“Publishing Portal” vs a “Publishing Site with Workflows”

Question

I am creating a new site and the business hasn't requested anything specific for publishing with workflow needs, so at the moment the default top level site is a Team Site.

What is the best practice going forward to safeguard myself against the potential need for publishing with workflow needs for the future? Should I create all subsites as from the "Publishing with workflows" template or can existing sites be modified to include that functionality?

What is the major difference between Publishing with Workflows as opposed to a Sharepoint Publising portal type? I have read comparisons of both but still don't understand the pros and cons, so would like to hear from anybody with personal experience of these scenarios?

Answer 1

As with any template the difference is in the activated features. In order to best prepare yourself for future needs of the business I would use the teamsite template and then activate the publishing infrastructure. After that activate the publishing feature at the site levels where you will need them.

This ensures that you have the workflow, managed metadata, lists, libraries etc that the business needs, but they will still be able to have the functionality that comes with a publishing portal.