Summary about Modern Team Sites, Communication Sites & Hub Sites

Modern Team Sites, Communication Sites & Hub Sites

Modern Team Sites, Communication Sites & Hub Sites are available in SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2019. A modern Site is created from the SharePoint Home App:

Common Stuff

In modern Sites we have a bunch of new Webparts:

Complete list and details: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/using-web-parts-on-sharepoint-online-pages-336e8e92-3e2d-4298-ae01-d404bbe751e0

One of the initial questions is about using a modern Team Site or a Communication Site. At the end it all about the focus of the site and the question about the usecase for this site. Susan Hanley provides a brilliant overview and matrix to find out what is best for your scenario:

Provided by Susan Hanley: Source and further details: https://storage.snappages.site/op8ir2nu2f/assets/files/Team-Site-vs.-Communication-Site-What-sh-69.pdf

In addition, Mark Kashman also provides a good overview picture about modern Team Site and Communication Site:

Modern Team Site

About Modern Team Site:

• Focus: Connect, Collaborate, Create
• Connected to O365 Groups: Creates group email address
• Privacy settings: Private by default and can be changed to public

• Name and email address a validated at this time
• Naming Policies and lifecycle policies are applied at this time
• Further details about lifecycle policies: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/groups-lifecycle
• Further details about naming policies: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/users-groups-roles/groups-naming-policy
• Privacy settings are applied here.
• Site classification is no out-of-the-box feature but can be configured based on Azure AD Premium. Further details about Site Classification for SharePoint Sites: http://www.sharepointtalk.net/2017/09/using-site-classification-for.html

In modern Sites we have a so called “New” Dropdown to easy create new objects:

It is also very easy to modify the Quick Launch Navigation based on the modern canvas:

A new feature for modern Team Sites is the Site Info Hover Panel. You can access this panel by mouseover the Site name:

The panel gives you an overview about the site and direct links to the associated resources like the Planer, the Group Calendar etc.

Further details about modern Team Sites can be found here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-a-sharepoint-team-site-75545757-36c3-46a7-beed-0aaa74f0401e

Communication Site

About Communication Sites:

• Fokus: Showcase, Share Services, Story (broadcast information)
• 3 different type of a Communication Site are available out-of-the-box:
• Topic: Designed to present large amount of information such as news, events and other content
• Showcase: Designed to showcase a product, team, or event using images
• Blank: Start from scratch

Further details about Communication Sites can be found here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-a-sharepoint-communication-site-94a33429-e580-45c3-a090-5512a8070732

Modern Sites Pros and Cons

Pro:

• Easy to use
• Modern canvas
• Modern branding & responsive design
• Modern Web Parts
• Easy to use/configure web parts
• Connected to a Group
• Extend using the SharePoint Framework

Contra:

• Only created as a site collection and no modern sub-sites available
• No variations until now
• No extensibility for modern search until now
• Not all Lists, Libraries and website types have a modern design already (Blogs, Tasks, Calendars, Discussions)

Complete list and further details: http://www.sharepointtalk.net/2018/08/things-to-think-about-when-moving-from.html

Things to think about when moving from classic to modern SharePoint Site

Moving from classic SharePoint Online Sites or from SharePoint on-prem Sites to modern Sites sound easy but can get tricky. There are several pros and cons coming from classic Sites and now plan to use modern Sites. The following to table shows the pros and cons and the topics you have to think about when planning a migration:

Complete list and further details: http://www.sharepointtalk.net/2018/08/things-to-think-about-when-moving-from.html

Hub Sites

Common info about Hib Sites:

• Linked sites
• Consistent branding across all sites
• Top navigation
• Search within the hub site will also search all linked sites.
• Aggregate news from linked sites. This can take 5–15 minutes.
• Flexible attach & detach a site from a hub
• Sites can only be associated with one hub site.
• Hubs can’t be nested
• Limited to 50 hub sites
• Association with a hub does not change the permissions on a site
• A site can only be associate with one hub

Webparts for Hub Sites:

• News roll-up: News published on a hub site and on any associated sites is automatically aggregated and shown on the home page of the hub site.
• Associated sites: Display the most active sites associated with the hub site.
• Highlighted content: Use the Highlighted content web part to dynamically display content from sites associated with the hub.

Further details about Hub Sites:  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites

Admin Stuff

Manage site creation in SharePoint Online Admin:

Subsite Creation in SharePoint Online Admin:

Office 365 Groups Connection Setting in SharePoint Online Admin:

To allow only specific users to create groups, use the PowerShell cmdlet GroupCreationAllowedGroupId or change setting in Azure AD

Connect to a new office 365 group:

Ability to connect existing SharePoint team sites to Office 365 Groups is coming later this year

Branding SharePoint Modern Sites

Out of the box themes, configuration option and custom site themes:

• The following predefined themes are available by default: Blue, Orange, Red, Purple, Green, Gray, Dark Yellow, Dark Blue
• Each theme can be customized by selecting “Customize theme”
• Custom themes can be created and uploaded. To create a custom theme a online theme generator tool is available: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric#/styles/themegenerator
• Classic themes can still be used by choosing the link under the modern themes listed.
• Because the modern SharePoint UI differs from the classic UI, however, some limitations apply when you use classic themes with modern pages.

Themes are defined in a JSON schema that stores color settings and related metadata for each theme. These capabilities are available to administrators via PowerShell cmdlets, and to developers via the SharePoint client-side object model (CSOM) or the SharePoint REST API.

Further details about branding: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/solution-guidance/portal-branding

PNP Starter Kit & Fantastic 40 Web Parts

What is the SharePoint Starter Kit:

• SharePoint Starter Kit demonstrates how you can extend modern sites.
• Currently included in the package:
• Tenant level provisioning logic using PnP Provisioning Engine
• 3 site collections. One assigned to be a hub site and two associate to the hub site automatically from the provisioning script
• Contoso Site Designs for group associated team site and communication site
• 17 client-side web parts demonstrating different capabilities
• 7 SharePoint Framework extensions
• Sample LOB service to be hosted in Azure
• Sample content on the portal to demonstrate news and article capabilities

Source and further details: https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-starter-kit

What is the Fantastic 40 Web Parts:

It is a sample kit of 40 web parts for example visual web parts as carousel, images galleries, custom editors, polls, charts, map, animations, etc. These web parts are free and open source. The webparts are available: English, French, Spanish, German. IMPORTANT NOTE: These web parts are not officially supported by Microsoft.

Source and further details: https://github.com/OlivierCC/spfx-40-fantastics