The slides for my session on modern news publishing, site theming, site script, site designs and hub sites in SharePoint Online. Including the links to some hard to find parameters.

1. Modern News Publishing with SharePoint
@maarteneekels

3. Maarten Eekels
Contact
meekels@portiva.nl
www.eekels.net

4. Agenda
• A brief history
• Team sites vs Communication sites vs Hub sites
• News publishing
• Mobile experience
• Branding options
• Site designs
• PnP Starter kit

5. Publishing pages

6. Team sites vs Communication sites
Communication sitesTeam sites
Department
Team
Project
Extranet (Partner, Customer)
Committee (Planning, Executive)
Initiative, campaign or event
Share work with organization
Community of practice or interest
Training and policies
Updates and reports

7. Hub sites
• Brings together
related team sites and
communication sites
• Roll up of news and
site activity
• Search across
connected sites for
content
• Cross-site navigation
• Consistent look-and-
feel across sites
• Admins create, site
owners adopt and use

8. DEMO

9. Why is branding of your intranet important?
Consistency in your
company brand –
thoughts and feelings
about company and
culture, sense of
community
01
Represents trust –
gives users
confidence, sense of
solid foundation
02
Define objectives –
colouring and fonts
suggest work style,
sense of expectations
03

10. What makes up an intranet brand?
• Colours / theming
• Content
• Intranet name
• Logos
• Navigation
• Page designs

11. Custom site
theming
PowerShell management support
(6906.1200):
https://aka.ms/spsitetheming
Theme builder tool:
https://aka.ms/spthemebuilder

12. DEMO

13. Custom site designs
Site Scripts - Actions
• Create list
• Apply a theme
• Set a site logo
• Join Hub site
• Add navigation
• Trigger a Flow
• Install solution
• Set regional settings
• Set external sharing
Execute Site
Design

14. DEMO

15. Tip #1
When the design execution
panel keeps “Initializing” 
Check if Site Scripts actually
exist
Get-SPOSiteDesign
Get-SPOSiteScript

16. Tip #2
The PowerShell module does NOT
support Update cmdlets
The REST API however DOES
support Update commands:
• UpdateSiteScript
• UpdateSiteDesign
REST API support:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/
declarative-customization/site-design-rest-api
var updated_site_script =
{
"$schema": "schema.json",
"actions": [
{
"verb": "applyTheme",
"themeName": “SharePoint Saturday"
}
],
"bindata": { },
"version": 2
};
RestRequest("/_api/Microsoft.Sharepoint.Utilities.
WebTemplateExtensions.SiteScriptUtility.UpdateSiteScript",
{updateInfo:{
Id:"07702c07-0485-426f-b710-4704241caad9",
Title:"New SharePoint Saturday theme",
Description:"Updated SPS site script",
Version: 2,
Content: JSON.stringify(updated_site_script)}});

17. Tip #3
Apply Site Design to default site
templates  Use the –IsDefault
parameter
PowerShell management support (7206.1200):
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/site-design-powershell

18. PnP Starter Kit
“The PnP Starter Kit is a solution designed for SharePoint
Online which provides numerous web parts, extensions, and
other components which you can use as an example and
inspiration for your own customisations.”
https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-starter-kit
Official branding guidance: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/sharepoint/dev/scenario-guidance/branding

19. DEMO

20. Coming soon
• Section background colours
• Events roll-up web parts
• Personalised web parts
• Dynamic data connected web
parts
• Central asset library
• Site usage heatmap view
• Page designs
• Megamenu
• Site footer
• Approval for site association to
Hub site
• Audience targeting

21. Useful links
• SharePoint Site Designs and Site Scripts:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-
customization/site-design-overview
• Possible values for the Regional Settings -> TimeZone property in Site Scripts:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-
versions/office/developer/sharepoint-2010/ms453853%28v%3doffice.14%29
• Possible values for the Regional Settings -> Sorting property in Site Scripts:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-
versions/office/developer/sharepoint-2010/ms367805(v%3doffice.14)
• SP Starter Kit by the PnP team:
https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-starter-kit

22. Thank you!
@maarteneekels