1. Overview
The variations feature in SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online makes content available to specific audiences on different sites by syncing content from a source variation site to each target variation site. When users visit the root site, they are redirected to the appropriate variation site, based on the language setting of their web browser. Content on a target variation site can be translated into other languages before it is published. Variations can be used only on sites that are created by using one of the Publishing site templates, or on sites for which the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature was activated.
By default, the variations feature copies only the site structure and publishing pages from the Pages library of the source variation.
When users navigate to the Variation Root Site, they are redirected to the appropriate top site of a variation label, based on the language setting of their Web browser. For example, if a user's default browser language is French, SharePoint Server 2013 redirects that user to the top site of the French variation label.
It is possible to customize this behavior by replacing or updating the redirection page responsible for the routing with a different page. This new page can implement custom logic to redirect the user based on other criteria (e.g. information from the User-Agent string).
2. Terminology
1. Variation Root Site:
• Each site collection can have a maximum of one hierarchical structure, which supports variations. Each variation label defines the top site of a sub-tree of this hierarchy. The site, which contains the different site structures (e.g. one structure for English and one for German) of the different variation labels, is the variation root site.
• As only one hierarchical structure supporting variations can exist in a site collection it also means that there can only be one variation root per site collection.
• The variation root site can be a site at any level in a site collection, including the top-level site. It is not possible to change the variation root site after the variation hierarchy has been created.
2. Variations hierarchy
• The variations hierarchy is the complete set of sites in all variation labels.
3. Variation Labels
• Variation labels are the names given to each of the variants. For example, variant labels could be language names - such as English, French, or German etc.
• The flexibility is endless as the Variation system allows customers to define a custom routing logic to decide to which label to redirect a user who browses the site .
Note: SharePoint Server 2013 supports up to 209 variation labels. SharePoint Online supports up to 50 variation labels.
There are two different types of variation labels:
• Source Variation Label: The source variation label holds the sites where content is authored, published, and later pushed to the target labels. There can be only one source variation label per variation hierarchy. After a source variation label has been defined and its hierarchy has been created, it cannot be changed.
• Target Variation Label: The target variation labels receive most or all of their content from the source variation label. Although new content can be created on a target label that content is not shared with other labels and is unique to the label in which it was created.
4. Variation Top Site
• The Variation Top site is the root or upper most site in a variation label. All Variation Top sites in a hierarchy are direct children of the Variation Root site and define the root of the hierarchy within a variation label.
5. Variation Pages
• Variation pages are the publishing pages that are stored in the Pages library of the source variation sites and the target variation sites. These pages and any dependent resources such as images and documents are the only content that is copied from the source label to the target labels.
Important: Storing non-publishing pages inside the Pages library of a site is unsupported! Non-publishing pages inside the Pages library of a site in the source label can cause the Variations Create Hierarchies Job Definition timer job to fail.
6. Relationships List
• The variation system needs to keep track about peer sites and pages to ensure that updates performed in the source label are correctly transferred to the target label.
• This tracking information is stored in the Relationships List. Each page or site in the variation hierarchy is represented in the relationships list as a separate list item: the Relationships List Entry.
3. Variation settings
1. Site, List, and Page Creation Behavior: Determines whether sites and pages on the source variation site are created automatically on the target variation sites. By default, this option is enabled.
If you disable this option, sites and pages that are created on the source variation site are not automatically variates to the target. You have to create the site and page variants manually using UI actions provided by the variation system.
2. Recreate Deleted Target Page: Determines whether a page should be re-created on a target variation site if the page was deleted from the target variation site, and the page on the source variation site has been republished. By default, this option is enabled. If you disable this option, deleted pages are not recreated on target variation sites.
3. Update Target Page Web Parts: Determines whether changes made to Web Parts on pages on a source variation site are also made on pages on target variation sites. By default, this option is enabled.
4. Notification: Sends e-mail to the contact of the welcome page of a target variation site when a new page or site is created or to the contact person of the specified page when a page is updated. By default, this option is enabled.
4. Variation Labels page
Similar to the Variation Settings the configuration option for the Variation Labels is available in the Site Collection Administration section of the site settings page.
Using the variation labels page it is possible to create new variation labels, to edit or delete existing variation labels and to initiate the creation of the variation hierarchy for the defined variation labels.
Once we have created label we need to create site hierarchy so that timer job picks the site hierarchy and creates the site corresponding to that label.
5. Variations timer jobs
The Variations feature uses specific SharePoint timer jobs to perform tasks such as creating and propagating sites and pages. The Variation Timer jobs are bound to each web application which contains (or contained in the past) a site collection which has the publishing feature enabled.
You can change the Schedule for each job on the Job Definitions page on the Central Administration Web site. The following timer jobs are used to with Variations:
1. Variations Create Hierarchies Job Definition: Creates a complete variations hierarchy by creating all variation sites, lists, and pages from the source variation site, based on the variation labels. By default, this timer job runs hourly.
2. Variations Propagate List Items Job Definition: Creates and updates list items on target variation sites after a list is configured to send items to specific target variation labels. By default, this timer job runs every 15 minutes.
3. Variations Propagate Page Job Definition: Creates and updates pages on target variation sites after a page on the source variation site is approved or after it is manually submitted by a user. By default, this timer job runs every 15 minutes.
4. Variations Propagate Sites and Lists Job Definition: Creates variation sites and lists when the Create Everywhere option is enabled. By default, this timer job runs every 30 minutes.
6. Setup and configuration for variations site
Variations can be used only on sites that are created by using one of the Publishing site templates, or on sites with SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature activated. The first step is to create a Site Collection using Publishing Site template.
1. Configure variation settings: On Variation setting page, Site, List and Page Creation behavior setting provides control over content synchronization from source to target labels. Create everywhere is selected by default, this means any content created in source label will propagate to all target variations. There are few other self-explanatory settings like Recreate Deleted Target Page, Update Target Page Web Part and Notification, which can be changed if needed, otherwise leave all settings to default and click OK.
2. Variation Labels: Next step is to create Variation Labels. SharePoint 2013 will assign first created label as Source label.
• When creating Variation Label, Language setting determines the language of the user interface on the variation site.• The locale setting assists with browser redirection and regional settings such as Sort order and Calendar. It does not affect the language of the user interface.
• Not to be confused between Language and Locale settings, even if language packs are not installed, Variation Labels for different locale can still be created and content can be translated into different languages. Language packs will only affect SharePoint user interface for content authors and admins.
Now that source label is created, next step is to create first target label. This time SharePoint will present a wizard like interface which is new to SharePoint 2013 and much easier to navigate!
3. Configure your target label: On this tab Site Template Language will show the list of installed language pack to select. However this is only required for Site Settings UI. Select locale for target variation.
4. Name your Target Label: This will show a default label name for variation label that can be changed from this interface. Under Hierarchy Creation, default selected option is "Publishing Sites, Lists with Variations and All Pages", this option will build the label structure and sync all the content from Source Label.
5. Translation Options: On this tab there are options to enable Human and Machine Translation. In this case Let us select "Allow Human and Machine translation" and selected target languages. SharePoint 2013 provides industry standard support for manual and automated translation.
6. Target Label Behavior: Page update behavior is useful when target variation owners do not want to get content updates automatically pushed from source label to target label. A scenario would be, after source label has pushed content for the first time and target content authors have translated/localized the content, then later if source label has changed, the target content authors may not want the content to sync automatically.
7. Review Label Settings: There are few settings which cannot be changed once label is created, so make sure to review the settings and click OK. This will create the label but Hierarchy is still not created.
8. Creating Hierarchy: Creating Hierarchy is required first time when a new label is created. It is not required to create all labels to start with; labels can also be created in later stages. Sometimes hierarchy creation can take longer based on schedule on Timer jobs and also the amount of content and site structure on source variation.Once labels are created next step is to click on Create Hierarchy on "Variation Labels screen" and wait for Variations Create Hierarchy Timer Job to run. This will copy the content from source label to target labels for the first time.
NOTE: During the hierarchy creation several timer jobs run. All the logs related to this process are located under Variation logs. They provide great deal of details and are very useful in troubleshooting Hierarchy creation or Page propagation issues.
Variation logs are located under root site settings.
7. Limitations of Variations
• Variations feature is a single-tier hierarchy.
• Content syncing is unidirectional
8. References:
•http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ff628966.aspx
•http://blogs.technet.com/b/sharepoint_quick_reads/archive/2013/08/12/sharepoint-2013-variations-creating-site-and-variation-labels.aspx
•http://office.microsoft.com/en-in/sharepoint-server-help/about-source-variations-HA010121299.aspx
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