SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure (For Beginners)

Last Updated on August 26, 2023

Curious about the server publishing infrastructure feature?

In this beginner’s guide, I will introduce you to the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature, its benefits, how it works, and more.

Let’s get started.

What is SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure?

In the classic experience, a site template is called a publishing site. Our feature stemmed from this page.

But technically, SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure is a feature in SharePoint that provides tools and components for:

• Content creation
• Approval
• Publishing content

You will find the feature the site collection level (the site in modern experience) and on the site level (or subsites).

Related: SharePoint Subsite vs Site: How They Differ From Each Other

What are the benefits of using SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure?

There are several advantages to enabling the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure in your site collection.

These benefits are helpful to organizations that want to put a grip on the content creation and approval process.

Some of these benefits include the following:

1. Maintain brand standards and consistency through page layouts and site templates as you can define the look and feel of your pages.
2. Maintain quality control over your content with built-in content approval workflows so all content is reviewed and approved.
3. Useful for time-sensitive content like news or promotional items through the ability to schedule content publishing and expiration.
4. Enhance the navigation capabilities in SharePoint, with more options for presenting and organizing content.
5. Improved URL management by enabling URL rewriting for a more user-friendly experience and aids in search engine optimization.

On the other hand, it’s important to note that enabling the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature can change how some features work.

Related: How to Change the SharePoint Site URL (Rename Site Address)

How to activate SharePoint Publishing Infrastructure

This feature is for those who want to manage a large amount of content and want to make sure content is consistent and approved.

But before you attempt to do this, got a little reminder:

Recommendation: Test the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature first in a non-production environment.

With that, here are the steps involved:

Step #1: Navigate to the SharePoint admin center

Activating the feature directly in the modern experience has one problem — it will return an error.

Like this:

That’s because there are features that you need to activate first before the publishing infrastructure feature.

Go to your SharePoint admin center first. If you’re not sure how to do that, follow these steps:

1. Click the app launcher on the upper-left corner
2. Select the admin option

You’re now in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Show all the admin centers in the left pane and select the SharePoint option:

Step #2: Allow custom script in the tenant

You’re finally in the SharePoint admin center.

From the home page, go to the settings tab from the left pane:

The options available here are for modern site collections in the tenant.

You need to click the classic settings page link at the bottom:

On the next page, scroll down until you find the custom script section.

Enable the following options:

• Allow users to run custom script on personal sites
• Allow users to run custom script on self-service created sites

Click the ok button at the bottom of the page after that:

Step #3: Allow custom script on the site collection

The next part here is to allow custom script on the site collection using PowerShell.

Copy and paste the following script:

Connect-SPOService -Url https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com 
Set-SPOSite -Identity https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite -DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0

You will need to log in with your credentials after entering the script.

Now that you’re connected to the site collection, you will be able to activate the features needed so you won’t get an error later.

Copy and paste the following script:

Connect-PnPOnline -url https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite

Enable-PnPFeature -Identity dffaae84-60ee-413a-9600-1cf431cf0560 -force
Enable-PnPFeature -Identity 22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416 -force
Enable-PnPFeature -Identity f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa -force -Scope site
Enable-PnPFeature -Identity 94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb -force -Scope web

If you’re getting an error while running the script, you may have to wait for a while.

Unfortunately, allowing the custom script may take up to 24 hours before the change will take effect in the entire tenant.

Step #4: Navigate to the site settings page

Now that you have activated the features, you can now activate the feature on the site collection features page.

Navigate toward the target site collection where you want to enable the feature.

Click the gear icon > site information:

Note: There are some sites where you will find the option to go to the site settings directly (if yes, click on it).

From there, click the view all site settings link above the delete site button:

Step #5: Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

The next page will contain the different settings you can change in SharePoint.

Click the site collection features under the site collection administration group:

This is the page where you can activate different site collection features.

Scroll down until you find the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure option and click the activate button:

Step #6: Activate SharePoint Server Publishing

Go back to the settings page (step #4).

This time, click the manage site features link from the site actions group:

The next page looks a lot similar to the site collection settings page.

This time, scroll down and find the option to activate SharePoint Server Publishing:

Related: How to Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

What are the key components of the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure?

As I explained earlier, the feature brings a range of tools and components designed to facilitate advanced content management.

Here is a table that explains the key components:

How does publishing infrastructure differ from other features in the SharePoint server?

The publishing infrastructure primarily supports the process of creating, reviewing, approving, and publishing web content.

Other features in the SharePoint Server, like team sites, document libraries, etc., are more focused on collaboration, document management, and more.

Here’s how the publishing infrastructure differs:

1. Although SharePoint has a lot of features for managing documents and data, the publishing infrastructure is the one designed for managing web content. This includes features of creating web pages, applying consistent branding and navigation, and managing the publication of web content.
2. The feature includes several advanced content management features that aren’t found on other parts of SharePoint like scheduling content publication and expiration, URL rewriting, and more.
3. Enabling the publishing infrastructure allows for the creation of page layouts and site templates for a higher level of control over the look and feel of SharePoint sites and pages.
4. The publishing infrastructure also includes a unique feature — variations — for the creation of multilingual sites by creating different versions of the same content.
5. The impact on site structure and functionality like adding libraries, content types, and site columns, is significant. This level of impact is not typically seen when enabling other SharePoint features.

On the other hand, although the publishing features offer some powerful capabilities, it’s not necessary for every SharePoint site.

It’s best suited to sites that need to manage a large amount of web content and require a high level of control over how that content is presented and managed.

What situations or use cases when enabling the publishing features are necessary?

Not sure if you need to enable publishing features in your site collection?

Here are some use cases that might necessitate the activation of SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure:

1. Enterprise news portal: The feature will come in handy if you’re creating a news portal to disseminate information throughout your organization.
2. Company intranet: For instance, you might want to have approval workflows (without the power platform) to ensure that all information posted is accurate and up-to-date.
3. Marketing site: You can use the feature to help you manage your marketing content effectively while the URL rewriting feature helps with SEO.
4. Product documentation: You can use page layouts to ensure that all documentation has a consistent look and feel.
5. Multilingual sites: The variations feature can help you manage the creation and publication of content in different languages.
6. Content-centric sites: Any site that’s heavily focused on structured content can benefit from the enhanced content management features.

What are publishing sites and how it relates to publishing features?

Basically, publishing sites are a type of site that’s specifically designed for the creation and publishing of content.

In the past, there was a publishing portal site template. Most of the features of that site template are now in the modern communication site.

Related: SharePoint 101: Types of Sites in SharePoint Online

However, in this section, and in most cases when you hear people talking about publishing sites, it refers to the classic publishing portal.

Now, it ties up to the two features you enabled earlier in this way:

• The SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure provides the underlying infrastructure for publishing sites like site templates, page layouts, content types, etc.
• The SharePoint Server Publishing feature (enabled at the site collection level) provides the tools needed to create and publish web pages.

Together, these features provide a robust set of tools for creating, managing, and publishing content in a structured and controlled manner.

But you must remember that publishing features and publishing sites add complexity to the SharePoint environment.

Got any questions on the publishing features in SharePoint Online in general? Share your thoughts below.

For inquiries and other concerns, kindly reach out using the contact form found here and I’ll get back asap.