Device channels in SharePoint 2013

Introduction

Now a days we all using mobile phones to browse things. To render the SharePoint site easily to smart phone and devices, we need a help from Device channels. We can use multiple design for multiple devices. Here i an going to give an idea about Device Channel usage in SharePoint.

Device Channels

It is the part of publishing infrastructure feature in SharePoint. That enables you to render site content, style, images (with same URL) in different devices. HTTP GET  request will send when we accessing the SharePoint site from Smartphones and other devices. This HTTP GET request includes user agent string. This string is having type of device. The device browser will redirect to specific master page based on device substring. For example, if you have a collection of Windows Phone and iPad devices, you can provide each pool with a unique rendering of the SharePoint publishing site by using device channels. Each device channels can be given a different master page and  CSS file to give users a more optimal viewing experience.

Create Device Channel

Here is the steps to create device channel

• Site Settings --> Look and Feel --> Design Manager
• Click Create Channel
• Give required fields like Name, Alias, Device inclusion rules
• Device Inclusion Rules contains substring of devices like iPhone, iPad, Android

• We will get master page selection page when channel has been created
• We can choose the master page for our device

Device Channel will be ordered and listed after the creation. It supports upto 10 devices per site in SharePoint 2013.

Publishing Site in SharePoint 2013

Introduction

In SharePoint 2013, We have one of the site template called Publishing Site. An unique feature of this feature is, authoring, approving and publishing processes. The Lists, Library and webparts of this features has created automatically when we create the site.

Create a Publishing Portal

This portal is top level of site collection. Follow the below steps to create publishing portal

• Central Administration --> Application Management --> Create Site Collection

• Choose your web application. Enter the title and description of the site collection. Then, Choose Publishing Portal site template at Publishing tab in Template selection

• Then give Primary and Secondary Site Collection Administrator. Select the Quota Template for storage.
• Click OK

Publishing Sub-Site

This site will be a sub site of Publishing enabled site collection. The publishing feature will enable automatically while you create under this site collection. Here is the steps to create a publishing sub-site

• Site Contents of the site collection. And click new Subsite
•  Give the title, description and URL to the subsite
• Template selection will show only publishing category site templates. Choose one among them

• Then give permission level 
• Click Create
• The content will not visible to the reader without publish it

Publishing site with approval workflow

The content approval by Admin and Stake holders will enable automatically to this site template.What makes the publishing approval workflow unique is that it’s designed specifically for publishing sites where the publishing of new and updated web pages is tightly controlled. In these kinds of sites, no new content can be published until it has been approved by every approver in the workflow.