Converting taxonomy field into cascading drop down fields using PnP Branding.JsLink

Managed metadata fields don’t provide the same look and feel as choice field type. It is quick clunky specially when there are a lot of terms displayed.

The requirement cropped up to display the managed metadata fields as drop downs. After googling for a while, stumbled on PnP sample Branding.JSLink  solution which had an example how to achieve it. The solution is a no code sandboxed solution with different examples how to enrich fields. I wanted only the taxonomy to cascading drop down feature.

I copied the file TaxonomyOverrides.js and ManagedMetadata.js only into the “Style Library” library in my test SharePoint Site Collection. I modified the TaxonomyOverrides.js file to refer to the field “DocumentType” I wanted transformed in the fields section.

Type.registerNamespace(‘jslinkOverride’)
var jslinkOverride = window.jslinkOverride || {};
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy = {};

jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Templates = {
Fields: {
‘DocumentType’: {
‘NewForm’: jslinkTemplates.Taxonomy.editMode,
‘EditForm’: jslinkTemplates.Taxonomy.editMode
}
}
};

jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions = {};
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.RegisterTemplate = function () {
// register our object, which contains our templates
SPClientTemplates.TemplateManager.RegisterTemplateOverrides(jslinkOverride.Taxonomy);
};
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.MdsRegisterTemplate = function () {
// register our custom template
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.RegisterTemplate();

// and make sure our custom view fires each time MDS performs
// a page transition
var thisUrl = _spPageContextInfo.siteServerRelativeUrl + “Style Library/OfficeDevPnP/Branding.JSLink/TemplateOverrides/TaxonomyOverrides.js”;
RegisterModuleInit(thisUrl, jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.RegisterTemplate)
};

if (typeof _spPageContextInfo != “undefined” && _spPageContextInfo != null) {
// its an MDS page refresh
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.MdsRegisterTemplate()
} else {
// normal page load
jslinkOverride.Taxonomy.Functions.RegisterTemplate()
}

The DocumentType is a taxonomy field which has SharePoint OOB look and feel

After referencing the files TaxonomyOverrides.js and ManagedMetadata.js  on the editform page of the document library using a script editor webpart using tags as below.

/Projects/EDRMS/Style%20Library/OfficeDevPnP/Branding.JSLink/Generics/ManagedMetadata.js
/Projects/EDRMS/Style%20Library/OfficeDevPnP/Branding.JSLink/TemplateOverrides/TaxonomyOverrides.js

 

Voila, the taxonomy field is transformed into cascading drop downs.

Using PnP PowerShell to export and import Taxonomy

PnP provides export taxonomy cmdlet which allows to export all term groups, term sets, terms and child terms to a file with one line of code

Connect-SPOnline -Url <siteurl> -CurrentCredentials 
Export-SPOTaxonomy -IncludeID -Path "C:\temp\Metadata\terms.txt"

PnP also provides an equivalent import taxonomy cmdlet to import all term groups, term sets, terms and child terms from a file with one line of code

Connect-SPOnline -Url <siteurl> -CurrentCredentials
Import-SPOTaxonomy -Path "C:\temp\Metadata\terms.txt"

However if IncludeId switch parameter is used with the export, the import would fail if the October 2016 PnP PowerShell release is used.

The error message appears

Import-SPOTaxonomy : Exception on line 5: Failed to read from or write to database. 
Refresh and try again. If the problem persists, please contact the administrator

I decided to enable Trace on the PnP to get debug messages using the Set-SPOTraceLog

  Set-SPOTraceLog -On -Level Debug

Debug messages appear to monitor progress of execution but was not helpful.

I tried to google the message, found out that the error happened as the code is trying to create a term or term set with an unique identifier (GUID)  which already exists in the taxonomy store.

I inspected the taxonomy file exported and found that terms having child terms were wrongly formatted.In the example below the term group EDRMS is repeated 3 times.

EDRMS;#383eab6e-a944-430d-9a18-f8b872322c2c|EDRMS;#383eab6e-a944-430d-9a18-f8b872322c2c|Directorate;#a99db510-121a-407b-87ec-0b4911e59469|EDRMS;#383eab6e-a944-430d-9a18-f8b872322c2c|Directorate;#a99db510-121a-407b-87ec-0b4911e59469|Finance;#fbab08b3-bc7d-4363-a1c4-1f5d4a466b07|Credit and Collections;#0ec6cefe-c92c-4dfe-81d4-1fe56183f8a2

The Export-SPOTaxonomy was wrongly formatting child terms in the export file.

I raised the issue 532 on PnP PowerShell project.

However I was not sure how quick the issue was going to get fixed so decided to debug PnP powershell command  and found that the issue was with the core PnP project . I fixed it with pull request Taxonomy import export which got merged into pull request “Fixed issue with subterms not exported correctly when using ExportAll” .

With the PnP PowerShell November 2016 release, you will be able to use PnP to import and export taxonomy.