Connect a publishing site to a catalog in SharePoint Server

APPLIES TO: 2013 2016 2019 Subscription Edition SharePoint in Microsoft 365

To show content from a library or list that is shared as a catalog, you must connect the publishing site collection to the catalog. When you connect a publishing site collection to a catalog, the following occurs:

• The catalog content is integrated into the publishing site collection.

• The term set used by the catalog is integrated into the term set of the publishing site collection.

• A category page and an item details page are created for the catalog pages.

• Friendly URL is created for the item details page.

• A result source is created for the catalog.

Before you connect the publishing site collection to a catalog, review the information in Plan category pages and catalog item pages. Also verify the following:

• The publishing site that you connect to a catalog uses managed navigation. By default, site collections that are created by using the Publishing Portal Site Collection template use managed navigation.

• The library or list was shared as a catalog, as described in Share a library or list as a catalog.

• A full crawl of the content source that contains the catalog was performed, as described in Configure search for cross-site publishing.

• The term set that is used by the catalog is available to the publishing site collection, as described in Make a term set available to other site collections.

To connect a publishing site to a catalog

1. Verify that the user account that completes this procedure is a member of the Owners SharePoint group on the publishing site collection.

2. On the publishing site collection, on the Settings menu, click Site Settings.

3. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click Manage catalog connections.

4. On the Manage catalog connections page, click Connect to a catalog. A list of available catalogs appears. Note that only catalogs that have been crawled will appear.

5. On the line that contains the catalog that you want to connect to, click Connect. You can also search for a specific catalog by typing the catalog name in the search field.

6. On the Catalog Source Settings page, in the Connection Integration section, do one of the following:

• To make catalog content available to the publishing site and integrate the catalog tagging term set into the publishing site navigation term set, select Integrate the catalog into my site. When you select this option, use the following steps to specify at which level the term sets should be integrated, specify the URL for the catalog item details page, and select category pages and catalog item pages.

• To make the catalog content available to the publishing site, select Connect, but do not integrate the catalog. You should select this option if you want to use content from the library to create individual catalog item pages.

  Either option creates a result source for the catalog.

7. In the Navigation Hierarchy section, specify the term from which the catalog tagging term set should be integrated into the publishing site navigation term set. The catalog navigation column that you previously configured in Share a library or list as a catalog appears by default. The fields in this section are optional. Therefore, if you don't change the fields in this section, the catalog tagging term set will be integrated from the root term. If you want to integrate the catalog tagging term set from a different term, do the following:

• Next to the Root term of hierarchy box, click Browse for a valid choice.

• In the Select: Add Terms dialog, click the term that corresponds to the level from which you want to integrate the catalog tagging term set, click Select, and then click OK.

• To integrate the root term that is the parent of the selected term in the publishing site navigation term set, select the Include root term in site navigation check box.

  Note

  All items in the catalog must be tagged with a term from the specified catalog tagging term set. If this is not done, site navigation will not work as intended for all items.

8. In the Navigation Position section, specify the term in the publishing site navigation term set where the catalog tagging term set should be integrated. Do one of the following:

• To integrate the catalog tagging term set to the root term of the publishing site navigation term set, click Add to navigation root.

• To integrate the catalog tagging term set to a term below the root term of the publishing site navigation term set, click Select an alternate location in site navigation, and then do the following:

• Click Browse for a valid choice to display the publishing site navigation term set.

• In the Select: Add Terms dialog, click the term that corresponds to the level from which you want to integrate the catalog tagging term set, click Select, and then click OK.

9. If you want changes to the catalog tagging term set to be updated on the publishing site, in the Navigation Pinning section, select the Pin terms to site navigation check box. By default, this option is selected. If you clear this check box, changes made to the catalog tagging term set are not reflected on the publishing site navigation.

10. In the Catalog Item URL Behavior section, specify what you want the URL of the catalog item to do by selecting one of the following options:

• To point the URL of the catalog item to an item details page, select Make URLs relative to this site. When you select this option, you have to specify a catalog item URL format as described in the next step. This also means that the content that you can display on the item details page has to come from the search index.

• To have the catalog item URL point to the item in the source catalog, select Make URLs point to source catalog. When you select this option, you do not have to specify a catalog item URL format. Note that when you select this option, anonymous users are not able to access and view the item in the source catalog.

11. In the Catalog Item URL Format section, select which properties the URL of the item details page should contain by doing one of the following:

• To use the field that you specified as Primary Key the when you shared the library or list as a catalog as described in Share a library or list as a catalog, select Use the default URL format provided by the catalog source. By default, this option is already selected.

  Note

  All items in the catalog must have values for the specified field. Site navigation will not work as intended for items with missing values.

• To manually define a format for the URL, select Manually define a URL format, and then type in a URL. You should select this option only if you have created an item details page and the items in your catalog are not tagged with a term from a catalog tagging term set. Type the URL in the following format: / <Folder of item details page> /<Name of item details page>.aspx? <Managed property name>=[ Managed property value] — for example, /Pages/itemdetails.aspx?TitleProperty=[Title].

• To construct a custom URL based on catalog properties, select Construct a URL format from catalog properties, and then do the following:

• In the Available Fields list, select up to five fields, and then click Add.

  Important

  Fields of site column type Number will not create a valid URL. All items in the catalog must have values for the specified fields. Site navigation will not work as intended for items with missing values.

12. In the Category Page section, do one of the following:

• To have SharePoint Server automatically create a new Category page for your catalog content, click Create a new page, and then select a master page. The page will be added to the Pages library with the name Category-<catalog tagging term set name>. The page will not be published automatically.

• To use a Category page that was already created, select Use an existing page, and then specify the location of the page.

13. In the Item Page section, do one of the following:

• To have SharePoint Server automatically create a new Item page for your catalog content, click Create a new page, and then select a master page. The page will be added to the Pages library with the name CatalogItem-<catalog tagging term set name>. The page will not be published automatically.

• To use an already created Item page, select Use an existing page, and specify the location of this page.

14. Click OK.

If you want to remove the content of a connected catalog from a publishing site, you have to disconnect the publishing site from the catalog.

Also, if you had SharePoint Server automatically create a category page and an item details page for the catalog pages, these will not be deleted from the Pages library when you disconnect from the catalog.

To disconnect a publishing site from a catalog

1. Verify that the user account that completes this procedure is a member of the Owners SharePoint group on the publishing site collection.

2. On the Site Settings page, in the Site Administration section, click Manage catalog connections.

3. On the Manage catalog connections page, a list of connected catalogs appears.

4. On the line that contains the catalog that you want to disconnect, click Disconnect, and then Disconnect to verify that you want to disconnect the catalog.

Blog post: Connect your publishing site to a catalog