What Subsite?

A subsite is a single SharePoint site within a site collection. A subsite can inherit permissions and navigation structure from its parent site or these can be specified and managed independently. Creation of subsites can be delegated to users of a site collection, but creation of site collections must be performed by a service administrator.

Typically within an organization you will create additional site templates over time. These are often built based on the out of the box site templates. What follows is an outline of each of the out of the box site templates and when I think they should be used.

Site Template

Category

When should you use it?

Team Site

Collaboration

A site that automatically creates a shared documents library, site pages library, an announcements list, a calendar, a task list, and a team discussion list. The most popular template for unstructured or semi structured collaboration sites and excellent for getting people started quickly. However you should be cautious choosing this site when you need page management or publishing features as it would be better to provision a publishing site and then the lists/libraries necessary as it ensures only one pages library will exist (versus two if the feature is activated after on this site).

Blog

Collaboration

An excellent site for housing news articles, lengthier

announcements, a personal blog, or even a team blog.

Project Site

Collaboration

This site template is used for managing and collaborating on a project. Project site coordinates project status and all additional information relevant to the project.

Community Site

Collaboration

A site where the community members can explore, discover content and discuss common topics. This site revolves around discussion topics and acts like a forum.

Document Center

Enterprise

When you use the template, the resulting site is optimized for creating, using, and storing large numbers of documents. A Document Center site provides features for creating and managing large sets of documents. The Document Center site template has the recommended document management features enabled by default.

The features it enabled by default are:

Document ID Service Metadata Navigation and Filtering Default Webparts (Newest Documents, Modified

By Me, and Highest Rated Documents)

This site is used to manage, search and export content for investigations matters. While it can also help teams

eDiscovery Center Enterprise collaborate during the investigation and keep track of cases, its focus should be on the eDiscovery capabilities/coordination opportunity it provides.

Records Center

Enterprise

This site is used to submit and find important documents that should be stored for long-term archival.

This site should only be used when creating a read only based archive or ‘records repository’ which will route incoming files to specific locations within the site. Sometimes multiple record center sites are necessary depending on the file plan, and disposition policies being enforced within your organization, however just like multiple search centers it should be avoided when possible.

Enterprise Search Center

Enterprise

When you need a search site with multiple pages for results, searches, advanced searches, and easy navigation between those search pages.

Basic Search Center

Enterprise

Only use this site template when the enterprise search center is unavailable. Note: You should only have one search center site unless you have very specific search needs. (As the search webparts can live on other pages, but the search center represents a central search area.)

When you have a strong need for managed pages, distributed publishing of page content, and more pages

Publishing Site

Publishing

based content management needs this is a good template to use. It provisions a site that has the publishing features already activated and simplifies the number of libraries/lists so that by default only basic ones are enabled (which publishing relies upon). Using advanced page management features like page layouts requires that publishing be activated, so if you are planning on using consistent page layouts, or many page layouts this is probably a good template to start with versus the less structured team site templates.

Publishing Site with Workflow

Publishing

Whenever any site is created using the ‘Publishing Site With Workflow’ template it will have the ‘approval’ workflow activated. You would create one for the same reason you would create a publishing site, except in this one you want a much more rigorous publishing process. This allows for page scheduling, due dates, and more. It requires a minimum of 6 clicks to publish a page for a user.

Enterprise Wiki

Publishing

A site specifically designed to simplify the process for creating and provisioning a new wiki. The most common starting wiki for organizations is an “Acronym Wiki” which houses many key acronyms for the organization and references the acronyms meaning, usage, useful policies, procedures, teams, contacts, and more within the organization.