SharePoint 2010: Advanced filtering on Managed Metadata field - sharepoint-2010

Question

I'm implementing a document management site on SharePoint 2010. Each document that is stored on the site, is tagged with one or more geographical locations indicating what the content of the document is about. I have implemented this using a Managed Metadata field that is bound to a term set in the term store containing all possible locations. The locations are organized hierarchically, so let’s say first by country, then by region, city etc.
I want to be able to quickly locate documents in a document library for a given location. SharePoint 2010 offers 3 out-of-the-box ways to accomplish this: (1) filtering on the column header, (2) using metadata navigation, and (3) using key filters.
So far, so good. Now this is where things are getting tricky. Each location in the term store is identified by a number of different labels. So each location has a default label and an average of 3 or 4 additional labels (synonyms). For example: a location could be referred to as “Amsterdam”, “S-123” and “W-456”.
I want to be able to:
Filter the document library by using any of the labels including the
synonyms
Include all locations that are below the location that he/she
specifies, in short: to recursively set the filter
Going back to the 3 out-of-the-box options:
Filtering on the column header; does NOT support use of synonyms and
does NOT support recursive filtering
Using metadata navigation; does NOT support use of synonyms but does
support recursive filtering
Using key filters; does support use of synonyms but does NOT support
recursive filtering
Can you think of a creative solution that meets my requirements using the out-of-the-box controls? And if not, what options do I have for full customization (custom filter web part, extending out-of-the-box web parts etc.)?
Hope to hear from you!
Regards,
Erik

Answer 1

I think I might have an answer. This works in our System - SharePoint 2010.
In you SharePoint instance, create your View of the list, but don't define any Filters. Save the View.
Open SharePoint Designer 2010 and navigate to the list and view.
In Design view, you then need to select the "WebPartPages:XsltListViewWebPart" (you may need to click one on the column headings to get the grey page elements to appear).
At the top of the screen, select the Options Ribbon tab, a green List View Tools upper-tab appears.
On this ribbon, far left, select Filter.
Define you filters.
It is tricky and not a smooth UI. Note the Group button allowing you to create groups of AND and OR elements. (I'd post an image here of the UI, but I no not have the experience points yet.)
Good Luck.