Creating top-level (welcome page) redirects in SharePoint sites
Scenario: You have several SharePoint web-applications (only only site collections). Whenever a user opens one of those using just an entry-URL (such as https://intranet) you want to redirect him/her to another site collection (not necessarily in the same web-application - for example to https://intranet/my .
This can be achieved in various was:
- Create a HttpHandler
- If using the Publishing Feature: Create a page derived from "Redirect Page"
- ...
All of the above have some disadvantages: Either you have to write code, create custom configurations or - in the case of the "Redirect Page", there is a delay that is visible to the user.
I found a very easy way to create a "direct" redirect that requires no code and just uses SharePoint standard functionality.
- Go to the web you want to create the redirect.
- If it is a publishing web, go to the "Pages" library, otherwise, you can use any other library that is of type "Document Library"
- Go to the "List Settings"
- Ensure that under "Advanced Settings" "Allow management of content types" is set to "yes"
- In the "Content Types" section click on "Add from existing site content types"
- Add the "Link to a Document" content type
- Your content types lis should now include the "Link to a Documet" content type:
- Back on the list with its items, create a new item of type "Link to Document":
- Don't forget to publish your link if you have a publishing/approval process setup for your library!
- Now go to the "Site Settings" of your web and choose in "Look'n'Feel" section "Welcome Page":
- Enter your link as the welcome page of this web.
Now whenever your users will open the web without specifiying a specific page the "Welcome Page" (in german it is called more accurately (and so much german) "Homepage" ;)) comes into play, goes to your link and the link redirects directly to the page the page/document you want.
Cheers!!
SOURAV
