How does Publish Related Item works in Sitecore 8.1 Update 2

Question

We found that publishing a sub Item with Publish related item published the Home Node.How can this happen ?

Note;- the Published user doesn't have access to the Home node,even then the Home node got Published .

Answer 1

In Sitecore when you publish an item through the Publish item dialog, you will find several options. You can choose between Smart publish or Republish, you can also choose whether to Publish subitems or not and there is also an option of Publish related items

As the name indicates Publish subitems will publish all the subitems including all sub-level of the currently selected item for the publish.

As the name indicates Publish related items will publish all the related items of the currently selected item for the publish, but with this statement, it is not clear what are the related items. actually if "Publish related items" checked then the <getItemReferences> pipeline will be executed to get all the related items to add in publishing queue. It includes -

• Clone references using AddItemCloneReferences processor - it includes all the clone items of the item which are publishing
• Media references using AddFileDropAreaMediaReferences and AddItemLinkReferences(use for both media and content items) processor – it includes media items that are related to the published item.
• Alias references using AddItemAliasReferences processor– items that are aliases of the selected item.
• Linked Items using AddItemLinkReferences processor - Items are that has referce of published items

The important thing here is that Sitecore use Link database base for related publishing so if your link database is not rebuilt properly or not up to date then this feature will not work properly. Also, related items of related items will not be published.

In your case, I guess home Item reference of publishing item so when you check the Publish related items checkbox it published with one of the publishing items. Please make check the reference if any or try to rebuild the Link database if you don't find any reference.