Cross-Site Publishing to Communication Sites in SharePoint Online

CROSS-SITE PUBLISHING
TO COMMUNICATION SITES
December 8th 2017

SPFest Chicago@valleelp #spfestchicago
@valleelp
https://en.share-gate.com/blog
SHAREGATE | PRODUCT MANAGER | SPEAKER
LOUIS-PHILIPPE
VALLEE

PEOPLE ARE
MOVING
TO THE CLOUD

We will look at
BUT DON’T
KNOW HOW

WE ARE STUCK IN A
ROUTINE
SHAREPOINT
2007
SHAREPOINT
2010
SHAREPOINT
2013
… trying to do the same things in
the newest version

BRACE
YOURSELF

MICROSOFT
DID IT
AGAIN

RELEASING
GAME
CHANGING
FEATURES

COMMUNICATION SITES

HUB SITES

TIME TO
ADAPT

LOOK AT
WE WILL

CROSS-SITE PUBLISHING
KEY CONCEPTS

WHAT IS A
COMMUNICATION SITE

LIMITATIONS
(the gaps)

MIGRATION
PLANNING

Before we start
Let’s go back in time

First, there was the publishing portal

And they made it better …

And better …

And search driven
Cross site publishing:
« Create content in an
Authoring environment and
use it in one of your
SharePoint publishing
environments »

SHAREPOINT BECAME THE
MOST COMMON
LARGE ENTERPRISE
INTRANET SOLUTION

KEY CONCEPTS

SEPERATION OF
DATA
ENTRY
CONTENT
DISPLAY

AUTHORING SITE COLLECTION
Contributors use product
catalogs to create and edit
content for your intranet
or public facing site

AUTHOR IN A
SHAREPOINT LIST

PUBLISHING SITE COLLECTION
Find and displays catalog
items in a controlled UI
using search technology.

SEARCH RESULTS WEBPARTS
W/ DISPLAY TEMPLATES
Items page Item detail page

Search & navigation
Uses the termstore to tag item that are associated with site navigation

DELIVER GREAT
LOOKING SITES

Visitors don’t need access
to auth site
Flexible architecture
Standardized visitor UX
Supports changing design
Bad experience for authors
Wait for crawler to see the
result (no preview)
No flexibility on page layouts
Can be targeted to the user
Expensive to improve

And now …

SPO PUBLISHING SITE

NOTHING AS
CHANGED

CATALOGS NOT
AVAILABLE IN SPO

ANYTHING
BETTER TO
OFFER?

COMMUNICATION SITE
perfect for internal cross-company campaigns, weekly and monthly
reports or status updates, product launches, events and more.

WHAT IS IT?

IT’S ACTUALLY A
SHAREPOINT SITE

THAT LOOKS GREAT ON ANY DEVICE
. . . out of the box

THAT IS EASY TO CREATE

Helps broadcast information
to other teams or to an
entire organization
to help you jumpstart getting your message out fast,
communication sites provide configurable templates
for the sites and pages within.

WHAT YOU GET

Pre built designs

TOPIC DESIGN
Hero web part
News web part
Events web part
Documents web part
Quick links
People web part

SHOWCASE DESIGN
Hero web part
Image gallery web part

BLANK DESIGN
No web part

There is more …

MODERN
EDITING

FLEXIBLE PAGE LAYOUTS
Users now have the flexibility they need to present information
more efficiently, and the way THEY want to present it.

COPY PASTE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS

Set focal point

IT’S LIKE …
THE NEW
IMAGE RENDITIONS

What else?

Hero webpart
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-the-Hero-web-part-d57f449b-19a0-4b0d-8ce3-be5866430645?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• Not every tile needs an image
• Each tile is a link, not an item
• History is not preserved
• It’s possible to re-order the tiles

NAVIGATION (MAX 2 LEVELS)
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Customize-the-navigation-on-your-SharePoint-site-3cd61ae7-a9ed-4e1e-bf6d-4655f0bf25ca?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

ANYONE IT IS SHARED WITH
EVEN EXTERNAL USERS
ACCESS

DEMO

Behind the scenes
A communication site is a standalone SharePoint site
It goes under the / sites managed path
It’s not associated with an Office 365 group
The site template is « Sitepagepublishing#0 »
But cannot be created through powershell yet

THE LIMITATIONS
Pnp provisionning not supported yet (But will be)
Not available on prem
No global navigation
Custom page layouts/content types not supported
No multilingual features
No approuval flow
It’s not possible to make it your root site collection yet
Can’t activate publishing features (and vice versa?)

POSSIBLE SCENARIOS
• Governance and Training for your intranet
• Travel team publishing guidelines about corporate travel
• Policies and procedures
• Micro-site for a new corporate initiative
• Resources for the sales team for a product or service
• Organizational achievements—summary or report of key
business metrics to highlight for the rest of the
organization
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3212834/enterprise-applications/what-to-choose-a-communication-or-team-site-in-sharepoint.html

COOL STORY BRO …
CAN I MIGRATE?

I WOULD
ADVISE
PATIENCE

IT’S NOT ONE TO ONE!

WANT TO
USE COMM
SITES …
BECAUSE IT’S SHINY?

THINK ABOUT WHAT THE BUSINESS
NEEDS IN TERMS OF COMMUNICATION

WE MUST
CHANGE
OUR
MINDSET

MAKE PEACE WITH
THE FACT THAT NOW

SUB-SITES
ARE EVIL

Branding (images?)

THE OLD WAY
https://www.metalogix.com/blog/introducing-sharepoint-hub-sites-office-365

https://www.metalogix.com/blog/introducing-sharepoint-hub-sites-office-365
WAY WE PLAN & BUILD OUR SITES

SITES WITHIN A HUB SHARE
Navigation Search scope

HOW TO GET READY
FOR YOUR MIGRATION

INVENTORY OF
WHAT YOU HAVE

FIND & MEET
W/ OWNERS

IDENTIFY THE
TIGHT TOOLS

INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE

QUICK TIPS

COMMAND
& CONTROL
WORKS
NO MORE

EDUCATE
INSTEAD

CUSTOMIZE WHEN NEEDED

MAKE SURE THE INFORMATION
REACHES PEOPLE INSTEAD OF
FORCING IT IN FRONT OF THEM

COMING UP FOR CONTRIBUTORS

COMING UP FOR
OWNERS AND
END USERS

Other references
Overview of Cross-SitePublishing:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj635883.aspx
Microsoft presenting Communication sites:
https://www.slideshare.net/markkashman/sharepoint-communications-sites-overview-presentation
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Communications-Sites-AMA/bd-p/CommunicationsSitesAMA
Microsoft vision on intranets:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-blocks-your-intranet-mark-kashman/
Customizing modern pages:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/pnp_articles/modern-experience-customizations-customize-pages
Roadmap presented at Ignite 2017:
https://en.share-gate.com/blog/microsoft-ignite-2017-takeaways-an-updated-sharepoint-roadmap

Thank you!
Follow me for
more @valleelp

Cross-Site Publishing to Communication Sites in SharePoint Online

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