At MetaVis we are always asked for new and better ways to copy and move content. Here is a cool technique to copy SharePoint list with dependent content types to different site collections. We know this task may seem simple considering there are tools on the market (like
MetaVis Migrator) that let users grab a list and drag it and drop to the other site collection while performing some copy magic behind the scenes. Before doing the drag and drop, there are things to think about -- the list may have content types defined in the parent site, not in the same site where the list is defined.
Consider two sites: root site of the site collection (Publishing Portal on Cars in this case) and its sub-site (Mark's Site). The parent site Publishing Portal contains definitions for content types such as vehicle make. Sub-site Mark's Site contains the list itself with all content types, views and content. We want to take a Repair Manuals list and copy/paste or drag-n-drop it to some other sub-site of some other site collection.
If we do just that then the list will be created in our destination sub-site and all content types (that were before in the root site of the site collection) will be now created in the same destination sib-site. This is not ideal because someone created these Vehicle-based content types in the site collection root with the purpose to reuse it in different sub-sites of the same site collection. It would be nice to preserve this architecture in the destination site collection as well.
To do this we need to copy this list twice. First time, copy it to the root site of the destination site collection even if it ultimately should not go there. This time do not copy content, do not copy permissions, workflows or views related to the list. Just copy the list itself and all dependent content types. This way, all content types and fields will be automatically created together with the list in the right spot of the destination site collection. These content types and fields may be reused later on by other sites of this site collection.
When using MetaVis Migrator, there are options to copy just list with no content and other attributes. This makes the task easy. After, delete the list from the root site of the destination site collection. All content types created in the root site will still be there because they are defined outside of the list.
As a last step, copy the same list again but this time - to the right sub-site of the destination site collection. It will create the list and reuse all content types from the root site created during the previous copy. This time, select all options for copy content, permissions and views on the copy list wizard screen.
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