How to Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

How to Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

Last Updated on June 9, 2022

Organizations and establishments have, over time, needed to share information and contents within their few to numerous departments.

Contents publishing have therefore become an integral part of passing information across the different parts of an organization.

An essential tool for accomplishing such spontaneous and sometimes repetitive tasks is the Microsoft SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure.

In this article, you will learn about the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure and make the most of it for the progress of your micro establishments to be as large as your corporate organizations.

What is the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure?

The SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure is a set of publishing site features stemming from a publishing site template. 

This feature enables the author to create and publish rich structured content and also enforce strict content management processes.

Publishing sites generally have been used to create information channels and enterprise networks for organizations.

These unique features, in most cases, automatically allow for the presentation of contents and enhanced management in SharePoint.

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    How to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature

    If you want to activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, it’s actually quite easy to do.

    First off, go to the site where you want to activate the feature.

    Once you’re there, click on the gear icon at the top-right corner of the page and select “Site information” from the options.

    On some sites, you may find an option that will bring you directly to the site settings, then click on that option.

    Click on the gear icon and select site information

    On the site information panel, click on the “View all site settings” link at the bottom.

    On the site information panel, click on the view all site settings link

    On the next page, under the site actions group, click on the “Manage site features” link.

    Click on the manage site features option under site actions

    On the next page, scroll down until you see “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure”.

    Then, click on the “Activate” button.

    Click on the activate button for the SharePoint server publishing infrastructure feature

    That’s it. If you need to deactivate the feature, just repeat the steps above and change the status.

    Benefits of activating the publishing features

    Publishing features, as earlier reviewed, enhance the content structure and help introduce management processes.

    Some additional reasons why these features are of high benefit are as follows:

    1. Addition of set of lists and libraries

    When the publishing infrastructure feature is enabled, a set of lists and libraries is added to the publishing site at the site collection level.

    This includes:

    • Site Collection Images library: Useful for storing images used through the entire site collection
    • Site Collection Documents library: Useful for storing documents used through the entire site collection
    • Reusable Content list: Contains text content or HTML that can be inserted into webpages

    When the publishing infrastructure feature is enabled, a set of lists and libraries is added to the publishing site at the site level.

    This includes:

    • Documents library: Contains all documents used on-site pages
    • Images library: Contains all images used on-site pages
    • Pages library: This stores all site pages
    • Workflow tasks library: Contains all workflow tasks created for the site

    2. Inclusion of web parts

    Web parts are the containers that allow authors to insert a variety of media content, for example, forms, rich text, videos, and other dynamic contents.

    These web parts are integrated features of the publishing sites and are available at the collection and subsite levels.

    Examples are:

    • Summary Links web part: This allows authors to add links that can be grouped and also styled. They are found under the Content Rollup category.
    • Table of Contents web part: This allows the generation of a directory that points to different parts of the author’s site collection. They are found under the Content Rollup Category.
    • Content Query web part: This allows the dynamic display of contents on the sites, usually relying on a query the author builds within the properties pane. They are found under the Content Rollup Category.

    3. Navigation and version control

    During a page edit, some buttons are found in the Format Text tab that allows the author to edit contents and maintain version control.

    These are features that make sure that nothing is published on the author’s site without the approval of designated reviewers.

    Depending on the permissions, the author can also cancel approval or unpublish pages.

    4. Users and permission controls

    These features allow you to assign users to specific publishing-related roles, including Designers, Hierarchy Managers, Style Resource Readers groups, Approvers, and Restricted Readers.

    Also, permission levels are added: Approve, Manage Hierarchy, and Restricted Read.

    Note that sites created below each site collection level inherit the permission levels from their respective parent site.

    5. Use of master pages, page layouts, content types, and columns

    This feature specifies the general look of the SharePoint site. These features contain controls such as navigation, search, or language preference.

    These features work together to achieve a brilliant look for the site pages.

    Why you may not want to enable this feature?

    While SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure is a great tool for effective publishing, there are some downsides to its use:

    • They make SharePoint feel denser: These extra features can populate the number of options available to the Site screen.
    • The ability to “Save Site as Template”: As soon as publishing features are enabled on a site collection, subsites can no longer be saved as templates — meaning the option to reproduce department or team sites are henceforth disabled.

    Do you really need the publishing features?

    Unless you have strongly weighed the pros and cons and you realize that your work heavily relies on the benefits of the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, I’ll recommend not to enable them.

    This is because they can deprive you of the essentials of using SharePoint in the first place.

    However, it’s always a good idea to know all you can about the feature and decide for yourself if you want to enable the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure.

    If you have more questions about this, drop them below. On the other hand, if you want to reach out to me directly, use the contact page and I’ll get back to you right away.

    About Ryan Clark

    As the Modern Workplace Architect at Mr. SharePoint, I help companies of all sizes better leverage Modern Workplace and Digital Process Automation investments. I am also a Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) for M365 Apps & Services.

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    Teshe
    Teshe
    2 years ago

    Thanks so much.continue as it is,

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