The site template requires that the Feature be installed in the farm

I was facing one issue while creating a new site from site template in our customer environment. This site was created in our local environment and I saved it as a template.

Below is the screenshot for the error what customer are facing.

After investigating with this feature id, I found that, there is a hidden feature named “WACustomReports” at site collection label, that need to be deactivated before saving the site as template.

Error Message: The site template requires that the Feature be installed in the farm or site collection. Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.

Resolution is very simple:

Please activate this feature "Web Analytics Customize Reports functionality" on the root site where you are trying to create the site based on this template. Here is the exact name - WACustomReports

OR Here is the command to activate that feature (Any feature which is missing): Enable-SPFEATURE WACustomReports –URL http://sitecollectionURL

But here is the END USER reply that I received from the end user:

“In our environment, we don’t have any access. We are only sharing the templates with instructions. Client is having only Site Collection Admin rights, not central admin rights. That’s why I deactivated this HIDDEN feature from our dev environment. Took a backup and will share with customer today.”

So bottom line: No direct access to do these things which has suggested above.

So what’s the next action plan?

Here is the resolution for this-

- Save the wsp to your desktop

- Renamed it to the .CAB file

- Extract the contents

- You will see four folders underneath ( adminListInstances, adminModules, adminPropertyBags and adminWebTemplate)

- Go for adminWebTemplate

- Go inside the "admin" folder

- You will see "ONET.XML"

- Edit with notepad

- Control F and search for WACustomReports (please refer the following screenshot) to get more clarity

- remove the lines which are for the above feature

- Save the notepad.

- Repackage the files again and save as .WSP

How to repackage it? Here are the steps:

1.   Rename WSP file to CAB and extract all the files

2.   Modify the necessary files

3.   Rebuild the correct directory structure for the solution

4.   Copy the files into that directory structure (in the right place)

5.   Create a DDF file indicating name and location of all files to be in WSP file

6.   Run MakeCab using created DDF file to create cab, and then rename cab to WSP

Reference of MakeCab:

http://ss64.com/nt/makecab.html

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh875545.aspx

- See more at: http://sharepointknowledgebase.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-site-template-requires-that-feature.html#.VEP8jiJ4pD0