CHAPTER 10

SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature

In the previous chapter, we discussed all the managed metadata in SharePoint Online. In this chapter, we will discuss the publishing feature. The publishing feature is a unique feature that will make a lot of changes in the site. Mostly we create team sites, communication sites. The type of contents available by default, settings available for managing site will change a lot, which will provide additional options to apply custom branding, themes, metadata navigations on your site, at the same time will make it difficult to manage by an administrator that needs complete understanding. In this chapter, we will discuss the changes happening on the site due to the activation of the publishing feature.

Structure

In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:

Objective

During the end of the chapter, you will get a clear understanding of the following topics:

Activate Feature First

There is a feature SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, which needs to be activated first in the site if we want to get the benefits of publishing features on the team site. Let’s perform the following steps to activate the feature.

  1. Navigate to Site Settings (<_layouts/15/settings.aspx>) page from site (Modern Team Site).
  2. Click on Site collection features (<_layouts/15/ManageFeatures.aspx?Scope =Site>) present under Site Collection Administration, as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.1: Click on Site collection features

  3. If you scroll down, identify the feature SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure. You will find a button Activate at the right, as seen in the following screenshot. Click on that button. It will take a few minutes to activate:

    Figure 10.2: Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure site collection feature

  4. Similarly, click on Manage site features (<_layouts/15/ManageFeatures.aspx>) present under Site Actions as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.3: Manage site features

  5. Identify the feature SharePoint Server Publishing and click on Active, as seen in the following screenshot. The feature will be activated:

    Figure 10.4: Activate SharePoint Server Publishing site feature

Changes in Site Contents

After features activated, you will notice a few changes in Site Contents. Let’s discuss the changes below:

  1. Before features activated, contents available under Site Contents are Documents, Form Templates, Site Assets, Style Library, Site Pages.
  2. After site collection publishing feature (SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure) activated, additional contents like Reusable Content list, Site Collection Documents library, Site Collection Images library, Workflow Tasks added under Site Contents.
  3. After activating publishing feature under site feature (SharePoint Server Publishing) additional contents like Pages library, Images library added under Site Contents as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.5: Added contents after publishing feature activated

Changes in Content Type

There will be changes in Content Types. Let’s discuss the changes below:

  1. Navigate to Site Contents, identify the library Pages, and click on it.
  2. Open Library Settings for Page library.
  3. You will see under Content Types, four pages like Page, Article Page, Welcome Page, Error Page added, as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.6: Changes in Content Types

  4. Navigate to Site Settings (<_layouts/15/settings.aspx>).
  5. Click on Site content types (https://<site url>/_layouts/15/mngctype.aspx) present under Web Designer Galleries as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.7: Site content types under Web Designer Galleries

  6. If you scroll down, you will notice additional content types Article Page, Catalog-Item Reuse, Enterprise Wiki Page, Error Page, Project Page, Redirect Page, Welcome Page under Page Layout Content Types.
  7. ASP NET Master Page, Html Master Page, Html Page Layout, Page, Page Layout under Publishing Content Types as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.8: Additional content types

Changes in Site Column

There will be changes in Columns. Let’s discuss about the changes below:

  1. Navigate to Site Contents (https://<site url>/_layouts/15/viewlsts.aspx), identify the library Pages (https://<site url>/Pages/Forms/AllItems. aspx) and click on it.
  2. Open Library Settings for Page library.
  3. You will see under Columns like Article Date, Byline, Comments, Contact, Contact E-Mail Address, Contact Name, Contact Picture, Created, Hide physical URLs from search, Image Caption, Number of Ratings, Page Content, Page Image, Rating (0-5), Rollup Image, Summary Links, Summary Links 2, Target Audiences, Title, Wiki Categories added as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.9: Changes in Columns

Changes in Look and Feel

You will notice additional options under site settings Look and Feel, after feature activation, like Design Manager (https://<site url>/_layouts /15/Design WelcomePage.aspx), Master page (<_layouts/15/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx>), Page layouts and site templates (<_layouts/15/AreaTemplateSettings.aspx>), Navigation (<_layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx>), Import Design Package (<_layouts/15/DesignPackageInstall.aspx>), Welcome Page (<_layouts/15/AreaWelcomePage.aspx>), Device Channels (https://<site url >/DeviceChannels/AllItems.aspx), Image Renditions (<_layouts/15/Image RenditionSettings.aspx>) as seen in the following screenshot that reflects change in settings with no publishing feature activated, publishing feature under site collection feature activated and publishing feature under site feature activated respectively:

Figure 10.10: Changes in Look and Feel

Click on Master page (<_layouts/15/ChangeSiteMasterPage.aspx>) from Look and Feel. You will be redirected to the Site Master Page Settings page and will see an option Inherit the theme from the parent of this site under category Theme, which got enabled due to the publishing feature. Select the checkbox to enable the inheriting theme of the site from a higher-level site that we call as parent site as seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.11: Changes in Master Page under option Theme

Changes in Page Layouts

After publishing feature activated, there are few page layouts created to make the intranet site proper branding and structured. Let’s see the step by step process to create a site page using layout created after the publishing feature activated:

  1. Navigate to Site Contents (<_layouts/15/viewlsts.aspx>), identify the library Pages (<Forms/AllItems.aspx>) and click on it.
  2. Click on New from command bar; you will content types like Page, Article Page, Welcome Page, Error Page will be available.
  3. Click on the page Article Page as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.12: New Content Types Added

  4. We will get the option to create a page. Enter the name of the page in the field Title (ImageOnleftpage) and description under field Description.
  5. Under option Page Layout you will multiple layouts like (Article Page) Body only, (Article Page) Image on left, (Article Page) Image on right, (Article Page) Summary links, (Catalog-Item Reuse) Blank Catalog Item, (Catalog-Item Reuse) Catalog Item Image in Left, (Enterprise Wiki Page) Basic Page, (Error Page) Error, (Project Page) Basic Project Page, (Redirect Page) Redirect, (Welcome Page) Blank Web Part Page, (Welcome Page) Splash, (Welcome Page) Summary links.
  6. Select the layout (Article Page) Image on left and click on Create as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.13: Create Page

  7. You will get redirected to page layout option where you can find zones to enter contact details like Title, Page Image, Article Date, Byline, Image Caption, Page Content. You will see the message at the top of this page is Checked out to you. Only you can see the recent changes as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.14: Insert Picture in Page

  8. Click on the option. Click here to insert a picture from SharePoint to insert page image. You will get a dialog box to choose properties related to the image.
  9. Click on Browse option present side to Selected Image as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.15: Insert image dialog box

  10. Click on library Images from left navigation, select one image, and click on Insert as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.16: Select image from Images library

  11. Click on Browse present side to Hyperlink, as shown in Figure 10.15.
  12. Click on Pages from left navigation, select one page (AboutUs) and click on Insert as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.17: Insert link

  13. We can adjust the Layout and Size as shown in Figure 10.15 and finally click on OK.
  14. Enter other properties as well, like Article Date, Byline, Image Caption, Page Content.
  15. Click on Save present in the ribbon. Still, we will see the message at the top of this page is Checked out to you. Only you can see the recent changes as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.18: Add Page Content, Caption, Article Date, Byline

  16. Click on the tab Publish, click on Publish from the drop-down as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.19: Publish page

  17. You will get a dialog box to enter a comment. Enter your comment and click on Continue option as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.20: Enter comments

  18. The page will be published, and changes will be available for all users as seen in the following screenshot:

    Figure 10.21: Published page

Change in permission levels

There will be few changes in the SharePoint permission level once the publishing feature is activated. Navigate to Settings present at the top right corner of the site. From next option click on Advanced permission settings, you will see new groups like Approvers, Designers, Hierarchy Managers, Restricted Readers as seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.22: Changes in permission level

Changes in Webparts

There will be a few webparts added. Webparts like Content Query Web Part, Summary Links Web Part, Table of Contents Web Part are the mostly used webparts created under category Content Rollup.

If you add webpart Table Of Contents; you will see the same links present under left navigational elements as seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.23: Table Of Contents Web part

If you add webpart Summary Links and enter images, links, descriptions will look like as shown in the figure below. Left side image, description at the right side of that image with the link at the top of the description as seen in the following screenshot:

Figure 10.24: Summary Links Webpart

Change in Site Settings options

If you notice site settings (<_layouts/15/settings.aspx >) and compare the options, you see there will be a change in options available under site settings with no publishing feature activated, publishing feature under site collection feature activated and publishing feature under site feature activated respectively as described below steps:

  1. Under site settings option Web Designer Galleries, you will notice an additional option Master pages and page layouts (https://<site url>/_catalogs/masterpage/Forms/AllItems.aspx):

    Figure 10.25: Change in Web Designer Galleries options

  2. Under site settings option Site Actions, you will notice the option Enable search configuration export is not available:

    Figure 10.26: Change in Site Actions options

  3. Under site settings option Site Administration; you will notice few options more available like Translation Status (https://<site url>/Translation%20Status/All%20Users.aspx), Site output cache (<_layouts/15/areacachesettings.aspx>), Manage catalog connections (<_layouts/15/ManageCatalogSources.aspx>), Site variation settings (<_layouts/15/VariationsSiteSettings.aspx?Source=**>):

    Figure 10.27: Change in Site Administration options

  4. Under site settings option Site Collection Administration; you will see few more options available like Site collection navigation (<_layouts/15/SiteNavigationSettings.aspx>), Content Type Policy Templates (<_layouts/15/Policylist.aspx>), Variations Settings (<_layouts/15/VariationSettings.aspx>), Variation labels (<_layouts/15/vsubwebs.aspx>), Translatable Columns, Variation logs (<_layouts/15/VariationLogs.aspx>), Suggested Content Browser Locations (https://<site url>/PublishedLinks/AllItems.aspx), Site collection output cache (<_layouts/15/sitecachesettings.aspx>):

    Figure 10.28: Change in Site Collection Administration

Conclusion

In this chapter, we discussed activating features related to publishing. Discussed the changes happening in site contents, content type, site column, changes in look and feel, page layouts, permission levels, webparts. Next, in Chapter 11, Application of Business Connectivity Services will discuss the external content type.

Points to remember