As I face the task to perform document management on a project and Projectplace is the provided tool, I have investigated the possibilities for storing and making available several thousands of technical documents (drawings, calculations, etc.), and making them available to the project team in a user friendly way (i.e. easy to search and find).

Retrieving technical information is usually done by searching on keywords (part of the title), status, equipment number, tag number, supplier, document type or any metadata usually associated with technical documentation. In a spreadsheet index this is easy enough using filters, sorting and Ctrl-F.

When I realised that the only free text column is the description column and it is not possible to add columns, I knew I was facing a challenge.

What I need, instead of working with a folder structure, is the possibility to add metadata through the use of columns (that I can create myself), so that retrieving information and creating reports (for instance by dumping to Excel) is as straight forward as it is in any software using columns / metadata.
Also it would be nice to be able to export a selection of files, and to create some custom views.

At present I'm at a loss how to perform my document control tasks, other than having a spreadsheet index on the side where people can search and copy-paste (part of) a number into the search function in Projectplace. Perhaps I have overlooked some functions or maybe someone can hand me some tips?