint automatically updates the metadata stored as columns in the document library.

To learn more about content types and metadata, see Add metadata columns to a content type.

To design a Document Information Panel for a document content type, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to your desired site for to edit a site content type.

2. Pick Settings   , and then press Site Settings.

3. Below Web Designer Galleries, click Site content types.

4. Select your target name of the site content type to update.

Note: If names of the content types that appear are not hyperlinks, then this site inherits its site content types from another (parent) site. To update the site content type, visit the parent site.

5. Beneath Settings, click Document Information Panel settings.

6. In the Document Information Panel Template section, do one of the following:

• To use a sample template that illustrates the metadata (columns) that you defined for the content type, click Use the default template for Microsoft Office applications.

• To use an existing custom template, choose Use existing custom template (URL, UNC, or URN), and then state the path of the location of the template.

• To upload an existing custom template (XSN), pick Upload an existing custom template (XSN) to use, and press Browse to scout your particular template to use, press Browse.

• To form a custom panel in InfoPath, click Create a new custom template.

Note: If you select this option, InfoPath starts and shows the default template which you can customise to produce a custom panel.

7. In the Show Always section, define whether you want documents of this content type to present the information panel instantly.

8. Press OK.