Default values on site columns in SharePoint

I’m hoping that someone will tell me that I’m doing something wrong. I’ve tried setting default values of site columns both in an on-premises SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 environment.

Create Site column

I’ve create a site column “Complete”. This column is a Yes/No column with the default value set to No.

Create Content Types

Then I’m creating two content types.

• Parent Doc and
• Child Doc

Parent Doc has as the parent content type Document and Child Doc has as the parent content type Parent Doc.

Now I’m adding the Complete column to the Parent Doc content type.

When I upload a document I’m finding the Complete column set to “No”. So that is all as expected.

Default Value

Now I change the default value of my Complete column to “Yes”.

I’m uploading a document with the Parent Doc content type. And my default value is still used as Complete is set to “Yes”. So far so good.

But when I upload a document using the Child Doc content type I’m finding that the default value is set to “No”.

So it looks like when default values are set on a site column inheriting content types do not pick up this change.

Note: When I updated the default value I did select the “Update all list columns based on this site column”.

Pieter Veenstra

Is your business still running on paper trails, sprawling Excel files, or ageing Access databases? There's a better way — and I can show you exactly what it looks like. I'm the Technical Director of Vantage 365, a Microsoft solutions consultancy working with clients across the UK, the Netherlands, and worldwide. For over 30 years I've been turning messy, manual business processes into clean, automated systems that save time, reduce errors, and give teams the visibility they need to make better decisions. SharePains is not just any blog run by a Microsoft MVP. Have you ever used Try-Catch in Power Automate? The original post about Try-Catch in Power Automate can still be found on this site, https://sharepains.com/2018/02/07/try-catch-finally-in-power-automate-flow/ Or have you ever used the Pieter’s method to avoid variables and speed up your flows? https://sharepains.com/2020/03/11/pieters-method-for-advanced-in-flows/ You can contact me using contact@sharepains.com