Keeping in Control: Document Set Versioning in SharePoint

When you’ve worked hard on a project, sending your documents off for approvals is a bit like sending your kid off to college—you sure hope others take good care of it, but ultimately it’s out of your control.

With document sets, you can capture version history for more than just the individual documents in the set—you can also set versioning for the document set as a whole. That way, you can capture a version history of the set at a specific point in the process and restore that set version later if something goes awry in the approval process.  

 

To capture a version:

  1. With a document set open, click the Document Set Manage tab.
  2. In the Manage group, click Capture Version.
  3. Add comments about this version detailing what makes this version different from other versions.
  4. Click OK to capture a snapshot of the current properties and documents in the set.

 

Capturing versions of your project at different stages of the approval process can be a lifesaver. If something does go wrong, you can access the version history to restore it to an earlier version.

 

To manage version history:

 

  1. With a document set open, click the Document Set Manage tab.
  2. In the Manage group, click Version History to open the Version History window.
  3. Choose a version you want to manage and click the list arrow. To restore an earlier version of the document set, select Restore Version, or to delete past versions select Delete All Versions.
  4. Click OK.

 

Keep in control of your project by creating and managing versions of your document set. It can easily help prevent irreversible damage later.