Create WebTemplate based on Community features on SharePoint 2013 or Office 365 | José Quinto

Introduction

On this post we will show how to use classical XML Feature provisioning approach to create a WebTemplate using Community Features.

As we already know, Microsoft recommends to use code provisioning approach rather than Feature XML technique in Office 365, even if using WebTemplate element in Office 365 is still 100% supported.

More info…

If you want to read more about provisioning techniques, remote provisioning, etc. you can read:

1. Chris O’Brien post
2. Vesa post

Anyway, if you solution requires to use elements.xml inside Sandboxed solutions, this post will show you how to create a simple Site Template using Community Template as a basis.

Click trough

1. First of all, create Visual Studio project and Add a new Module (or empty element).

2. Create Elements.xml and onet.xml inside the module. A new feature will be created to deploy this module, if isn’t, just create a new site-scoped feature and include this item.

   

   Elements.xml

   Onet.xml

3. With the above code, we can create new Sites using our custom template. Let’s have some considerations about the code:

• WebTemplate file should point to COMMUNITY BaseTemplateName.

  Important: Without #0 ,,, it is added by SharePoint later.

• It is really important to add NavBars element, otherwise we can get this error:

  System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.  
  at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.CommunitySiteFeatureReceiver.CustomizeQuickLaunch(SPWeb web)  
  at Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.CommunitySiteFeatureReceiver.FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)  
  at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature.DoActivationCallout(Boolean fActivate, Boolean fForce)  
  at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFeature.Activate(SPSite siteParent, SPWeb webParent, SPFeaturePropertyCollection props, SPFeatureActivateFlags activateFlags, Boolean fForce)

• When enabling Publishing Features using Community template as a base, the WelcomePageUrl property doesn’t works, as a workaround we can setup with JSOM