Term Sets are a cool new feature of SP2010. It’s a bit like creating a global choice list. They can them be used anywhere in your site, as a choice list, however, they are not available in a DropDownList or ListBox – only a textbox. But, at the same time you create a Term Set, you can also create ‘shortcuts’ or abbreviations, so you don’t need to type in the full name of the term.

To add this term set to your list, add a new column on which you will use the term set. At the bottom of the list of the column information types, you will see a new item – “Managed Metadata”, which is is what these terms sets are made of.  In the Term Set Settings area, you will see a treeview with the different Term Sets available. Just select the one you want and that’s all there is to it. You can customize it on the site you are on, but the customized items you add will not be available to the other places the Term Set is used.

To enter a new Term Set, go to Central Admin, click on Manage Service Applications, and then ‘Maged Metadata Service” on the left, click the arrow to add a new Group (name it) and then, add terms to that group. Here’s where you can also add any abbreviations you’d like, to remember the terms, one at a time. When you type in the abbreviation,  (or just the first letter of the term) you will get suggestions from the term set. It’s kind of an auto-complete tool. If you don’t remember at all what the possible items are in the list, beside the textbox, there is an icon to the right which can be clicked, revealing all the available terms.

That’s the basics of how to create and implement Term Sets in Sharepoint 2010 and above.