Shared content allows you to replicate pages. You can share listing pages or an individual page. A specific page can be shared to different sections of your site, or across subsites. For example, you may have an event on your subsite that you want to also display on your public site.
Sharing pages uses a designated page as the source page. Any changes made to the original shared page will be mirrored on duplicates you have created. This article discusses how to create replica pages; if you're looking for instructions on sharing content snippets, check out Using the Content Selector.
There are 2 ways to share pages:
- Sharing content types through Site Management or,
- Sharing single pages in the same site or across multiple sites
The video below will detail both:
How to share all pages of a content type across sites
This task can be undertaken by users with the following roles: OC Site Manager and OC System Administrator.
Through the Site Management settings, you are able to share listings of a content type from one site to another. Let's take the following use case: You have a theater site with many OC Event pages. You'd like all OC Event pages created in the theater site to display on your public site's event listing. You'd also like to reduce the points of editing and avoid creating 2 pages on both sites. To achieve this scenario, you can share the content type by following these steps:
- Firstly, ensure that the module you wish to share is available on both sites. You will need to install the module if it is not available. Eg: to share OC Event pages, make sure the Events module is installed on the public site and the theater subsite.
- Go to the site settings for the site you want to display the listings on. For this example, it is the public site. From the main menu of your public site, go to More > Site Management > Public site > Settings.
- Click on the content type icon that you would like to share. For this example, click on Event.
Note: this option is only available with certain modules, these are outlined below. - Expand the Show events from other sites accordion menu.
To show events from other sites on the events listing page of the public site, check the subsite under On Events listing. For this example, you would check 'Theatre'. - To also show events on the homepage listing, check the site under On Homepage Events listing.
- Save your changes.
- Check your Events listing to ensure that events from the subsite are being shared across to the public site.
The shared events will only display on the listing page for the content type being shared, not in any navigation menus, and the original page itself will still be hosted in the subsite. When you click on the event, you'll be taken to the event on the subsite and will have left the public site. This is an important consideration to keep in mind if you want your community to stay on the site as they're browsing. If keeping site visitors on the same site is a requirement, use the Share Page option to share pages individually.
Please note that because the page is hosted in the subsite, the styling of the public site's theme will not be applied to it.
Additionally, sharing entire content types is only possible with the following modules:
- A-Z Directory
- Community Engagement - premium
- Departments
- Documents
- Events
- Initiatives
- Jobs
- Lost Animals
- News Articles
- Parks
- Public Notices
- Venues
- Projects
How to share single pages in the same site or across multiple sites
Sometimes, a page needs to be displayed in different areas of a site, or across different sites. For example, you'd like to present an OC Venue page in both your public site and your theater subsite. You'd also like to reduce the points of editing and avoid updating 2 pages with the exact same content. Sharing a single page makes this possible. The process involves creating and sharing a source page following these steps:
- Right-click on the page that you want to share.
- Select Share Page. If Unshare Page is displayed in this menu, your page is already being shared.
- Once your source page has been shared, right-click in the site tree where you want to recreate it. If you are sharing pages across different sites, change to the admin area of the other site by selecting the site from the Site Selection dropdown in the main menu.
Note: to share pages across sites, you will need to be a user for both sites.
- Select Create, and the regular content type selection menu will display.
- Instead of selecting a content type, start typing the Page name which determines the URL path of the original shared page into the search bar. The path of the original shared page will appear. In the example below, the Central Park Pavilion venue page has been shared, so it is available in the content type selection menu.
- Click on the page you wish to share to create a duplicate version of in the new location. The page name and template will be editable, but as the rest of the content is sourced from the original page, you will be unable to edit it on this new page.
- Publish your page, and the page will appear in this new position and will update simultaneously when updates are made to the original page.
This option allows you to have share pages and has the following advantages:
- You can share pages across sites. When you click on the page in either site, you'll stay on the site.
- It allows a page to appear in multiple sections of the same site.
- It appears in the navigations menus of these sections.
- Any changes made to the original shared page will also appear on the duplicate.
If you want to prevent both pages from appearing in search results, go to the Settings tab of the duplicate page and check the Hide this page from search box. In the same way, you can also hide the page from navigation or external search engines. This only applies to sharing pages on one site.
Please note that an OC Landing Page cannot be shared, as any child page links and content will not be maintained on a different site. We recommend using an OC Redirect Page to link to the original landing page instead.