{"id":1324,"date":"2018-01-28T18:10:05","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T18:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myfatblog.co.uk\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2018-01-28T18:10:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T18:10:05","slug":"examining-copyto-function-sharepoint-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.myfatblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2018\/01\/examining-copyto-function-sharepoint-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining the CopyTo function in SharePoint Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent blog post on the TechCommunity site (You can read it here<\/a>), Chris McNulty highlighted the improvements coming to the CopyTo and MoveTo functionality that currently exists in Document libraries\u00a0 SharePoint Online. This new functionality should start dropping into targeted release tenants around the date of this post so i decided to just take a look at one aspect of Chris\u2019s post that is already a massive improvement on any of the copy functionality that we\u2019ve had in the past.<\/p>\n

For those of you that haven\u2019t seen the functionality that I\u2019m talking about, you do need to have your libraries in the new modern mode as the CopyTo and MoveTo functionality only appears in the context menu when you right click a single document, or in the header menu when you select one or more documents in the view.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you click either of these options, you\u2019ll get a side bar panel open up on the right hand side, providing you with a number of options. Until the new functionality hits, the MoveTo option only shows you folders in the current library, so for now we\u2019ll focus on the CopyTo function. At this stage it\u2019s probably worth understanding the limitations of both functions and what\u2019s happening with the next release from MS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Function<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nMoveTo<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nCopyTo<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Locations<\/td>\nCurrently limited to folders within the current library. (Changing in Targeted Release from 29\/1\/18)<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/td>\n

Copies to any site the user has access to (including OneDrive) and powered by the MS Graph.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Versions<\/td>\nMoves all versions of the item to the new location.<\/td>\nCopies only the latest Major version to the new location<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Metadata<\/td>\nWhere possible copies all metadata intact. (In it\u2019s current form this works on all fields as the document is remaining within the same library)<\/p>\n

Metadata columns are matched on a name basis (I haven\u2019t tested on how this works and wether it matches on Display name or internal name)<\/p>\n

According to the blog post linked above, if metadata cannot be copied, a remediation option will be offered to the user.<\/td>\n

Where possible copies all metadata intact.<\/p>\n

Metadata columns are matched on a name basis (I haven\u2019t tested on how this works and wether it matches on Display name or internal name)<\/p>\n

Where metadata cannot be copied it is dropped.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It\u2019s this final row of the table that really interested me as we deal with many different types of metadata, and I really wondered how each type of metadata might perform during a document copy and what outcomes we could expect.<\/p>\n

In order to test for this, I setup a document library with a number of columns of different data types, populated these with some data, and then copied a document between multiple libraries where each column was set to the same data type to understand how each fared. The table below shows the types and values for each column.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Column Name<\/strong><\/td>\nType<\/strong><\/td>\nValue<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnA<\/strong><\/td>\nSingle line of text<\/td>\nColumn A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnB<\/strong><\/td>\nMultiple lines of text<\/td>\n3 lines of different text<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnC<\/strong><\/td>\nNumber<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnD<\/strong><\/td>\nYes\/No<\/td>\nYes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnE<\/strong><\/td>\nPerson<\/td>\nMy username<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnF<\/strong><\/td>\nDate<\/td>\n1\/1\/2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnG<\/strong><\/td>\nChoice<\/td>\nA (Available choices (A,B,C)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnH<\/strong><\/td>\nHyperlink<\/td>\nLink to Google with Display Name of \u201cGoogle\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnJ<\/strong><\/td>\nPicture<\/td>\nLink to a picture of a tank on Wikipedia with the display name of \u201cTank\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnK<\/strong><\/td>\nCurrency<\/td>\n\u00a31.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ColumnL<\/strong><\/td>\nMMS<\/td>\nA (from a test TermGroup\/TermSet with the values A,B,C)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

(I skipped Columni to avoid confusion with L and J)<\/em><\/p>\n

Not unsurprisingly the text based fields seemed to fare the best as the following table shows.<\/p>\n

(Edit: The table in blog format sucked! So I decided to put it up as a picture instead.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The report table for the CopyTo metadata testing.<\/p><\/div>\n

I haven\u2019t fully tested every combination with this short test, but I think you\u2019ll agree there\u2019s a mixture of some expected results and some fairly unexpected ones too (such as the MMS values from an Integer value in a number column\u2026 That could be handy in the future!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent blog post on the TechCommunity site (You can read it here), Chris McNulty highlighted the improvements coming to the CopyTo and MoveTo functionality that currently exists in Document libraries\u00a0 SharePoint Online. This new functionality should start dropping into targeted release tenants around the date of this post so i decided to just … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nExamining the CopyTo function in SharePoint Online - Blog of an overweight SharePoint addict<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.myfatblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2018\/01\/examining-copyto-function-sharepoint-online\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Examining the CopyTo function in SharePoint Online - Blog of an overweight SharePoint addict\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent blog post on the TechCommunity site (You can read it here), Chris McNulty highlighted the improvements coming to the CopyTo and MoveTo functionality that currently exists in Document libraries\u00a0 SharePoint Online. 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