SharePoint has an out of the box feature know as "Variations". This feature in SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online makes content available to specific audiences on different sites by syncing content from a source variation site to each target variation site. When users visit the root site, they are redirected to the appropriate variation site, based on the language setting of their web browser. Content on a target variation site can be translated into other languages before it is published. Variations can be used only on sites that are created by using one of the Publishing site templates, or on sites for which the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature was activated.

Following posts will guide through developing multilingual site using SharePoint 2013:

Part 1: Initial setup and configuration for variations site Part 2: Creation and synchronization of content between source and target sites Part 3: Managed Navigation on variation site Part 4: Content Translation...coming soon!

This post will explore a brand new functionality of SharePoint 2013, Managed Navigation and how Managed navigation works with a multilingual variation site.

Managed Navigation

The Managed Navigation feature in SharePoint Server 2013 enables you to build navigation for a publishing site that is derived from a SharePoint managed metadata taxonomy. In SharePoint Server 2010, by default, you could base navigation only on the structure of a site. To create site navigation based on any data structure, you had to create a custom navigation provider. By using Managed Navigation, you can design site navigation around important business concepts. Managed Navigation also lets you create friendly URLs without changing the structure of your site.

When a SharePoint 2013 publishing site is created SharePoint will also provision a local Navigation Term Set Site Navigation and also setup Global and Current Navigation to use Managed Navigation.

To view Site Navigation Term Set go to Site Setting-->Term Store Management. This Term Set is created by default and Intended use is set to Use this Term Set for Site Navigation.

SharePoint 2013 has two ways to add a publishing page, by going directly to pages library and using New Document button on ribbon or using Setting icon on top right corner and clicking "Add a page".

When a page is added using second method Add a Page. SharePoint will  by default create a page in Pages library and also create a Navigation Term in Navigation Term Set.

Navigation Term has assigned a Friendly URL and a Target page which is the relative URL to actual page (.aspx). Now users can simply browse pages by using friendly URL: example https://global.contoso.com/about. Also Global and Current navigation on the pages is coming from Navigation Term set.

Managed Navigation on a Multilingual Variation driven site

Managed navigation is a cool feature in 2013 and it works great with Variations! In variation enabled site when Variation Hierarchy is created, SharePoint also creates a Navigation term set for each variation label and assigns it to a corresponding variation label navigation setting. Following screenshot shows default created Navigation Term sets for source and two target labels.

When authors create a page in source variation using Add a page from settings, a page will be created in draft mode and a navigation term will be created in source variation navigation term set. Once page is published and Variation Propagate Page job is run, source page will be propagated to target variations and also the term associated with source page will be reused in target Variation Navigation Term set. Navigation term in target label points Target Page URL to page URL of target variation. Content authors can also manually create page in Pages library and create a navigation term in source variation and assign Target Page. Variation page propagation takes care of reusing navigation term in target label. 

Variation Navigation term sets can also be easily translated by using SharePoint 2013 Machine Translation Service or by exporting Translation package.

Once content and navigation terms on target labels are translated, users coming from different locales will see the localized content and navigation!

In my previous post, we have discussed how to setup Variation site and create Variation labels. Once Variation labels are created the next step is Content Creation and Propagation. In this post I will focus on the same. In SharePoint Variation system content synchronization is a unidirectional process. The variations feature syncs content from a source variation site to one or more target variation sites. Following figure illustrates a source variation label EN and two target labels FR and DE. Any changes to content are flowing from EN source variation to FR and DE target variations.

Variation Timer Jobs 

The variations feature uses following timer jobs to perform tasks such as creating and propagating content.

Create Hierarchy  

Once variation labels are created and Create Hierarchies is submitted on Variation labels page, Variation Create Hierarchy timer job will start as scheduled and will create hierarchy based on Hierarchy Creating setting, that was selected at the time of label creation. The process of hierarchy creation will finish after Variation Create Hierarchy timer job and Variations Propagate Sites and Lists Job has completed.

Following figure illustrates Variation label settings Hierarchy Creation options, the default option is to create Publishing sites, Lists with variations and all pages.

If default option is selected Hierarchy Creation will replicate source label structure and propagate content to all target labels. Custom Lists by default are propagated on target label. Please refer to Custom List and Libraries section in the Post.

Content Publishing Scenarios

Before we dive deep in technicalities of variations, let's discuss common content publishing scenarios in a variation enabled environment. 

In centralized authoring content authors create new pages or update existing pages on source label and target level automatically receives updates. These updates are always in draft mode on target variation so they wont be live until they are published. In some cases this approach can be a bit tedious for regional authors, because once a page from source label is published first time and propagated to target labels, content authors on target label will localize the page by translating and tailoring content to meet localization requirements. Now, if content of the page is modified later on the source page and republished, Variation System will create a draft version on all target labels. For example if the published version for a page on target label is 3.0 after propagation there will be a new draft version 3.1. The new draft page will be copy of source page and won't have any localization, so most of the times regional authors will have to delete the propagated draft to avoid confusion for content authors.

SharePoint addresses this situation by letting Admin configure variation labels and set Page Update Behavior to Manual update.

Setting Page Update Behavior to Manual update will not let variation propagation create a new draft on target label in case of republishing of source content. Instead, if an update to source content is published, content authors will see a notification that the source variation has been modified.

 Authors can click on View Changes to review the changes made on source variation and decide if they want to sync from source or keep the current one.

Sync from Source Variation

If content authors do not want to receive any update for a particular list of library they can go to list on variation tab and settings target label and set it to "Do not sync source list items to target list".

Custom list and Libraries

Custom lists and Libraries are by default not propagated to target labels. To propagate custom list/libraries, go to List and Variations tab, click settings and select labels where custom list needs to be created and synced. Once labels are selected, next Variations Propagate Sites and Lists Job Definition will create list in target labels.

 Once list/library becomes part of variation system, SharePoint adds a new Approval Status column to control publishing and propagation on List items.

In this post we have seen how content synchronization works with variations. In my next post we will discuss how Managed Navigation syncs with variations SharePoint 2013 Variations - Managed Navigation on variation site

This post will show how to setup variations on a SharePoint 2013 publishing site. Variations can be used only on sites that are created by using one of the Publishing site templates, or on sites with SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature activated. The first step is to create a Site Collection using Publishing Site template. 

Variation Settings

Navigate to Site Setting-->Variation Settings

On Variation setting page, Site, List and Page Creation behavior setting provides control over content synchronization from source to target labels. Create Everywhere is selected by default, this means any content created in source label will propagate to all target variations. There are few other self explanatory settings like Recreate Deleted Target Page, Update Target Page Web Part and Notification, which can be changed if needed, otherwise leave all settings to default and click OK.

Variation Labels

Next step is to create Variation Labels. SharePoint 2013 will assign first created label as Source label. 

When creating Variation Label, Language setting determines the language of the user interface on the variation site.

The locale setting assists with browser redirection and regional settings such as Sort order and Calendar. It does not affect the language of the user interface.

Not to be confused between Language and Locale settings, even if language packs are not installed,  Variation Labels for different locale can still be created and content can be translated into different languages. Language packs will only affect SharePoint user interface for content authors and admins.

In the example scenario under Locale I have selected English(United States) for my source label. Variation Home is the location site where sub sites for all labels will be created. Under Publishing Site Template there are two options, Publishing Site and Publishing Site with workflow. I have selected Publishing Site. However in most real time scenarios this will be Publishing Site with workflow, so that content authors can get approval using workflow before publishing the content.

Now that source label is created, next step is to create first target label. This time SharePoint will present a wizard like interface which is new to SharePoint 2013 and much easier to navigate!

Step 1. Configure your target label: On this tab Site Template Language will show the list of installed language pack to select.  However this is only required for Site Settings UI. Select locale for target variation.

P.S: Language packs are not required for creating target labels in different locales.

Step 2. Name your Target Label: This will show a default label name for variation label, that can be changed from this interface. Under Hierarchy Creation, default selected option is "Publishing Sites, Lists with Variations and All Pages", this option will build the label structure and sync all the content from Source Label.

Step 3. Translation Options: On this tab there are options to enable Human and Machine Translation. In this case I have  selected "Allow Human and Machine translation" and selected target languages. SharePoint 2013 provides industry standard support for manual and automated translation! I will explain content translation in my next post.

Step 4. Target Label Behavior: Page update behavior is useful when target variation owners do not want to get content updates automatically pushed from source label to target label. A scenario would be, after source label has pushed content for the first time and target content authors have translated/localized the content, then later if source label has changed, the target content authors may not want the content to sync automatically. Content synchronization is covered in detail in my post Creation and synchronization of content between source and target labels

Step 5. Review Label Settings: There are few settings which can not be changed once label is created, so make sure to review the settings and click OK. This will create the label but Hierarchy is still not created.

Creating Hierarchy: Creating Hierarchy is required first time when a new label is created. It is not required to create all labels to start with, labels can also be created in later stages. Sometimes hierarchy creation can take longer based on schedule on Timer jobs and also the amount of content and site structure on source variation.

Once labels are created next step is to click on Create Hierarchy on "Variation Labels screen" and wait for Variations Create Hierarchy Timer Job to run. This will copy the content from source label to target labels for the first time.

I have discussed Variation Timer Job details in my post Creation and synchronization of content between source and target labels

During the hierarchy creation several timer jobs run. All the logs related to this process are located under Variation logs. They provide great deal of details and are very useful in troubleshooting Hierarchy creation or Page propagation issues. 

Variation logs are located under root site settings.

Once Hierarchy is created, "Hierarchy is Created" status on Variation Label page will change to Yes. This means labels are created successfully and ready to browse!

We will discuss content creation and synchronization details in my post Creation and synchronization of content between source and target labels

Download JQuery Plugin

First step is to decide what effect you need for your search results, then you can look for available JQuery Plugins. I found https://plugins.jquery.com is helpful to find available JQuery Plugins. For my requirement I wanted to create a smooth slideshow effect, so  I have decided to use SliderJS JQuery Plugin, that I have downloaded from https://github.com/nathansearles/Slides/archive/SlidesJS-3.zip

Once Plugin is downloaded extract Slides-SlidesJS-3 folder, go to Examples folder and choose the one which you like to implement. I chose to create Standard Slide Show effect. View example here https://www.slidesjs.com/exa mples/standard/. Every JQuery Plugin incudes few CSS and JS files and also every plugin will have an example that will show how to use plugin with some sample data.

How SliderJS JQuery Plugin works

Once JQuery Plugin SlidesJS-3.zip is downloaded and extracted, navigate to Examples-->Standard folder. Folder structure looks like following:

Open index.html in preferred editor and explore the code. Top part of the page under <head> section has few .css file references. 

These.css files are used to style the Plugin, so we need to make sure .css files are available in our SharePoint site.

Under <body> there are few important elements. 

• DIV with class "container" is used to define the width of the slideshow.
• DIV with id "slides" is main div and used with function .slidejs () which is responsible for generating slideshow. This DIV contains navigation icons  and four images that will display.
• First <script> element is including Jquery-1.9.1 library which will be used for id selector functionality. So we need to have access to JQuery 1.9.1 from SharePoint site.
• Second <script> element is including jquery.slides.min.js and this is the actual plugin JS.
• Next, when document is ready a function is called that will bind DIV with id "slides" to.slidejs fucntion which will generate the slide show.

Now, that we have explored how SliderJS JQuery plugin works on a simple HTML page, next steps are to configure plugin to work with SharePoint Display Templates.

Upload and Setup for JQuery Plugin

• Firstly we create a site collection which will host CSWP. I have created a publishing site collection https://demo.contoso.com/sites/Jquery-displaytemplate-demo.

• Now let's upload JQuery plugin files to SharePoint so that we can access them from Display Template. I have created a folder "slider" under style library and created  a similar structure as show in the previous step.   

• Copy all .css, .js files from local plugin folder to corresponding folder in SharePoint. For images foder just copy pagination.png (we will be using images for slide show from our site content).  I have also downloaded jquery-1.9.1 minified from https://jquery.com/download/ and uploaded to JS folder on Site Collection.
• Now that plugin files are uploaded let's upload images that you want to be displayed in slideshow to images library under Site Collection. Also provide some title and description to each image. 
• Next step is to crawl content, in our case we want content on images library to be crawled. If there is any incremental or continuous crawl schedule ,wait for it to be completed or simply run an incremental crawl on content source.

Configure  CSWP to display search result

Now it's time to configure Content By Search web part!

• First step is to go to Settings-->Site Content and open Pages Library. Now create a page with "Blank Web Part Page" layout. Edit the newly created page and add a Content Search web part from Content Rollup category.
• Go to Web Part Settings and under "Select a Query" choose Picture (System) and under "Restrict by app" choose "Specify a URL" and provide URL for Images Library. If crawl has finished you should see images metadata under search result preview.

• At this point our CSWP will be rendering with Default Display Template and will look like the following screenshot:
  

Customize Display Template to use JQuery Plugin

 First we will customize Control Template. To do that in a SharePoint 2013 Publishing Site, follow Map a network drive to the SharePoint 2013 Master Page Gallery. Once your drive is mapped, navigate to Display Templates --> Content  Web Parts, copy Control_List.html and rename it. In my example I have renamed it to Control_Jslider.html. 

Open Control_Jslider.html in editor and paste the following code. In this code I have removed all JavaScript that is not needed.

Few things to note here are <script> section where I have included all .js and .css files, I have included reference to .js file and .css that we have uploaded under Style Library. Next, I have added two DIVs here with class "container" and class "slider". These DIVs will wrap results coming from Item Template. Also, I have added a function AddPostRenderCallback(ctx,function) which will be executed once Display Templates are all completely loaded. This function binds .slidejs method of slider plugin to the DIV "slides". Instead of AddPostRenderCallback() I could have also used ctx.OnPostRender(), they both will execute once the Display Template is fully loaded.

Also in some caes to make sure .js files are loaded before we call the function, we can use following JQuery getScript function as in the following example:

$.getScript(SP.PageContextInfo.get_siteServerRelativeUrl() + "Style Library/jquery.sliders.min.js",  function() { });

Customize Item Control Template

For Item Control template copy Item_TwoLines.html and rename it to Items_PictureJSlider.html and paste the following code:

Item Control template is where each search result item is binding with HTML elements. Under the header mso:ManagedPropertyMapping, Managed properties are mapped with Display Template properties. These properties can be accessed using

var linkURL = $getItemValue(ctx, "Link URL"); To get more details on $getItemValue() check my previous post

Set CSWP to use Custom Display Templates

Now we have customized Control Template and Item Template but not yet configured CSWP to use these new templates. This is the easiest one, just edit CSWP and select Custom and Item templates!

Publish the page and now you can see beautiful picture slider using JQuery Plugin rendering on your page!!!

	-->

This post focused on using JQuery within Display Template to customize output of CSWP. Different JavaScript libraries including JQuery are Power Tools for modern web designing. Display Templates open a whole new world of customizing search results using these latest technologies!

Happy Templating!! 

 SharePoint 2013 Customize Display Template for Content By Search Web Part (CSWP) Part-1

Content By Search Web Part

Content By Search Web Part(CSWP) was introduced in SharePoint 2013. CSWP has power to display dynamic content from SharePoint search index, based on dynamic search queries. It uses Display Templates for styling and formatting search results on the page. A big advantage of using CSWP over CQWP is, there are no scope boundaries for getting data across sites. However freshness of results depends on the latest crawl on content.

Display Templates 

Display Templates are used with CSWP to format/style search result generated by CSWP search query. Display Templates control which managed property is shown in the search results and how they appear in the Web Part. Each Display Template has two files: an HTML version of the Display Template that you can edit in your HTML editor, and a .js file that is for SharePoint use and should never be modified. CSWP uses combination of two Display Templates, Control Templates and Item Templates to render results.                         

Control Template provides HTML to structure the overall layout for how you want to present the search results. For example, the Control Template might provide the HTML for a heading, beginning and end of a list. The Control Template is rendered only once in the Web Part.

Item Template provides HTML that determines how each item in the result set is displayed. For example, the Item Display Template might provide the HTML for a list item that contains a picture, three lines of text that are mapped to different managed properties associated with the item. The Item Display Template is rendered one time for each item in the result set. So, if the result set contains ten items, the Item Display Template creates its section of HTML ten times. 

 For more information about Display Templates, see the "Search-driven Web Parts and Display Templates" section in Overview of the SharePoint 2013 page model.

Explore Display Templates

In a SharePoint 2013 Publishing site, map a network drive to master pages gallery. Follow Map a network drive to the SharePoint 2013 Master Page Gallery.

Once your drive is mapped navigate to Display Templates --> Content Web Parts

Under Content Web Parts Library there are several file names starting with "Control_" and "Item_", files starting with Control are Control Templates and files starting with Item are Item templates. Also there are two file extensions for each file type .html and .js.

.js is strictly for SharePoint internal use and not to be changed by users. Throughout the post we will be using .html extension and SharePoint will automatically update .js based on changes we have made to .html.

Now let's open a Control Template and examine some important properties.

Explore Control Display Template

Following code is from one of my Custom Control Template that we will discuss in my next post.

Header Properties

This section has Display Template header properties that provide information to SharePoint about Display Template, <title> will be displayed under CSWP Edit Properties to choose from.

<title>JSlider</title>

Script Block

This section is used to reference JavaScript and CSS files.

 DIV Block

Following the <script> tag is a <div> tag with an ID. By default the ID for this <div> tag matches the name of the Display Template file. The HTML or JavaScript you want the display template to render must be included inside this <div> tag. However, the tag itself is not included in the markup that is rendered on the webpage.

Few important points to note here:

•  Any JavaScript Code should be inside  <!--#_ <JavaScript Code> _#-->

• Use value assigned to variable using _#=   example: <a  href ="_#=LinkURL=#_">

• In Control Template  _#=ctx.RenderGroups(ctx) =#_  is used to render  HTML items (actual search results) from Item template.

• For CSS styling, wrap _#=ctx.RenderGroups(ctx) =#_ with a div and apply css style, this will style all items coming from Item Template. Point to note here is, most outer <div>with ID matching template title will never render in HTML, so be careful not to apply style to outer <div>or it will never reflect.

• To call a JavaScript function after Display Template is completely rendered use the AddPostRenderCallback function. I will use this function to call a JQuery Plugin in my next post.

               <!--#

           AddPostRenderCallback(ctx, function() {             

           //code to execute

            });

             _#-->

There is another way to achieve this by using:

ctx.OnPostRender = function() {

};

Explore Item Display Template

Now let's open Item Display Template from Display Templates --> Content  Web Parts folder.

Header Properties

In Item Template Header Property  <mso:ManagedPropertyMapping> is used to map Search Managed Properties, retrieved from search query and map them to fields on Item Display template.

<mso:ManagedPropertyMapping msdt:dt="string">'Picture URL'{Picture URL}:'PublishingImage;PictureURL;PictureThumbnailURL','Link URL'{Link URL}:'Path','Line 1'{Line 1}:'Title','Line 2'{Line 2}:'Description','Line 3'{Line 3}:'','SecondaryFileExtension','ContentTypeId', 'FileExtension'{FileExtension}:'FileExtension'</mso:ManagedPropertyMapping>

In order to use a Search Managed Property, it should be first added under ManagedPropertyMapping header. To get a list of all Managed Properties that are returned from Search query, I took a fiddler trace while testing query on CSWP. Properties under ResultRows element are returned by search query in JSON format and can be used in Display Template.

mso:ManagedPropertyMapping: This property takes the managed properties that are used by search and maps them to values that can be used by the Display Template. The property is a comma-delimited list of values that uses the following format: 'property display name'{property name}:'managed property. For example: 'Picture URL'{PictureURL}:'PublishingImage;PictureURL;PictureThumbnailURL'.

For more Information about Mapping Input Properties checkout https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj945138.aspx#bk_mapproperties

Same as Control Template, Item Template also has Script Block and Outer DIV with matching DIV ID as template name.

DIV Block

Scripting should be put under outer DIV. After you map a property in header, you can get its value in script by using the following code:

var pictureURL =$getItemValue(ctx, "Picture URL");

The second parameter that is passed to $getItemValue() must match the property display name in single quotes used in the ManagedPropertyMapping element. In this example, Picture URL is the property name that is passed to $getItemValue(). Following code shows DIV section from my custom Item template.

<div id="Item_PictureJSlider">

<!--#_

var encodedId = $htmlEncode(ctx.ClientControl.get_nextUniqueId() + "_picture3Lines_");
var linkURL = $getItemValue(ctx, "Link URL");
linkURL.overrideValueRenderer($urlHtmlEncode);
var line1 = $getItemValue(ctx, "Line 1");
var pictureURL = $getItemValue(ctx, "Picture URL");
var containerId = encodedId + "container";

var dataDisplayTemplateTitle = "ItemPicture3Lines";

_#-->
        <divclass="cbs-sliderContrainer"id="_#= containerId =#_"data-displaytemplate="_#= $htmlEncode(dataDisplayTemplateTitle) =#_">
           <ahref="_#= linkURL =#_"title="_#= $htmlEncode(line1) =#_"target="_blank">
                <imgsrc="_#= pictureURL =#_"width="570"height="270">
            </a>

           </div>
        
</div>

In above example ,all items returned by search will be rendered using HTML in inner DIV with class "cbs-sliderContrainer". Following screenshot is of rendered Display Template using IE developer tool (F12) . Notice DIVs with class "cbs-sliderContrainer", these are items coming from Item Template and they are wrapped in outer DIV class "slides" which is coming from Control template.

This post builds basics of Display Templates, my next post will focus on using JQuery Plugin to customize Display Templates!

https://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepoint_quick_reads/archive/2013/08/02/sharepoint-2013-customize-display-template-for-content-by-search-web-part-cswp-part-2.aspx

Step#1

Create an authoring site collection using “Product Catalog” site collection template.

By choosing “Product Catalog” template, SharePoint will create following artifact for site collection:
 

• Activate Cross Site Publishing Feature
• Create  Product List associated with content type Product with Image
• Create two content types, Product and Product with Image
• Create following Site Columns
• Group Number
• Item Category [Managed Meta data column linked to Product Hierarchy term set
• Item Number
• Language Tag
• Create Site Collection Term Set “Product Hierarchy”

Step#2

Populate "Product Hierarchy" Term Set. This term set will be used as tagging term for catalog items.

At this step, if you know publishing site collection URL add it to Site Collection Access (In this case it is https://prod.contoso.com).
This will give publishing site read access to contents of term sets in this group.

 Step#3

Setup an Asset Library. This can exist anywhere as a container to store site blobs (Pictures, videos, pdfs, etc.) in this case Asset library exists in its own site collection under authoring web application with URL (https://auth.contoso.com/sites/Asset). To conveniently accessing resource from asset library configure it as “Suggested Content Browser Location” under site settings. Make sure asset site is accessible from publishing site collection.

Caveat: While setting this up, I have noticed one caveat when using image from asset site which is under authoring web application, image address uses relative path (/sites/asset/publishingImage/) and same get indexed. when catalog is used on publishing site it will not find asset files because it is relative URL and image will display as "?". As workaround I have create a new web application and site collection for asset files (https://assets.contosot.com) and provided Absolute URL at the time of browsing the image for item, ran full crawl hoping this will fix this issue, however image still didn't displayed on publishing site. To troubleshoot this further, I have edited category page and  changed display template for Content By Query Web Part to Diagnostic and that has rendered Raw values. Looking at image source it seems there is some issue with encoding of "https://" and is rendering as  "http&#58;//" and this was the reason images are not getting displayed. Currently, I am working on Beta bits and hoping this will not be an issue with RTM. To bypass this issue and to see image, I have created asset site on publishing in same structure as on authoring and copied pictures to new asset library and images started to show up!

Following figure illustrate Diagnostic Display Template:

Step#4

Create content on Authoring Site. This example will use SharePoint created List “Products” to create content.

Few things to keep in mind here are, use unique values for "Item Number" column, this is specified as Primary Key when marking this list as catalog and Tag items with appropriate Terms using Item Category column. Once all items are created go to Approve/Rejected Items view and approve all Items.

Step#5

Share Product list as catalog. To Share a list/Library as catalog go to list general settings and click on catalog setting. In this case Item Catalog is enabled for Anonymous access, Item Number is a Primary Key and Navigation will be based on Item Category Managed Metadata Column.

Click OK to Share this list as catalog.

Note: When a List/Library is selected as catalog an indexable property [IndexedRootFolderPropertyKeys : {PublishingCatalogSettings, IsPublishingCatalog} name-value pair is added to List's Property Bag. When a full crawl is completed this property is added and crawl property and also added as Managed Property "IsPublishingCatalog".

Step#6

Crawl this catalog using SharePoint search system. Make sure Search Service Application is configured. In this case I have created a separate content source for authoring site collection and started Full Crawl.

Once Full Crawl is completed successfully, our catalog is ready to share with publishing site collections!

Step#7

Creating a Publishing Site collection. In this case we will create a publishing site collection in a different web application https://prod.contoso.com.

 Step#8

Connect to a product catalog from publishing site collection. To connect to a published catalog go to publishing site settings under site administration click on “Manage Catalog Connections”. Search for catalog name and click connect.

Clicking on connect will open Catalog Source Settings page. On this page change Navigation Hierarchy and select Root term of Hierarchy, in this case choose “Products” as this is our root term.

Few points to note here, Catalog Item URL Format, this is using Primary key columns in  URL Format and this interface is also creating Category Page and Item Page. Following table describes how site columns and their corresponding values are combined to create friendly URL

 At this point we are almost done with setup and you will have managed navigation showing on pages. Click on any category on navigation link and it will show all products that belong to the selected category!!

SharePoint 2013 preview introduces new feature called "Cross Site Publishing"! This feature will address several scenarios like, content authors want to author content in a controlled environment and share it with multiple publishers in different scope boundaries. The core of Cross Site Publishing feature is SharePoint Search and Search Driven web part that can be used to access search index based on search queries.

Above illustration shows content authors create content under authoring site collections, once content is created and published SharePoint Search will crawl published content and store it in SharePoint  search Index. SharePoint search index can be shared inside same SharePoint farm or across multiple farms. Content publishing sites can access and reuse the content from search index using Content By Search web part. 

Components of Cross Site Publishing

 Cross Site Publishing Feature

This is new site collection feature in SharePoint 2013 preview. This feature should be activated on the site collection which is going to be used for authoring content (List/Libraries).
Cross site publishing feature will add URL Action "Catalog Settings" under List General Settings and will link to _layouts/15/CatalogConfiguration.aspx page.
CatalogConfiguration.aspx page will give options to declare a list/Library as a Catalog. This feature will also add Analytics Reports commands to the Ribbon. 
By default this feature will get activated with Product Catalog Site Collection Template along with several other features.

Catalogs

A catalog is a list or library that is shared out to search for consumption on publishing sites. Catalogs enable content to be published across site collections—the cross-site publishing features depend on catalogs.
Any List/Library can be marked as catalog by going to Catalog Settings page and selecting "Share the list as a catalog for other sites and collections".

When a List/Library is selected as catalog an indexable property [IndexedRootFolderPropertyKeys : {PublishingCatalogSettings, IsPublishingCatalog} name-value pair is added to List's Property Bag. When a full crawl is completed this propery is added and crawl property and also added as Managed Property "IsPublishingCatalog".

Catalog Settings page has following other options:

Allow anonymous search access: this option will allow anonymous user to search results from this catalog.

Primary Key: when catalogs will be shared, columns selected as Primary Key (max up to five) will be used to identify unique items in catalog. When selecting columns as Primary Key make sure they will be unique, otherwise result in wrong item selection.

Catalog Navigation: Other sites that consume this list as a catalog will be able to display it in its own navigation hierarchy.

Content By Search Web Part

The Content Search Web Part (CSWP) is a new web part introduced in SharePoint 2013 Preview. Content Search Web Part is associated with a search query and shows the results for that search query. Content Search Web Part displays search results in a way that you can easily format it. You can use display templates to change how search results appear on the page. Display templates are snippets of HTML and JavaScript that render the information returned by SharePoint.

Category Product Page

A Category Product Page is an .aspx page in Pages library, this is used to display search results of products belong to same category. Category Product Page uses Category Product page layout and have a  "Content By Search Web Part" to get search results from indexed catalog based on a search query. This page will be created when a publishing site connects to a published catalog.

Catalog Item Product Page

A Catalog Item Product Page is an .aspx page in Pages library, this is used to display individual products based on URL passed from Category Product Page. Catalog Item Product Page uses Catalog Item Product Page layout and have a  "Content Item Reuse Web Part" to display search results. This page will be created when a publishing site connects to a published catalog.

Managed Navigation

Managed Navigation can be specified when connecting to catalog. Managed navigation will be based on catalog navigation column that was selected when marking list/library as catalog.One thing to make sure is term set used by this column should be either a global term set or should have read access to subscriber site collection by adding "Site Collection Access" under "Term Store Management Tool".

Asset Libraries

Asset Libraries are used to store any blob resource used by Items in a catalogs, like product image. Search crawler will only store blob URL in search index not actual blob object. In order to render blob object, it should be accessible from authoring and publishing location. Asset Library can live on separate site collection or in a separate web application based on design choice.

Step by Step Configuration

 https://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepoint_quick_reads/archive/2012/09/19/configure-cross-site-publishing-in-sharepoint-server-2013-step-by-step.aspx 

 Benefits Of Using Cross Site Publishing

1. Provides a broad range of possible site architectures.

2. Separates content authoring from branding and rendering.

3. Allows content to be shared anonymously with users on the publishing site.

4. Can be used across site collections, web applications, and also across farms.

5. Allows for a mix of authored pages and list content.

Little bit background on Usage and Health services in SharePoint 2010:

SharePoint 2010 Usage and Health Service is a great new feature for SharePoint Administrators when it comes to analyzing usage of SharePoint environment or troubleshooting a SharePoint Issues.

In the earlier days of SharePoint there was no place to get consolidated logs for SahrePoint Farm, so to troubleshoot any issues admins has to go to each SharePoint Server to collect different logs (ULS, IIS, Event Log, etc).
Now with SharePoint 2010, if Usage and Heath Service Application is configured and running all the logs from all SharePoint servers flows into Usage and Health Database on SQL Server and can be sliced and diced using TSQL!

There are broadly two types of data collected by this service 1.) Usage data and 2.) Health data.

1.) Usage Data

This is the data about usage on SharePoint Farm, like Page requests, feature use, search query latency, etc. This data is similar to IIS log, however unlike IIS logs  this has addition SharePoint specific data collected like Application ID, Site ID, Web ID, Correlation ID etc.

To configure which events should be logged in usage database  goto Central Admin-->Monitoring-->Configure Usage and Health data Collection there is option to select different events.

Usage data is initially stored in Usage Log file (.USAGE ) on SharePoint Server under logging directory which is later processed by Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import Timer job that runs every 30 min into Usage Database.
There is another timer job Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Processing, this job checks for expired usage data at the farm level and deletes data.
Expired usage data consists of records in the central usage data collection database that are older than 30 days.

Generally it is not supported to directly query SharePoint databases; however Usage database is the only one which can be queried using SQL Management studio.
Usage Database contain 32 [0-31] tables for each data provider and consolidated data views to query data.

Following is the mapping of Usage events to Usage Database data views.

 
Usage Reports:
Following reports surface usage data to user and can be accessed from Cenntral Admin -->Monitoring section :

Administrative Reports:
CrawlRatePerContentSource
CrawlRatePerType
QueryLatency
QueryLatencyTrend
SharepointBackendQueryLatency

Advance Reports:
CrawlProcessingPerActivity
CrawlProcessingPerComponent
CrawlQueue

Other:
Slowest Pages
Top Active Users

This usage data is also pushed to Web Analytics Service application(if enabled) staging database using Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Processing timer job for generating web analytics reports.

2.) Health Data

This includes SharePoint ULS, Windows Event Logs, Performance Contents and SQLDMV. This is a very useful database when troubleshooting SharePoint issues.
Health data on a SharePoint Farm is processed by multiple Diagnostic Data provider timer jobs and runs on all sharepoint servers in the farm and moves data from different logs sources to usage database.

Following is list of Timer Jobs and corresponding database views for different OOTB diagnostic data provider.  

To view health data one option is to connect to SQL Server and directly query database views, however I recently came across a codeplex solution https://spflogger.codeplex.com/ to view usage and health logs.
Health data can also be surfaced using SPDiag 3.0 another great tool.

How to Provision Usage and Health Service

Using Powershell: 

New-SPUsageApplication -Name “UsageAppName” -DatabaseServer “DBServerName” -DatabaseName “DBName”

Change retention period using PowerShell:

Set-SPUsageDefinition -Identity <GUID> [-Enable] [-DaysRetained <1-30>] [-Verbose]

Central Admin GUI:

Go to Central Admin-->Monitoring-->Configure Usage and health data collection-->Select Enable usage data collection

AutoSPInstaller

If using scripted install using AutoSPInstaller configures Usage and Health Serive Application using AutoSPInstaller Input file

<UsageLogs Compress="true">
                <!-- The default <UsageLogDir> is $Env:CommonProgramFiles\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\LOGS - enter another path (e.g. D:\Logs) or leave <UsageLogDir> empty to use the default. -->
                <UsageLogDir></UsageLogDir>
                <!-- <UsageLogMaxSpaceGB> must be between 1 and 20 GB. Leave empty to use the default (5 GB) -->
                <UsageLogMaxSpaceGB></UsageLogMaxSpaceGB>
                <!-- <UsageLogCutTime> specifies the time, in minutes, of usage data collected per usage log file (acceptable values are between 1 and 1440, default 5). Leave empty to use the default. -->
                <UsageLogCutTime></UsageLogCutTime>
</UsageLogs>

 <SPUsageService Provision="true"
                        Name="Usage and Health Data Collection">
            <Database>UsageAndHealthDB</Database>
 </SPUsageService>

SharePoint Usage and Health Database best practices: 

• There is just a single database per Farm for usage and health data collection and it may get really big sometimes, so make sure to include this one in capacity planning.
• Usage and health database is very active and should be put on separate disk or spindle or sperate database server if possible.  
• Database size depends on the retention factor, number of items enabled for logging and external monitoring, how many Web applications are running in the environment, how many users are currently working, and which features are enabled.
• The Usage and Health Data Collection database is very write-heavy.

Good Reads:
If you are planning to extend SharePoint Usage and Health functionalities following article by Todd Carter is a great read: https://todd-carter.com/post/2011/04/26/Extending-The-SharePoint-2010-Health-Usage-Part-1-Feature-and-Capability-Overview.aspx