Assign Catalog item page and category page to a term in SharePoint 2013

To show structured content in a site, we can use category pages and catalog page layouts. This can be viewed to show catalog content on a site using managed navigation. We can assign a category page or catalog page to all terms or specific terms in a term set. We have to configure category page or catalog page.

To assign a category page and a catalog item page to a term,

Navigate to Site Settings and click in Term store management in Site Administration section.

Click on the term to assign a category page and catalog item page in Term Store Management tool page Taxonomy Term Store section.

To assign category page, click on TERM DRIVEN PAGES tab select Change target page for this term check box in the Target Page Settings section and need to enter URL of the category page that to assign to the term. To assign category page for child terms, we have to select Change target page for the children of this term check box and enter URL of the category page to assign to the term.

To assign catalog item page for catalog items we have to select Change Catalog Item Page for this Category and need to enter the URL in catalog item page. To Assign catalog item page for catalog items tagged with the child terms of current term, select Change Catalog Item Page and need to enter URL of the catalog item page. 

Cross Site Publishing in SharePoint 2013- Part III - Connect publishing site catalog in SharePoint

To display the content from a list or library that is shared as catalog, we have to connect the publishing site collection to the catalog. To connect the publishing site collection catalog, catalog content and term set should be integrated to the publishing site collection and friendly URL need to create for the item details page.

We can connect the publishing site to a catalog by the steps below,

Navigate to publishing site setting page and click on Manage catalog connections link in Site Administration section.

Click on Connect to a catalog in Manage catalog connections page.

Click on connect button to connect the catalog. We can search specific catalog by searching in catalog name search field.

In Catalog Source Settings page Connection Integration section, to make the content available to the publishing site and to integrate catalog tagging term set to publishing site navigation we have to select Integrate the catalog into my site option. To make catalog content only available for publishing site, we have to select Connect, but do not integrate the catalog option. By selecting this option, we can use content from library to create individual catalog items.

We can specify the terms for catalog tagging to integrate the publishing site navigation terms in Navigation Hierarchy section. To integrate the catalog tagging term set from a different term, Click on Browse for a valid choice, Next to the Root term of hierarchy box. We can see Select: Add Terms dialog box that corresponding to the catalog tagging term set and click on OK. Select Include root term in site navigation check box to integrate the root term to the parent of selected term.

By specifying the terms in publishing site term set in Navigation position section we can set where the catalog tagging term set should be integrated.

In Navigation pinning section, by selecting Pin terms to site navigation check box we can made the changes in catalog tagging term set to be updated.

In Catalog Item URL Behavior section, By selecting Make URLs relative to this site option, we have to specify the catalog item URL to display the item details page in search index section.

In Catalog Item URL Format section, to use the field that specified primary key for shared library or list as catalog select Use the default URL format provided by the catalog source option. By selecting manually define a URL format option we can define the format for the URL manually. To construct custom URL based on the catalog properties we have to select Construct a URL format from catalog properties option and click Add button by selecting max five fields in Available Fields list.

In Category Page section, click on Create a new page to SharePoint 2013 server automatically create new category page for catalog content and select master page. Page will be automatically added to Pages library. By selecting Use an existing page, we can use already created category page.

To create new item in catalog content click on Create a new page and select master page. To use existing page select Use an existing page and specify the location. Click on OK.

Configure Search in cross site publishing

Cross site publishing depends on the search to create a content source and to manage crawling for SharePoint cross-site publishing. In SharePoint, content source will specify crawling in SharePoint farm. By default, after creating the search service application content source will be created in SharePoint farm.

We can re index content source that contains the catalog for changes to be added to the search index. We can re index the catalog content by using the steps below,

Navigate the library/list and go to settings page. Click on Advanced settings in General settings section.

Click on Reindex List link in Advanced Settings Page Reindex List section. And click on Reindex List to confirm to the catalog to be reindexed during the next crawl, click on Ok.

Cross site publishing in SharePoint 2013 - Part II

In my previous post I have mentioned how to create Publishing site collection and authoring site collection and activate cross-site publishing feature. After configuring cross-site publishing, we need to set up new term set and terms and have to make that available for tagging the content. If we use Product Catalog template to create authoring site collection and create the term set in the site collection, we don’t have to tag the content because by default new term sets created for product catalog site collection will be available for tagging the content.

We can make the term set available for tagging content as shown below,

Navigate to Authoring site, Site Settings page and Click on Term store management link in Site Administration section.

In TAXONAMY TERM STORE section, click on the term set that we want to make available for tagging. Click on INTENDED USE tab and select Available for Tagging and click on Save.

To create the catalog content using lists, we have to create site columns for the lists to maintain the catalog content. Because we can create managed properties automatically and use them when defining the queries for catalog content on the publishing site. If we have many lists, we can use site content types for each list.

We have to share the list/library as a catalog when we are done with creating site columns. We have to activate Cross-Site publishing feature to share list/library as catalog. By default, Anonymous access will be enabled when we share a list/library a catalog. If we don’t want anonymous users to view and search the content we need to disable the anonymous access.

To share library or list as a catalog,

Navigate to list/library and click on List/Library tab on the ribbon. Click on Library settings in the Settings group.

Click on Catalog Settings link in Settings page General Settings section.

Select Enable this library as a catalog check box in Catalog Settings page Catalog Sharing section.

If we don’t want anonymous users to view and search the content click on Disable anonymous access in Anonymous section. Select five fields for unique identity in list or library and click on add in Catalog Item URL Fields section Available field’s box. These will be appearing as friendly URL’s after connecting the publishing site to catalog. Select associated columns with term set in Navigation Hierarchy section to use navigation term set for catalog pages. and Click on OK.

Cross site publishing in SharePoint 2013 - Part I

Cross-site publishing will allow us to create and maintain the content in one or more authoring Site Collections. It will allow us to publish and access the content one or more site collections. We can use cross site publishing when we want to save and manage the content in one more authoring sites. We can use cross site publishing across the site collections, web applications and farms. It will allow us to mix the pages and catalog content.

Cross site publishing will use search to retrieve the content. When we create Content in a list/library of a site collection where cross-site publishing is enabled and we need to enable the list/libraries as catalogs. When we crawl the content, content will added to search index. We can add the web parts in other site collections where we wanted to display the content. When users view the page, search webparts crawls the data by passing the queries to search index. Query results will return from search index and shown in the Search Web Parts. When we change any content in the source site collection, all the data will be updated in destination site collection after crawling the data.

We can proceed with cross site publishing by creating authoring site collection and publishing site collection. Structure for cross site publishing will looks like following.

To create authoring site collection, create new site collection by navigating Application Management, Create site collection in Central Administration and select Product catalog in Publishing tab.

To create publishing portal, create new site collection by navigating Application Management, Create site collection in Central Administration and select Publishing portal in publishing tab.

After creating the site collections, we need to activate Cross-site Publishing feature in authoring site collection. We can activate the cross site publishing feature By Navigating t Site Collection features in the site settings, Click on Activate button for Cross-site Collection Publishing feature.

We need to add the content in the authorized site collection list and crawl the content. We can look in to the next articles.