show site collections where the user has access

Question

I just wanted to ask if there is an specific way with a OOTB webpart to show site collections where the user has access to?

We have many applications in a web application under /sites/ path. We would like to create a site collection on the root as the APP HUB or APP Center where users can see what they have access to.

Some users might have access to one app, some to 3 or 4. Is this possible to do with content search webpart for example? and how?

Answer 1

The content search web part is a great answer to this for two reasons:

1. The content search web part honors user permissions
2. The content search web part is one of very few OOTB that returns results across site collections like those under your /sites/ path

Keep in mind two important limitations of the Content Search Web Part:

1. It's only available with the Enterprise License of SharePoint Server 2012
2. The results are partly delayed, depending on the search engine to add the site collections to the search index

For more detail I recommend the following blog posts by SharePoint specialists:

1. Rollup my SharePoint Sub Sites using Search
2. Content Query Web Part vs. Content Search Web Part