MacroView DMF

A built-in part of MacroView DMF is what we call MacroView Solution Provisioning (MVSP).  MVSP is controlled by XML files that comply with the Microsoft PNP ‘standard’ for defining SharePoint site and libraries designs.  To use MVSP you right-click in the MacroView tree – e.g. on a site or the tenant level – and choose Provision. MVSP will then display a menu of options, depending on:

• What type of node you have right-clicked
• What Solutions (i.e. sets of PNP XML files) have been installed.

As part of the DMF product we ship the PNP XML files for a Solution called MacroView Document and Email Management. This Solution defines a MacroView-style library – i.e. a library that contains the content types, metadata columns and views that enable automatic recording of the attributes of an email and the display of emails with their automatically-recorded attributes. You can right-click>Provision to either create a new MacroView-style library, or to enhance an existing document library so that it becomes MacroView-style.

Figure 1: Using r/c>Provision to create a new MacroView-style library

As it saves an email the MacroView software automatically selects the Email content type and records the attributes of the email (e.g. To, From, Subject, etc) in the metadata columns that are part of that content type. Libraries created or enhanced with this Solution also contain additional Views – e.g. an Emails view that displays the saved emails with their automatically-recorded attributes.

Macroview Case and Matter

If MacroView Case and Matter is licensed, we install additional PNP XML files.  In addition to the design elements added by DMF, these XML files define:

• A site content type called Matter Document Set
• A site content type called Matter Document.
• Site columns for Client Number, Client Name, Matter Number, Matter Name, Matter Type, Matter Managed By and Matter Status – all these are used in the Matter Document Set content type
• Site columns for Document Type and Author, which are used in the Matter Document content type.
• Additional views, including Matter Documents and Emails, Matter Documents, All Matters, Active Matters and My Matters – these views, together with the above content types are defined into a new Matters document library that is also created automatically.  Metadata columns Client Number, Client Name, Matter Number, Matter Name, Matter Type, Matter Managed By and Matter Status are all Shared from the Matter Document Set level and Hidden in the Email and Matter Document content types. This is how we enable extensive automatic metadata recording as users save new documents and emails. 

Figure 2: Provisioning a new Case and Matter-style library.

The user can then right-click on the Matters library and choose Create New Matter, which creates a new Matter Document Set, which in turn contains the Matter Document and Email content types.  The new document set also contains a set of folders that correspond to frequently-used types of document. These folder sets are defined in another XML configuration file, which is stored in a central library.

As you can see, MacroView Case and Matter does a lot of automatic defining of a SharePoint Online design. This is popular with Legal Departments, because it removes the need for them to hire a SharePoint consultant to set up a design that works.

MacroView Project

MacroView Project is very similar to Case and Matter. Instead of provisioning a Matter Document Set content type it provisions a Project Document Set content type, instead of a Matter Document content type it provisions a Project Document content type, etc. This is achieved by using a different set of PNP XML files. The big difference between these two products is the ‘optional’ modules that are included – e.g. Case and Matter bundles in the modules that update the footer to show unique Document ID and current Version number, and which display a nice menu of Version Control options as the user closes a document that they have edited.

Custom Designs

If a customer wants a custom design, they license MacroView DMF because it will display their custom design.

It makes sense for them to have the ability of easily and safely create new areas that have the correct design. To achieve this MacroView creates a MVSP Solution (i.e. set of PNP XML files) that define their custom design. When a new area is needed, a suitably authorised users can then right-click>Provision and choose the custom MVSP Solution. 

In addition to MacroView DMF the customer licenses whatever optional modules (e.g. MacroView Corporate Email Filing, MacroView AOI, etc) and DMF Extensions (e.g. MapFolderNameToField, CreateNewDocumentSet, etc) they need to create a complete solution,