Managed Metadata and the client OM

Question

Is it possible to return the values of a Managed Metadata field assigned to a document using strictly the client object model? Note that I want to return ALL the possible values and allow the user to choose one, perhaps via a treeview or comboboxes, just to let the user assign a predefined value to the field. The user does not need to change the values in the field. I only wantt to display the possible values, allow one to be chosen and assign the chosen value to the field. Thank You, -Derek

Answer 1

I had the same question and searched the internet some code examples. I found some code fragments but no easy & complete working solution. So I created this code to do the two steps:

1. Get the SspId and TermSetId from a Managed Metadata column in a custom content-type.
2. Use this information to execute the GetTermSets method on the Taxonomy Webservice and parse the result into a usable list or tree.
3. Use the value from the MetadataItem when setting the value for a ListItem

Details:
Step 1.

var clientContext = new ClientContext("https://localhost/sites/STS20120731101501");
var properties = clientContext.GetTaxonomyFieldProperties("MyCustomContentType", "MyManagedMetadataColumn");
string sspId = properties["SspId"]; // e40374fb-a6cc-4854-989f-c1d94a7967ee
string termSetId = properties["TermSetId"]; // 9eeec005-4818-486f-b4d8-bda1d43d42b4

Step 2.

using (var client = new TaxonomywebserviceSoapClient())
{
    string sspID = "e40374fb-a6cc-4854-989f-c1d94a7967ee";
    string termsetId = "9eeec005-4818-486f-b4d8-bda1d43d42b4";
    var items = client.GetMetadataItems(sspID, termsetId);

    foreach (var item in items.AsTree())
    {
        Console.WriteLine(new string(' ', item.Level) + item);
    }

    var firstMetadataItem = items.First(); // Just take the first as an example.
}

Step 3.

using (var clientContext = new ClientContext("https://localhost/sites/STS20120731101501"))
{
  var list = clientContext.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("MyList");

  var newListItem = list.AddItem(new ListItemCreationInformation());
  newListItem["SomeNormalField"] = "SomeText";
  newListItem["MyManagedMetadataColumn"] = firstMetadataItem.ToString(); // This will be like "MyFirstValue|643b827f-5fed-4a34-8270-ed0c662df639"

  newListItem.Update();
  clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
}

The extension methods : GetTaxonomyFieldProperties, GetMetadataItems and AsTree can be found here.

References

• http://youcode.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/managed-metadata-using-taxonomy-web-service/
  

• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2011/11/18/how-to-work-with-managed-metadata-columns-by-using-the-sharepoint-client-object-model-kaushalendra-kumar.aspx

• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010programming/thread/9709b87c-a5af-4b8f-82c1-c18f18f1e967

Answer 2

Yes this is possible. Please have a look at the following link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2011/11/18/how-to-work-with-managed-metadata-columns-by-using-the-sharepoint-client-object-model-kaushalendra-kumar.aspx