Missing save site as template in SharePoint

Before you decide to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing feature or Community Site feature for a team site you should first be aware of the following:

1. Once the publishing feature is activated the ‘Save site as a template‘ option will be unavailable below Site Action.
2. Deactivate publishing features will not show back the ‘Save site as a template‘ option.
3. You’ll not be able to ‘Save site as a template‘ by any means.
4. Any workaround on the internet to ‘Save site as a template‘ from Publishing Site or from a site that has ever had publishing features enabled is unsupported and often doesn’t work.

let’s summarize the above points:

1. The publishing site can’t be saved as a template.
2. The enterprise wiki site can’t be saved as a template.
3. The team site with Publishing feature enabled can’t be saved as a template.
4. The site with Community Site feature can’t be saved as a template.
5. The site that has ever had Publishing or Community Site features enabled can’t be saved as a template.

Some articles suggest a walkthrough to overcome this issue!, I’m here to advise you to don’t waste your time in trying that, it doesn’t work and I’ll prove to you.

• Set SaveSiteAsTemplateEnabled to true for your publishing site via PowerShell as the following:

• Navigate to http://yoursite/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx 
• The ‘Save site as a template‘ should be opened.

• Provide the file name and template name then click on save. it will be saved properly!
• Now create a new site from this template.

• It’ll start working on it. then it’ll fail with Cannot complete this action. Please try again.
• As you can see it’s not worked, you shouldn’t trust any workaround for this issue.

Now come the time of this question “What would I need to do?”

• You should first decide which site template you need to use based on your requirements and if you want to be able to save site as template with publishing feature enabled you should plan from beginning to do the following:
  • Create your team site.
  • Finalize all customization that you need in your site without enablingpublishing feature.
  • Save the site as a template and consider it as the Master template.
  • You can now create sites from this Master template as you need. Meanwhile, you can enable the publishing features on these sites that already created from the Master template.
  • In a case of you need to add more customization to your Master Template, you should create a site created from Master Template then save it again as a new Master Template version.
• In a case of you already activated the publishing feature and you need to save site as a template, you should move your customization manual to a site that not has publishing feature enabled before.

Enjoy 🙂