One of my favorite new features in SharePoint 2010 is content type syndication. Content types can be defined in one central site collection and then published anywhere across the enterprise. We’ve seen many organizations start with SharePoint content types but run up against complexity when they need to add multiple site collections and need to manually synchronize their custom content types among multiple logical collections. With content syndication you need only define a custom type and custom columns once – and a timer service job publishes them.
I’ve already written elsewhere about some of the pitfalls for syndication – e.g. the hub and subscribers need to agree on whether or not the Document ID feature is on or off. Here are two other things to check in case your content types aren’t syndicating. (These aren’t in the book!)
Managed Metadata Service Application Proxy Connection
In Central Admin, SharePoint Service Applications all come with a subsequent “connection” application. (Each proxy connection sits right below its “parent” on the Service App list in Central Admin.) By default, the one for the Managed Metadata Service is called (surprise!) the Managed Metadata Service Connection. If you edit the properties of the Connection, you should see a dialog like the one below. Make sure that the box for “Consumes content types form the Content Type Gallery at http://yourhubsitecollection” is checked.
Content Type Hub Configuration
You might think that using the blank site template is a logical place to start when creating a content type hub. It’s not. Content type syndication requires a feature that gets automatically activated when you use the Team site template. It’s not included by default for the “Blank Site” template. You can use a command line to activate the feature by GUID, but it most cases, it’s simpler and faster to use the Team Site for your Content Type Hub.
Just in case, here’s the syntax to activate the necessary Taxonomy feature on a hub created with the blank site template:
STSADM -o activatefeature -id 73EF14B1-13A9-416b-A9B5-ECECA2B0604C -url http://<server> -force
And remember, the hub and all subscribing site collections need to agree on whether or not the document ID feature is enabled or disabled.
Good luck!
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