Portal Site Connection in SharePoint 2010
The Portal Site Connection functionality is a great way to link disparate Site Collections together from an user interface perspective. As you know Site Collections do not share navigation which can sometime be challenging, especially when we are trying to create a consistent experience for users.
In SharePoint 2007 the Portal Site Connection link was shown at the top left of the navigation as seen below:
2007 Portal Site Connection
But what is the case in SharePoint 2010?
Firstly to add a Portal Site Connection go to ‘Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Portal Site Connection’. The Portal Site Connection link is located under Site Collection Administration so make sure that you have the appropriate permissions.
Then from the screen below enter in an Portal Web Address and a Portal Name:
Portal Configuration Options
Click OK but where is the link? It’s not in the top left corner as it was in SharePoint 2007. Turns out that it is actually linked to the little folder icon next to the Site Actions button. This is actually pretty cool because it will encourage users to use the little folder to navigate which I really like and you can quickly link them to another Site Collection!
Cool the link is in the little folder!
Enjoy!
Category: How To, Planning, Requirements and Analysis
Michal,
Thanks for the info. Do you have any idea why my dropdown is blank? I’ve setup the connect to portal as described, however, it’s always blank. No matter what subsite I am on.
Thanks,
Charles
I noticed too that the listing is blank at the top level of a site collection.
It only seems to show properly at levels below the top site. Any ideas?
Did you ever resolve the issue? Sorry for the awkwardly late reply
How about search center . How can you create a connection for main page/portal from your serach/pages/results.aspx page or may be search center . Thanks
Hey Umar,
The search center uses a different master page so you need to add the relevant controls to display the ribbon before you can see the Portal Site Connection.
Branding guru Randy Drisgill has a great post on how to do this: http://blog.drisgill.com/2010/09/converting-custom-sharepoint-2010.html
It may blank as Publishing sites can’t use the Portal Site connection. They use a different set of SiteMapProviders which don’t honour the Portal Site Connection.
Enterprise Search Center sites are actually publishing sites, so even if you do change the master page to be more like a team site, you may end up with ‘weird’ navigation effects.
(You might get away with it, but for typical publishing sites the navigation would certainly be wrong.)
See http://www.novolocus.com/2011/02/10/portal-site-connection-and-publishing-sites-in-sharepoint-2010/
Nice one thanks for that Andy!