The Product Catalog for SharePoint 2013 is a helpful template that allows you to create a site where data can easily be published, using Search, to other sites. The Product Catalog can be applied to both intranet as well as extranet sites and is easily managed through admin pages.

In our new four-part series, we introduce you to the Product Catalog for SharePoint 2013 and show you how to set up and utilize some of its key features. Here in part three, we’ll walk you through the steps needed to use a list as a catalog to make content in the list available to other sites and site collections through search.

Using a List as a Catalog:

1. On the Page tab in the Ribbon, select Library Settings:

2. From General Settings, click on Catalog Settings:

3. From General Settings, click on the Advanced Settings page:

4. On the Advanced settings page, select Reindex List:

5. A pop-up menu will appear. Select Reindex List and click OK:

6. Return to your Catalog Settings screen. Under Catalog Sharing, check the box next to Enable this library as a catalog:

7. By default, Anonymous Access is disabled, so you will need to enable this feature.  Click Enable anonymous access to accomplish this.

8. Return to your Catalog Settings screen. Under Catalog Item URL Fields, add Title to the Selected Fields box:

9. Next, you will need to designate a column that categorizes items for navigation. For this example, I have chosen to itemize items by Item Category:

10. Click OK to save your configuration settings.

To summarize the above, here is a snapshot of our Catalog Settings:

Starting a Full Crawl:

1. Go to Central Administration. Under Application Management, select Manage service applications:

2. On the Manage Service Applications page, select Search Service Application:

3. Under Crawling, select Content Source:

4. From the Manage Content Sources page, and from the menu Local SharePoint Sites, select Start Full Crawl:

Check out the rest of the series:

• Part 1: How to Create a Product Catalog Site
• Part 2: How to Create Items for a Product List
• Part 3: How to Use a List as a Catalog and Start a Full Crawl in Central Administration
• Part 4: How to Connect a Publishing Site to a Catalog