Publishing Sites

Once again I am confronted with the question...what type of sites to use for what reason. I initially understood Bob's approach in that if you were pushing or pulling information, wanting to dispaly to a variety of user audiences and would possibly have multiple pages for dispaly, that a Publishing site would be the most beneficial. Beyond that, the team site or meeting site is a good base for most other site needs.

Well, I get it but the Governance team does not. How am I to explain to them that certain web parts work best in the Enterprise (publishing) Site Template environment. I remeber Bob talking about the 'technical differences' but i just cant seem to get it across to the Governance team. Any help here would be greatly appreciated as 'they' continue to frustrate me... 

Thanks,

Greg

Hi Greg,

My apologies for the delay in response; I saw this question come in yesterday and I just didn't have time to appropriately respond.

Its really not a Web Part issue; even though publishing features need to be enabled for the Content Query Web Part to work correctly.  Other than that, you really have to ask yourself a couple of questions.

1. Do you want to display multiple pages for a single site and keep a consistent navigation model?  If yes, use a publishing site.  If no, doesn't matter which site you use; which ever is appropriate.
2. Is it manditory that you be able to create a template from the site? If so, don't use the Publishing Site because you can't create a template from it.

Remember, a site is a site is a site.  Its simply a container for content.  Besides that, you can do virtually anything with it from a UI perspective.

 Bob,

Thanks for the explanation. Taking into account your thoughts on the subject I then pretty much will go with the following thoughts to my team:

1. If you wish the Divisional/Departmental Sites to present a strong branding representation, a Publishing Site supports that somewhat more conveniently
2. If the site will contain content or need to accept content from other sites then a Publishing site will better incorporate that information because of the Content Query Webpart
3. If your site will present multiple fronts (Corporate facing, Extranet facing, and a Team facing then Publishing site is the better answer

My understanding, after these many years, is that a Publishing site offers a cleaner and more Corporate based styling ability completing the look and feel of the SharePoint environment. If all the company plans to do is is an Intranet and collaborative or Process based structured then Team sites are the best. Ultimately, the big picture here is that one day, SharePoint will be the root of the company and all things Company will be accessed through SharePoint. While not yet building the Extranet or the Intranet face, the plans are definitely being devised along those lines. Selecting a publishing site template now could possibly save you steps in the not to distant future.

Sound good?

They think so so far.

Thanks for the help Bob,

Greg McAllister

Absolutely Greg.  As I have said before, I use the Publishing Site for virtually everything because it supports multiple pages with a more uniform UI/Navigation.  Creating web part pages on team sites just looks terrible, the navigation changes; so I don't feel it supports future needs.

The primary reason people use team sites now is they want to create Site Templates; which I'm not a huge fan of (but do use in the right circumstances).

I have had to "switch" way too many sites from team to publishing.  By "switch", I mean create a new one, transfer info, and delete old one. (grrrrr)

This tends to be the case with people that have switched from 2003 to 2007.  Sure, you can create additional web part pages but when those open up expect your users to be a bit disoriented (not so good).  What I usually see happening is someone creates a site and didn't imagine they would need more than one web page.  Down the line, they "see the light" and realize their site could be so much more useful to both their team and visitors if they created more pages to serve up the content in their lists and libraries. 

Here's one of my best practices related to this topic...

When you are assessing the information to be contained in a site and you've identified really valuable info that users can use often, create a new page to support that task.  Use CQWPs, list and library views, etc. and "wrap" some helpful content around that using the content web part (i.e. "what do i need to know to use this information or further add to this information?", "what information is related?", "who do I contact for help related to this?", etc. - examples of "knowledge inputs").  I don't expect users to jump into a document library or list and just figure that all out and "get it right".  Some power users and team members will be fine (though they might miss some important process points in your helpful content web part!) and that is cool but what about the "rest of us"!?

Tthanks Amy....I couldn't have said it better myself.

Greg