SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

I was working with a client recently and looking at how they were using (or not in this case) versioning in document libraries, they were still in the NTFS mind-set, as shown by the example below.

To client was using the versioning that Word supplies and manually updating the document version number in the title each time a new version was uploaded into SharePoint.

I introduced them to the Major / Minor versioning settings within a document library, so we could at least get document versions working.

The only problem with this was that the client still wanted to have a version number on the document, as these were quite often printed.

This is a problem that I have seen before with SharePoint 2007 and have addressed with Information Management Policies,  this is the first time I have had to set this up for SharePoint 2010, but the steps are similar. From your Doc Lib, go to Library Settings, –> Information management policy settings.

In this example I am using the Document content type, but you should be looking to use your own custom content type, to make the final solution more flexible.

Tick the Enable Labels box, and in the label format type {Version}, click the Refresh button and make sure you see {_UIVersionString} in the Preview box.

We have now created a custom Label that will appear as a Quick Part within Word (the Word Doc has to be opened from SharePoint) that contains the SharePoint Version number.

Once you have saved and re-opened your document you will now have a Label field linked to your SharePoint Version Number.

Enjoy the SharePoint Goodness.