How to Export SharePoint Metadata from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 (Different Farm)

Posted in: Blog, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 | Apr 2, 2013 at 11:14 AM

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INTRODUCTION

I have just done a site migration from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013. One of the features the SP 2010 site was using was Managed Metadata field. Obviously, when you migrate a SharePoint site to a completely different farm (not to mention different SharePoint version), you have to also migrate the Managed Metadata database otherwise search or other custom functionalities that depend on the Managed Metadata will not work properly.

The main challenge is to ensure how existing content still points to the correct term store and term sets in the new farm especially when the site is referencing using the GUIDs instead of the individual “word/term”. Re-creating the term store and term set will not work either because the GUID will be different.

Therefore, I would like to share through this article the process and steps I took to complete the task. I hope that this helps those who want to do the same.

THE TOOLS YOU NEED

– SPMMDNavigator from CodePlex – http://spmmdnavigator.codeplex.com/releases/view/95827

THE STEPS

EXPORTING

First, on the SOURCE server, run the SPMMDNavigator tool. You will see the following screen:

What the tool allows you to do is to view the Managed Metadata Service of the current farm (which in this case is the SOURCE server). What you want to do next is to export the metadata. Click on the Term Group (which I covered with red mark above due to privacy) then click on EXPORT tab.

Then select “Use Custom Xml Format (includes Guids, Synonyms)” and click Export. Specify the filename (XML file) and you are done.

CLEANING UP

On the exported XML file you will notice that the tool also exports synonyms. The tool however doesn’t work properly upon importing synonyms. Therefore, these needs to be cleaned up first and you have to re-enter the synonyms manually.

I may be wrong, the tool may do it correctly but it never worked for me. So anyway, if it doesn’t work for you, open the XML file and do the following:

Fine the following line(s):

<term name=”Computers” id=”c4f1264a-f6c6-4abd-acb8-19e8d3808858″ description=”” isavailfortagging=”true” reuse=”false” reusebranch=”false”>
   <label name=”PC” />
</term>

Simply delete it so your XML should look like:

<term name=”Computers” id=”c4f1264a-f6c6-4abd-acb8-19e8d3808858″ description=”” isavailfortagging=”true” reuse=”false” reusebranch=”false”>
</term>

Do it for every synonym you can find in your file.

IMPORTING

Then, go to DESTINATION farm/server and in Managed Metadata Service create a new term group with exactly the same name as the source server. For example, if the term group you are exporting is called “My Company” then on the destination server you have to use the exactly the same name.

After that, run SPMMDNavigator on DESTINATION server. You will see exactly the same interface except this time you want to import instead.

So, as above, click on the term group that you have created (eg. “My Company”) then click on IMPORT. Select the XML file you’ve cleaned up and you’re done!

The tool will import all the terms and assign the exactly the same GUID as your SOURCE server which is AWESOME! 🙂

Go to your DESTINATION Managed Metadata Service and you should be able to find all term sets imported successfully under “My Company” group.

RELINKING

The very final step is to re-link your SharePoint site with the new term set you’ve imported. To do this, go to your restored SharePoint site on DESTINATION and go to Site Columns and find your Managed Metadata field.

You will notice that the link is missing. Simply select the imported term set and click OK. You’re done!

Hope this helps,

Tommy

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