Cross Site Collection Term Set Access in SharePoint 2013

In this article you will see how to provide access to the local term set so that it can be used by other site collections in SharePoint 2013.

What is local term set?

Term sets that are specific to the site collection are called Local Term Sets. These local term sets can be used only within the site collection and the subsequent sub sites. Local Term Sets will be stored in the Term store. In SharePoint 2010 local term sets cannot be accessed by any other site collections. Navigate to the SharePoint 2010 site collection and click on "Site Actions". Then click on "Site Settings". Then click on "Term Store Management" that is available under Site Administration.



Figure 1: Term store management

You will then be able to see the site collection specific term sets or local term sets and global term sets. Click on the local term set on the right hand side; you will be able to see the properties. In SharePoint 2010 there is no option to give access to any other site collection.



Figure 2: Term set properties

Cross site collection term set access in SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint 2013, local term sets can be exposed to other site collections. This is one of the improvements in SharePoint 2013. I have created a local term set in one of the site collections, http://c4968397007. Navigate to the site collection http://c4968397007. Click on "Site Settings".



Figure 3: Site Settings

Click on "Term store management" that is available under Site Administration.



Figure 4: Term store management

You can find the local term set specific to this site collection as shown in Figure 5.



Figure 5: Site collection specific term set

Click on the local term set on the right hand side; you will be able to see the term set properties. In SharePoint 2013 you can find a new option called "Site Collection Access".



Figure 6: Term set properties

You need to enter the URLs of site collections that will have read-only access to the contents of the local term sets. I have entered the following URLs:

• http://c4968397007/sites/Vijai/
• http://c4968397007/sites/Anand/
• http://c4968397007:25962/sites/Vijai

All the above site collections will have read access to the "Site Collection - c4968397007" term set.

Navigate to the Site Collection "http://c4968397007:25962/sites/Vijai". Click on "Site Settings". Click on "Term store management" that is available under Site Administration. You can find the "Site Collection - c4968397007" term set that will have read-only access as shown in Figure 7.



Figure 7: Term set

Summary

Thus in this article you have seen one of the improvement for site collection specific term sets in SharePoint 2013.