Self-Service Site Collection in SharePoint 2013/2016

SharePoint Self-Service Site Creation is a feature which is enabled by administrators and allows users to create their own top-level Web site. Microsoft has introduced the “Self-Service Site Collection” feature from SharePoint 2010 onwards.

In this SharePoint 2013 tutorial, I would like to discuss about few important aspects:

• What is the “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint?
• How does “Self-Service Site Collection” helps the users in SharePoint?
• How to enable “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint 2013/2016?

SharePoint Self-Service Site Collection

In a SharePoint site, admin group members can create their own subsites, lists, libraries and also they can manage permissions as per the business needs.

Self-Service Site Creation is a feature which is enabled by administrators and allows users to create their own top-level Web site. User does not need administrator permissions on the web application server / virtual server, once this feature is enabled by FARM administrator any user part of the site can create the top level site collection.

Advantages of Self-Service Site Collection

As we all know SharePoint is meant for collaboration and document management with high security to data. In bigger business units sometimes the user has to create a separate high-level site to collaborate with all the other business units and clients. It will be helpful to the user to create an individual top-level site without approaching an administrator.

How to enable “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint 2013/2016?

Since this can have to be enabled in central administration, only FARM administrator can do this. Follow the below steps to enable this feature:

Log – on to the SharePoint application server with a FARM admin account. Open SharePoint Central Administration, (Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> SharePoint 2013 Central Administration).

Approach 1:
Activating feature from ribbon control

Approach 2:
Configuring from Application Management. From SharePoint 2013 central administration, click on Application Management, then click on Configure self-service site creation.

Once you configure / enable this feature any user from that site collection can create site collection using:

<<site collection URL>>_/layouts/15/scsignup.aspx
Ex: http://sharepoint13:12345_/layouts/15/scsignup.aspx

Creating site collection using non-admin user in SharePoint 2013/2016

Once it is configured, non admin users can create site collection in SharePoint 2013/2016.

You can see that it is not a sub site:

Now if we log on to central admin we can see this as site collection under http://sharepoint13:12345 web application.

You may like following SharePoint 2013 tutorials

• Extending Web Applications in SharePoint 2013
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• Delete Hidden Web Application in SharePoint 2013 using PowerShell
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• Retrieve all web application names from SharePoint farm using the server object model in SharePoint 2016
• Comparing a Web Application and Site Collection limits in SharePoint 2016 with SharePoint 2013 2010 2007
• Get content database sizes for all web applications in a SharePoint farm using PowerShell
• Change site collection title, description, logo, and site collection administrator in SharePoint
• Copy list items from one site collection to another programmatically using CSOM in SharePoint Online
• 3 Different ways to Change Site Collection URL in SharePoint 2013/2016 using PowerShell
• Self-Service Site Collection in SharePoint 2013
• Create Site Collection in SharePoint online using PowerShell

Hope this SharePoint 2013 tutorial explains, what is self service site creation in SharePoint 2013/2016? How we can enable self service site creation SharePoint 2013/2016.