Add Document Library to Document Library or Folder?

Question

We have a top-level doc library 'Operations' with multiple folders. I wish to add a folder or doc library under 'Operations' called 'Purchase Orders'.

This folder or library 'Purchase Orders' contains other document libraries (or links to document libraries?) - 'Engineering POs', 'Administration POs' etc.

I can then add specific templates docs to each variant POs doc library, control access using groups and implement a suitable workflow to handle.

Not sure how to implement the folders/libraries structure.

Any hints appreciated.

Answer 1

This can be managed OOB by using Document Sets instead of folders.

Here are few of the articles about document sets:

• MS documentation
• Another documentation

You can create multiple Document sets with a metadata associated with department/sub department. and a single workflow can be created which can perform required activity based on selected department or sub-department.

Answer 2

Let's start basic: You can not add Document Libraries as items in a Document Library. A document library can only contain Folders or documents (and the hybrid Document Sets).

Your question does not state if you are to do this in code or in the GUI. In the GUI you can easily create folders in the document library and then break permission inheritance on the folder. (here is a code example)

This way you can manage permissions on a lower level than the whole library (you can even break permissions on single documents). Here is a guide for braking, and working with broken permissions in SP 2010: (and by code example here)

If you need different workflows for different subfolders it is trickier. If you need different workflows for different documents, you can solve the issue by giving the different types of documents a unique Content Type, and then bind workflows to the Content Type. (discussed for example here)