Updating a document management template

Question

Hello,
I'm very much a newbie to SharePoint so please have patience with me. I am currently building a site for my company for us to store our client data in. I have been creating document libraries from a template I created beforehand. The document library is
very simple at the moment it just has about 5 folders which will hold different info; Quotes, correspondance, proposals, site info, etc..
But now that I have created the template I'm wondering, what do I do if management come to me and say we need every client to have another folder in their client document library. So for instance, they need to have a folder called Projects which will have
all project data in there.
Is there a way to just update the template that was used to create the document library and have it push out the update to all users?
We have 100's of clients and the last thing I would want to have to do is go around updating each client document library.
Thank you

Answer 1

Hi,
Updating Site templates are cumbersome process, Instead I would suggest you to take PowerShell or Custom code route.
You can write a powershell commendlet to create site specific folders. Writing Powershell also helps you to reuse the code, customize as required. Else you could choose CSOM or JSOM to create folders and/or write a c# code to pass site collections/sites
for creating the folder of choice.
see here for more information on how to -
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kaevans/archive/2012/01/24/creating-sharepoint-folders-and-items-with-powershell.aspx
http://www.sharepointdiary.com/2012/10/create-folders-sub-folders-programmatically.html
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/fdec7bdc-4420-4537-87f6-aa6048788b1e/powershell-to-create-folder-in-document-library?forum=sharepointadmin
code from above Forum
$web = Get-SPWeb "http://yoursite/"
$list = $web.Lists["Documents"]
$f = $web.GetFolder($list.RootFolder.ServerRelativeUrl + "/Folder1");
if($f.Exists -eq $false){
$i = $list.Items.Add($list.RootFolder.ServerRelativeUrl,[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFileSystemObjectType]"Folder", "Folder1");
$i.Update()
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22001237/creating-folders-programmatically-in-sharepoint-2013
http://windowsitpro.com/windows/customizing-sharepoint-site-templates
Hope this helps!
Ram - SharePoint Architect
Blog - SharePointDeveloper.in
Please vote or mark your question answered, if my reply helps you