​Hi, this is Pete Gonzalez. At the SharePoint Conference 2012, I discussed some automated approaches for synchronizing taxonomy objects between different systems. We first looked at C# code samples using the server object model, which is useful for administrative operations on an enterprise farm. The example we gave at the conference involved an external HR system with categories that are being imported into SharePoint. We then looked at some samples that use the new client object model, which provides a way to perform the same operations we performed on the server in the context of client applications, mobile devices, or cloud services. We also discussed an algorithm for incremental synchronization, which avoids data loss and improves performance when updating the term store.

People expressed a lot of interest in taxonomy programmability, not just for tagging and corporate taxonomy scenarios, but also because SharePoint 2013 uses the term store to drive the navigation menus and friendly URLs for publishing sites. Many people asked if they could use this code as a starting point for their own projects, so we are pleased to announce that all of the samples have been published on MSDN under an open source license. We also threw in two bonus samples, which use the server object model to achieve the same functionality as the client code from the conference.

Here are the links:

• Demo #1: Term Set Import: Creates taxonomy objects that are read from an XML input file.
  SharePoint 2013: Import a term set from an external source (Server OM)
• Demo #2: Term Set Sync: Builds upon Demo #1 by incorporating an algorithm that performs incremental updates.
  SharePoint 2013: Synchronize term sets with the term store (Client OM)
  SharePoint 2013: Synchronize term sets with the term store (Server OM)
• Demo #3: Automated Tagging: Assigns managed metadata fields by using inputs from a CSV file, which shows how to process large data sets.
  SharePoint 2013: Automate tagging fields with terms (Client OM)
  SharePoint 2013: Automate tagging fields with terms (Server OM)

Conference attendees can download the slide deck and session video from here: SPC068: Deep dive on integrating SharePoint metadata with other metadata stores.