Configure Content Type Syndication
Content types are essential to virtually all information stored in SharePoint. SharePoint uses content types to define which columns of information will be tracked for a document, a contact, an appointment, and other items that can be created in SharePoint. Content types are also used to bind workflows, document templates, and expiration policies to items in a consistent manner that can support an organization’s compliance requirements. In SharePoint 2010, it is possible to create a single set of content types in a single site collection and then publish those content types to other site collections throughout the SharePoint farm and even to other SharePoint farms. This process, referred to as content type syndication, is handled by the Managed Metadata Service, one of the services introduced in Chapter 4, “Creating Service Applications.”
To syndicate content types, you designate a source site collection as the syndication hub, which publishes the content types, and other site collections become consumers of these content types. Content types in the consumer site collections are largely read-only and cannot be modified. Only content types in the hub site collection can be modified. This allows these centralized content types to serve as a metadata schema for the entire farm.
Creating the Content Type Syndication Hub
The best practices for creating and configuring the content type hub involve the following steps:
1. Create a dedicated web application.
2. Create a dedicated site collection.
3. Enable the required features.
4. Create the content types to be published.
Creating a Dedicated Web Application
Any site collection in SharePoint can be used as the syndication hub, but it is generally a good idea to create a web application and a separate site collection dedicated to use as the syndication hub. There are two reasons for creating a dedicated hub:
- Only site collection administrators can manage all features of the content type hub. By creating a dedicated site collection, which has no other content in it, you can delegate control of this site collection to a content manager or records librarian who is specifically responsible for managing the syndicated content types.
- The Managed Metadata Service does not support changing the choice of site collection for the hub through Central Administration once it has been set. Creating a dedicated web application with a specific URL allows this URL to be permanently reserved for use by the content type hub, freeing it from any dependency on other web applications or site collections.
The following are the specific steps for creating a content type hub web application. For full details, see Chapter 2, “Creating and Managing Web Applications.”
1. From SharePoint 2010 Central Administration, under Application Management, click Manage Web Applications.
2. On the Web Applications Management page, from the ribbon, click the New Web Application link.
3. On the New Web Application page, fill in the details based on your organization’s authentication and security requirements, keeping in mind a few recommendations:
Authentication Settings Communication with the hub is handled by the Managed Metadata Service, which can usually take advantage of Windows authentication. So this option will almost always be set to Classic Mode Authentication.
IIS Web Site Settings The web application can use a different port number than 80 to prevent users from accidentally trying to browse to the URL. The site collection will be secured so that users will generally not have access to it anyway, which means using an alternative port number is not necessary for security purposes. If you intend to share this Managed Metadata Service with other SharePoint farms in the organization, then it is a good idea to create a unique hostname such as metadatahub.synergy.com for the hub site collection.
Application Pool Settings This web application will consume relatively few resources so it should not require its own application pool and can share one of the existing application pools used for SharePoint sites.
4. Click OK.
Creating a Dedicated Site Collection
Once the web application has been created, the next step is to create a site collection at the root of the web application. This site collection can be based on any site template, but since it is not intended to host any content itself, a simple site template such as the Team Site is commonly used. For full details on creating a site collection, see Chapter 3.
1. From SharePoint 2010 Central Administration, under Application Management, click Create Site Collections.
2. On the Create Site Collection page, enter a name and description. Leave the URL at the default setting of the root site, “/”.
3. Select a site template. Choose Team Site if you do not intend to use this site collection for any other specific purpose. Otherwise, select a template that fits your needs. As a best practice, it is not a good idea to use the Blank Site template because it does not have the Taxonomy Feature enabled on it. We’ll cover that topic later in this chapter in the “Use Term Sets” section.
4. Enter the username of the Primary Site Collection Administrator, who should be a person responsible for the management and maintenance of the content types. This person may be a records librarian or someone in IT who has assumed this responsibility. Enter the username of a Secondary Site Collection Administrator, who should normally be an IT administrator acting as a backup to the Primary Site Collection Administrator.
5. Click OK.
Enabling Required Features
In order for a site collection to function as the content type hub, some specific features must be enabled in the site collection. The most important of these is the Content Type Syndication Hub feature, which enables a site to become a hub site. This is a required feature.
To activate the Content Type Syndication Hub feature:
1. Open the hub site collection you created earlier.
2. From the Site Actions menu, select Site Settings.
3. In the Site Collection Administration section, click Site Collection Features.
4. Next to the Content Type Syndication Hub Feature, click Activate.
NOTE Another feature that you may need to activate is the Document ID Service. If the sites that will be consuming content types from the hub have the Document ID Service enabled but the hub site does not, then content types will not propagate correctly. This is because the Document ID Service adds a new column to every content type in the site and manages the values in the column. To correct this issue, on the Site Collection Features page mentioned in the previous steps, click Activate next to the Document ID Service.
Planning and Creating Content Types
The final step in preparing the content type hub is to plan and create the content types that you will publish to the rest of the farm. It is important to carefully plan which content types will be created in the hub. They will act as the central templates for all metadata use in the organization and they should be designed to change very little, if at all.
Creating and configuring content types are covered in detail in Chapter 10, “Configuring Document Management,” so we won’t go through the steps here.
Configuring the Content Type Hub
Once the content type hub has been created, it can be configured in the Managed Metadata Service and the content types published. Each Managed Metadata Service created in SharePoint can support one content type hub. If you want to have multiple hubs in your organization, you can create more than one Managed Metadata Service to support them. You will then need to ensure that you associate each Managed Metadata Service with one or more of the web applications that hold user content. For more details on service applications, see Chapter 4.
1. Set the Content Hub Type property for the Managed Metadata Service application.
2. Configure the service proxy to syndicate published content types back to associated web applications.
3. Choose which content types will be shared with other site collections and publish them.
Configuring the Managed Metadata Service
The first configuration step is to set the Content Hub Type property. The Content Type Hub property is used by the Managed Metadata Service to configure the connection to the appropriate site collection from which you want to retrieve content types for publication. Configuring this setting alone does not automatically trigger the propagation of content types. Before that can happen, the content types themselves must be designated for publication. However, this setting is required for the SharePoint timer job to identify which site collection to reference for content types. To set the Content Type Hub property:
1. From SharePoint 2010 Central Administration, under Application Management, click Manage Service Applications.
2. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the row for the Managed Metadata Service application; then from the ribbon, click the Properties button, as shown in Figure 11.1.
Figure 11.1: Managed Metadata Service Properties button
3. At the bottom of the dialog box, in the Content Type Hub box, enter the URL to the content type hub site collection that you created in the previous section, as shown in Figure 11.2. Then click OK.
Figure 11.2: Content Type Hub URL
NOTE Be very careful when you enter this value. Once you click OK, the field becomes read-only in the properties page and can only be changed through an Stsadm or PowerShell command-line operation.
Each Managed Metadata Service is responsible not only for publishing content types but also for subscribing to published content types. The setting for syndicating the published content types back to all the web applications associated with the Managed Metadata Service is defined under the service proxy. If you don’t configure this setting, then the content types will not appear in all your user site collections. To configure the proxy:
1. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the second row shown for the Managed Metadata Service application—the one for which the Type column reads Managed Metadata Service Connection. Then from the ribbon, click the Properties button.
2. On the Edit Managed Metadata Service Connection page, shown in Figure 11.3, check the box next to “Consumes content types from the Content Type Gallery at <URL>.”
Figure 11.3: Content type consumer setting
3. Also on this page, it is a good idea to check the box “Push-down Content Type Publishing updates from the Content Type Gallery to sub-sites and lists using the content type.” Enabling this option allows changes to existing content types to be automatically copied down to any subsites in a site collection and to update the content types anywhere they are being used.
4. Click OK.
Publishing, Republishing, and Unpublishing Content Types
The final step in publishing content types from the hub is to choose which content types will be shared with other site collections and to publish them. Content types can also be unpublished if necessary to remove them from syndication.
To publish, unpublish, or republish content types:
1. Open the hub site collection.
2. From the Site Actions menu, select Site Settings.
3. Under the Galleries section, click Site Content Types.
4. On the Site Content Types page, click the content type you want to publish.
5. On the Content Type Page, click Manage Publishing For This Content Type.
6. On the Content Type Publishing page, click one of the following:
Publish If this is the first time that the content type is being published, then Publish is the only option available. This option will propagate this content type to all site collections in all web applications that are associated with the Managed Metadata Service.
Unpublish Once a content type has been published, this option becomes available and will stop the publishing of a content type. Any content types in the subscribing site collections will be converted into local content types disconnected from the hub. If this content type is published again in the future, it will overwrite the local version of the content type.
Republish Any time that changes are made to the content type, use this option to propagate those changes out to the subscribing site collections.
7. Click OK.
Managing Publishing in Subscriber Sites
The subscriber sites that are consuming content types published by the hub can monitor and troubleshoot the publishing process. Monitoring is useful for site collection administrators who are responsible for site collections that are consuming content types but who have no permissions to manage the hub itself.
To configure these settings:
1. Open the subscriber site collection.
2. From the Site Actions menu, select Site Settings.
3. Under the Site Collection Administration section, click Content Type Publishing. The Content Type Publishing Hubs page appears (see Figure 11.4).
Figure 11.4: Content Type Publishing Hubs settings
4. Perform the following monitoring tasks as needed:
- Force the content types from the hub to overwrite those in the current site collection by checking the box next to “Refresh all published content types on next update.”
In most cases, when a content type is published, the subscribing site collections receive the updates and display any changes. But sometimes the content types in the subscribing site collection become unsynchronized with the content type hub and show a different structure.
- View the Content Type Publishing Error Log by clicking its link.
This log is a list in the site collection that tracks errors generated during the publishing of content types to this site.
- View the URL to the hub site collection configured in the Managed Metadata Service that this site is subscribed to. This section also lists any content types that have been published to this site collection.
You can also view error logs from within the hub site collection:
1. Open the hub site collection.
2. From the Site Actions menu, select Site Settings.
3. In the Site Collection Administration section, click Content Type Service Application Error Log.
The service log indicates the item that failed to publish, the date and time of the failure, and the message explaining the cause.