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I have the following inside my SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-premises.

  1. Inside the source on-premises, I have a team site collection named PM where I enable the publishing features on the site collection and site level.
  2. Under PM site collection, I created a new team subsite named "Projects", where I kept the publishing site feature disabled.
  3. Then under the "Projects" team sub-site, I created a subsite named "Test" of type team site and I created many custom lists inside it. Then, I saved the Test subsite as a template.
  4. Then under the "Projects" team site, I created many subsites based on the "Test" site template.
  5. Now, I migrated the "PM" site collection using a third party tool to Office 365, where the PM and its subsites were migrated correctly.

But, I have noted that on the migrated subsites, the "Save site as template" option will be missing inside the "Projects" subsite and its subsites. While on the source On-premises's subsites, the "Save site as template" will be available for these subsites since these subsites themselves do not have the Publishing site feature enabled.

Now, to eliminate the possibility that the migration tool caused this problem, I created a brand new site collection inside my office 365, with the exact same structure as my On-premises PM, and it seems, in Office 365, we can not save a subsite as template if its parent root site have the Publishing features enabled...

Is there a way to fix this problem as I need to save the "Test" subsite as template and create new subsites based on this template inside my SharePoint Online sites..

So, can anyone advice on this please?

Side note: I have already enabled custom scripting inside my Office 365, and if I create a new team site collection, and I do not enable the publishing features, then the save site as template option will be presented.

Thanks.

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By default, if you enabled the SharePoint publishing feature in root site, then there is no “save the site as template” option in site settings.

There is a workaround.

You could save the site as template in the site which is enabled SharePoint publishing feature the by accessing the URL below.

https://yourtenantname.sharepoint.com/sites/rootsite/subsite/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx

And make sure you do not activate the “SharePoint Server Publishing” feature in manage site feature in the subsite.

If you activate the “SharePoint Server Publishing” feature in the subsite, you will receive the message” The "Save site as template" action is not supported on this site.” when saving the site as template by the URL above.

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  • thanks for your reply. now you mentioned By default, if you enabled the SharePoint publishing feature in root site, then there is no “save the site as template” option in site settings. but this is the default behavioure inside SP online only, while inside on-premises it is not. second point, about your workaround, so now why did sharepoint hide the "save site as template" option from the site setting? are they trying to give us a message that saving a sub-site as template should be avoided if the sub-site's root site have publishing features enabled ?? or this is not the case..
    – John John
    Jan 12, 2018 at 12:27
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    Sorry for giving your confusion. What I mean is that it is the default behavior in SharePoint online not in SharePoint on premise.
    – Amy_MSFT
    Jan 12, 2018 at 12:37
  • Thanks for your reply.. and what about the second part of my comment? why did sharepoint hide the option to save a site as template from the UI ? is it trying to give us an indication that that saving a sub-site as template in SP-online should be avoided if the sub-site's root site have publishing features enabled ?? or this is not the case..?? thanks
    – John John
    Jan 12, 2018 at 13:50
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    It is just a default behavior. There is no indication behind the behavior.
    – Amy_MSFT
    Jan 12, 2018 at 14:23
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    Yes, there is no harm.
    – Amy_MSFT
    Jan 12, 2018 at 19:43

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