Where is my Rating Feature?

Many of you know new new Rating FEAURE of SharePoint 2010. There are many resources out there to learn about using Rating Feature but here, I would talk about what it takes to make the Rating Feature available to you.

I will not waste time, ALL of following must be TRUE for rating feature to be available for your lists:

1. You must be using SharePoint Server product. According to Compare SharePoint Editions, Rating is NOT available to SharePoint Foundation that comes free with Windows Server 2008.

2. You must have configured User Profile Service in Central Administration.

3. The User Profile Service must be associated with your Web Application

Note: Step 2 and 3 are described here (and many other places, I am sure)

http://dxjo.net/dxit/2011/09/activate-and-enable-rating-in-sharepoint-2010/

4. This is perhaps not documented at many places, but you must NOT have created your site from a Blank site template. If yes, you are out of luck. But wait… there is one last chance, if you started with blank site template and you are okay with enabling Publishing Features at site collection level, you can still make it available! 

DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend and I have not tested the side effects of enabling publishing feature on sites created from blank site template. Personally, I would try to avoid it!

Alternatively, you can just try enabling the hidden rating FEATURE by using following PowerShell command. When I tested following, I was able to enable rating on announcement rating and save my rating, the average rating was also calculated depending upon the scheduled jobs. I did not test further:

Enable-SPFeature 915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3 –URL http://yoururl.com

Also note that SharePoint staples the Rating FEATURE to following Site Templates:

<FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="STS#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="STS#2" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="MPS#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="MPS#1" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="MPS#2" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="MPS#3" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="MPS#4" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="WIKI#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="BLOG#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SGS#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="BDR#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="OFFILE#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="OFFILE#1" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="PWA#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="PWS#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPS#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSMSITE#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSTOC#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSTOPIC#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSNEWS#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSNHOME#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSSITES#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSBWEB#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSCOMMU#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSREPORTCENTER#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSPORTAL#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SRCHCEN#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="PROFILES#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="CMSPUBLISHING#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSPORTAL#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPS#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSREPORTCENTER#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSTOC#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSTOPIC#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSNEWS#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSNHOME#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SPSSITES#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="SRCHCEN#0" />

    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="CMSPUBLISHING#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#0" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#1" />
    <FeatureSiteTemplateAssociation Id="915c240e-a6cc-49b8-8b2c-0bff8b553ed3" TemplateName="BLANKINTERNET#2" />

The Rating FEATURE is hidden and Publishing Feature depends on it and that’s the reason it becomes available to you when you activate Publishing Feature.