When you create a new site in Site Administration, it must be based on a site category. Site categories provide a set of metadata about the type of site you are creating. Site categories also provide a list of the configurable elements that can be used when creating new sites. When you set the values for these configurable elements, you create a site configuration. Because one site category can be configured to have many different values, it may have many associated site configurations.

It is important to work with the site developers to identify any configurable properties that should be available for site categories. When the site developers are creating and deploying the Web application, they define specific functionality as being configurable. They define the configuration and available values for the functionally, and group these configurations into the site category. When you create a site category, you can provide the information or select the values for these configurations.

Site categories are comprised of an ID, a name, a description and an Item Mapping name. The Item Mapping name is created by the site developer and provides user interface mapping information for the site category. For additional information on view mapping and site category configuration, refer to Creating Site Categories section.