This presentation presents few considerations for creating product centric SharePoint 2013 sites using newest WCM features, such as cross-site publishing and search.

1. Swiss SharePoint Club
Creating product-centric sites using cross-site
collection publishing
Marius Constantinescu
[MVP SharePoint Server]
blue-infinity SA
22nd meeting

2. 1. Introducing Content catalogs
2. How does it work ?
3. Search-driven applications

3. Introducing Content Catalogs
What are these and why do we need them?
Separate presentation from storage
•Different teams working on content
•Different design could be applied on authoring vs. publishing sites
Step by Step procedure:
Identify authoring sites and publishing sites
1.
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2.
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Flexible and dynamic
3.
4.
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Breaking down site collection boundaries
•Reuse content across site collections or even farms
•Not available [yet] on Office 365
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5.
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Eliminate large list thresholds
•Take advantage of search high performance
•Not needed to keep all content in a single location
Allows flexible & dynamic publishing
Site(-s) where content is authored
Site(-s) where content is published
Shared Content
Identify lists to surface catalog content
Add content for each searchable field
Tag content (at least 1 column must be
Managed Metadata)
Configure list(-s) as Catalogs (via List settings)
Run Full Crawl
Establish Catalog Connections
On Publishing sites enable metadata-driven
navigation
Connect to catalog-enabled lists
Define Navigation settings, friendly-URLs
User Interface
Configure Category and Item pages
Customize Display templates
Configure Filters (custom properties and refiner
web parts)
Monitor and improve
6.

Use Search analytics reports to continuously
improve

4. Information Architecture 1/2
Authoring sites / Published sites
1. Authoring vs. Publishing sites
 For multilingual solutions plan
authoring sub-sites to match
variations labels
 Different branding & design
can be applied for Authoring
vs. Publishing sites
2. Shared resources
(images, scripts, etc.)
 Apply least-privileged
principles – e.g. use shared
location (such as another
common site collection)
 Use Global Termsets if planning
to reuse terms in authoring
sites (integrated vs. linked)

5. Information Architecture 1/2
Navigation, Content types, fields
Prod uct
Code
Title
Description
Price
All from Product +
Television
Code
Title
Description
Price
Display Type (LCD, LED, Plasma)
HD-Ready (720P, 1080P, UHD)
Screen Size (40, 55, 60, 77)
Com p ut er
Code
Title
Description
Price
Hard drive
CPU
RAM
Screen Size (13, 14, 15, 17)
Camera
Code
Title
Price
Description
Type (DSLR, Point'n'Shoot)
Resolution (in MegaPixels)
Optical Zoom (24x)
Digital Zoom (12x)
Lens Type
Storage Format (SDHC, SD)
Columns in Content types & Site columns are automatically promoted as
managed properties in Search schema (but only as Text)
1. Identify catalog lists
 What information you wish to
publish (content sources) ?
 Which columns should be
searchable, used for filters, etc.
 At least 1 column should help
uniquely identify each «product
item»
 What information will be used in
the Navigation hierarchy
2. Define content types
 Shared (Reusable) Columns
(prefer Site columns vs. List
columns)
3. Identify data facets = future
refiners (filters)

Could be different per “product”
(catalog item)

6. Documents
Pages
Digital Assets
Catalogs
SharePoint Content
Variations
Content & Authoring
FAST Search
Publishing
Page Framework
Query
Display Templates
www
Ext. CMS
REST/OData
LOB + more
User Behavior (+custom events)
External Content
User Experience

7. List columns, Managed properties, Refiners
Journey from list field to crawled > managed and rendering (refiner / display )
Televisions
[Catalog]
Computers
[Catalog]
Cameras
[Catalog]
Cr aw led Pr oper t ies
M anaged Pr op er ties
ows_q_TEXT_ProductCatalogGroupNumber
Single line of text
Brand
Publis hingImage
ows_q_CHCS_Devic eScreenSize
Devic eScreenSizeOWSCHCS
Refiners
Content Search
Web Part

Managed Metadata
DeviceScreenSize
owstaxIdProductCatalogItemCategory
ows_r_IMGE_Publis hingRollupImage
Title
ProductCatalogGroupNumberOWSTEXT
ows_taxId_ProductCatalogItemCategory
Site Column Type
ProductCatalogItemNumberOWSTEXT
Content Search
Web Part
Title
ows_q_TEXT_ProductCatalogItemNumber
Site Column
Title
Choice
Content Search
Web Part
1
2
3
4
Refiners

Make sure
data exists for
each column
before a Full
Crawl
[New] Site
Collection
Admins can
trigger reindex

8. Metadata driven navigation
Consistent navigation across site collections
Managed Metadata driven vs.
Structural navigation
Centrally managed
Can be used to drive global
navigation
 In multilingual scenarios you
need to access via the Site
collection Term store, not via
Global.


Managed Metadata navigation
Structural navigation
• (+) Centrally managed in global term
store
• (+) Additional term sets can be
injected at any location
• [+] Support for Friendly URL
• [+] Imperative for Catalogs
• [-] Requires Publishing sites
• [-] Still bound to a single Site
Collection
• (-) Confined to its site collection
• (-) Cannot be controlled centrally

9. Metadata driven navigation, cont.
Centrally managed with designated term sets
3
1

Linked
terms
Reused terms
between term
sets

2
Pinned
terms
Blocks changes
to linked terms
(read-only)

10. Configuring Metadata-driven navigation
Demo

11. Category pages and product item pages
Category page
Catalog-Item Page

12. Refiners – why use them?
What are they and why we need them?
1. Refiners are filters narrowing
search results
2. They come in different types and
shapes – tightly related to
underlying data type

[New] Range-based (sliders) and
multi-valued refiners are available
3. Only managed properties can be
configured

[New] Use «Yes latent» a Farm
Administrator can delegate to a
Site Collection administrator the
possibility to decide.
4. [New] Refinement web parts can
now be configured individually inpage (horizontal or vertical)

13. Design Templates
1. To eliminate the for designers
Giant step towards modern web
Why the
need for
new
concepts?
Editing XSLT is a cumbersome - even for the veterans
Modern Web requires Standardization – empower Power-Users
Client-side "templating" techniques are current trends (e.g.
Knockout, Kendo UI, Razor)
Re-usable Styles Files for your Content based &
Search Results Web-Parts
Where
does one
use
"Design
templates"
?
What are
design
templates?
and power users to work with XSLT
(& the use of ddwrt JavaScript
functions) each time they a new
look & feel is needed, SharePoint
2013 introduces Design Templates.
2. Each display template consists of
two files (in Master Page library
under Display templates):

Search Results & Web parts, Catalog
reuse web parts
Access to Master Page library
Your favorite web development tool (even Notepad) to create
them

What does
one need
to create a
new
template ?


An HTML file (.html) - the actual
template
JavaScript File (.js) - the script that
makes the magic happen –
automatically generated
jQuery supported, or custom
Javascript and CSS
Custom managed properties can
be displayed (from search results)

14. Applying display templates to a result source
Demo
Which Cont rol Di splay
Template
Control Display
Template