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 four, we'll walk
you through the steps needed to connect a publishing site to a catalog.
Connect a Publishing
Site to a Catalog
1. To begin, go to Central
Administration under Application
Management, and select Create site
collections:
2. Enter information applicable to your new site
collection, including Title, Description, Username and URL. Under Select
a template, click the Publishing tab
and choose Publishing Portal:
3. After you have entered all of the necessary information,
click OK to create the site
collection.
4. Return to your Home.
You will see the new Publishing Site that
you created:
5. From the Publishing Site settings options,
select Site settings:
6. On the Site
settings page, under Site
Administration, select Manage
catalog connections:
7. Select Connect to a catalog:
8. From the Connect to Catalog screen, you will
need to select the catalog from the Available
Catalogs list which you wish to connect to your publishing site. After you have selected a catalog, click Connect. For this example, I will be connecting my
publishing site to the following catalog: BambooProductCatalog – Products to
connect.
Please note that
before you connect to a catalog, you need to Start Full Crawl (instructions for this are available in part
3 of this series). If you click Connect to a catalog and
have not yet started the full crawl, you will see that you do not have any catalogs
available.
9. After you have connected to a catalog, navigate to the Catalog Source Settings page. In the Navigation Hierarchy section, under Root term of hierarchy, select Bamboo Products.
10. Check the box next to Include root term in site navigation.
Click OK.
11. From the Bamboo
Products list, select a product to view.
For this example, I have selected the product Bamboo Simple Search:
Check out the rest of the series:
