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

Ignite 2017 recording - explore PnP Partner Pack for IT pros admins and architects

Session recording at Ignite 2017. Me talking about PnP Partner Pack for IT pros admins and architects in the cloud and on-prem.

(Sadly bad video and audio)

My Ignite 2017 notes

Using site classification for SharePoint Sites

Site classification is a must-have when we talk about Governance, Compliance and also topics around GDPR.

Beside 3^rd party solutions focusing on site and content classification we have also some out of the box options and developer opportunities in Office 365 and SharePoint on-prem. Depending on if we are talking about classic SharePoint Site Collections or if we talk about modem Team Sites, being part of an Office 365 Group, we have different szenarios.

To create a new SharePoint site in Office 365 we know two different ways.

1. We can create a SharePoint Online Site using the SharePoint Online Administration. This will create a SharePoint Site based on WebTemplate STS
2. We can go to SharePoint Home and click “create” in the upper left corner or we can go to Outlook Online and create a new Group. Both will create a SharePoint Site based on WebTemplate GROUP

To provide a site classification solution for classic Team Sites created by option 1 we need to implement the following: Implement a SharePoint site classification solution. This works also for SharePoint 2013 on-prem. The article describes a full solution including policies for site closing and deletion depending on the classification setting. As you can see the article describes some steps to do:

• Define and set site policies
• Insert a custom action
• Custom site classification
• Add a classification indicator to site page

Using the opportunities we have with Groups and Group Policies some of these things can be automatically put to a SharePoint Site based on WebTemplate GROUP.

This video by Vesa Juvonen is showing the steps and the final results:

As you can see we need to create the site bases on option 2.

(Dialogs already including policies)

SharePoint Home - Create:

Outlook Online -> Create Group:

Final result:

Step by Step

To enable this functionality in Office 365 we need to set up an “Settings Object” and a “Settings Template” in Azure AD. To do this we can use the Azure Active Directory cmdlets for configuring group settings.

First of all we need to install the preview of Azure Active Directory V2 PowerShell Module:

Install-Module -Name AzureADPreview

To set up the site classification options and configure properties like ClassificationList and ClassificationDescriptions etc follow these steps also shown in Vesas video:

#Connect

Connect-AzureAD

Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate

#Create

$Template = Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate -Id 62375ab9-6b52-47ed-826b-58e47e0e304b

$Setting = $template.CreateDirectorySetting()

$setting["UsageGuidelinesUrl"] = "http://sharepointtalk.com"

$setting["ClassificationList"] = "Public, Internal, TopSecret"

$setting["DefaultClassification"] = "TopSecret"

$setting["ClassificationDescriptions"] = "Public:no restrictions,Internal:all internal users can access,TopSecret:only special users can access"

$setting["GuestUsageGuidelinesUrl"] = "http://sharepointtalk.net"

New-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $setting

#Check

Get-AzureADDirectorySetting -All $True

(Get-AzureADDirectorySetting -Id %%YOUR ID%%).values

As described in the video we can now use the CLASSIFICATION property to assign a site policy or any other custom action. Details about site policies are part of Implement a SharePoint site classification solution.

Here the script taken from the video to get the CLASSIFICATION property:

#Get PnP PowerShellOnline

Install-Module SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline

#Get Site classfication value

Connect-PnPOnline https://%YOUR TENANT%.sharepoint.com/sites/%YOUR SITE%

Get-PnPSite

$Site.Classification

Get-PnPProperty -ClientObject $Site -Property Classification

Experts Inside South Africa Event

Experts Inside South Africa invites you to an an exclusive event to showcase and discuss some of the latest offerings from Microsoft in the Office 365 and Hybrid ecosystems. We’ll be looking at some of the newest and most exciting Office 365 product, Teams, as well as practical guidance to better managing and levering experiences in Delve, Search, the Office Graph and more.

These sessions will be presented by two of Expert Inside’s principle consultants and MVPs, Hilton Giesenow (South Africa) and Nicki Borell (Germany). We look forward to seeing you there! 

Enterprise Search

Many excellent blog posts, interviews and videos about SharePoint and Office 365 search, Delve and Office Graph certainly

exist. This session differs by showing real-world customer scenarios and solutions including the user stories, end-user and

decision maker perspectives and how Delve formed the primary component of an Office 35-based global Intranet. Topics

include data security and privacy aspects and concerns. 

Microsoft Teams

Nearly 2 decades of enterprise social and collaboration technologies from Microsoft have resulted in what looks to be the

company’s most powerful, intuitive, integrated and mobile-capable toolset. Only just in it’s first release (Nov 216) it already

rivals market leaders like Slack, even surpassing it in some areas. Is this the Slack killer some claim? Will it replace Yammer

altogether? In this session we’ll see how Teams works and address and discuss these and other topics.

PnP Partner Pack – Microsoft’s Free Provisioning, Branding and Governance Toolset

The Office 365 Patterns and Practices team comprises experts from around the globe, both within and external to Microsoft,

who provide guidance, tools, libraries and scripts to better provision and maintain Office 365 and on premises SharePoint

sites, lists, libraries and more. One of their recent projects, the PnP Partner Pack, packages many of these existing solutions

into a free turnkey solution to manage provisioning, managing, maintaining and governing solutions, branding, responsive 

design and other elements across SharePoint, Groups, Yammer and other Office 365 workloads. This session examines 

aspects these and other aspects like like self service site creation, site templates and governance automation.

Explore PnP Partner Pack for IT pros, admins and architects

Here you can find the session recording of my Theater Session THR2073 at Ignite 2016 in Atlanta about PnP Partner Pack for IT pros, admins and architects.

THX Toni Pohl for the recording!