SharePoint 2010 Feature Scopes & Activation

Depending on the Feature Scope, we need to activate it from different locations.



Feature Activation Matrix

The following is the Feature Scope & Activation locations.

Scope	Location
Site	"SharePoint Site" > "Site Actions" > "Site Settings" > "Manage Site Features"
Site Collection	"SharePoint Site" > "Site Actions" > "Site Settings" > "Site Collection Features"
Web Application	"Central Administration" > "Manage Web Applications" > "Manage Features"
Farm	"Central Administration" > "Manage Farm Features"

Feature Scopes

As you know we have 4 types of scope:

1. Site (web site)
2. Site Collection
3. Web Application
4. Farm

To view it, open your project in Visual Studio & double-click on the Features item from Solution Explorer.



After deploying the solution, you can Activate/Deactivate a feature from the corresponding page.



For activating the Site Scoped feature, open the SharePoint site & go to "Site Actions" > "Site Settings" > "Manage Site Features" page.



You can activate or deactivate a corresponding feature.

For activating Site Collection scoped feature, open the SharePoint site collection top-level site & go to "Site Actions" > "Site Settings" > "Site Collection Features" page.



For activating the Farm Scoped feature, open "Central Administraiton" > "Manage Farm Features" page.



For activating the Web Application Scoped feature, open "Central Administraiton" > "Manage Web Applications" page and then select "Web application", "Manage Features" from the Toolbar.



Note: You can also activate features using PowerShell. For more information on Feature Scope & Items, see the References section.

References

http://bit.ly/YMyINQ

Summary

In this article we have explored the Feature Activation locations based on the scope.