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Microsoft SharePoint Blog
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SharePoint home sites: a landing for your organization on the intelligent intranet

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BradMcCabe
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May 21, 2019
Visionaries driving digital transformation and creating the modern workplace know the intelligent intranet is the heart of a digital workplace.  The intelligent intranet delivers experiences that pro...
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DC_Padur
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May 21, 2019

Here is quick FAQ on Home sites. 

 

  1. What exactly is a SharePoint home site ?
    1. A SharePoint home site is a communication site that is designed and designated to serve as the top portal in an organization. A communication site with some extra superpowers, so to speak
  2. How do I get a SharePoint home site ?
    1. A SharePoint tenant admin can designate any communication site, built to be the landing page for your organization, to be the Home site. Initially it will be a simple powershell experience and will soon be added to the modern SPO admin portal. 
  3. What is special about a Home site?
    1. Setting up a home site
      1. Automatically marks the news from that site as organizational news
      2. Automatically configures search in that site to be tenant wide
      3. Enables a highly visible and unique entry point in the landing experience of the SharePoint mobile app
      4. <..more such unique experiences to be rolled out in the near future >

4. Can there be multiple SharePoint home sites?

a) For now we only support one per tenant, but we’d like to hear about your scenarios requiring multiple top level portals

5. What is the difference between a hubs and home site?

a) Hubs and Home sites are added functionalities to our two modern site types Team and Communication.

A hub is used organize sites with a shared theming, navigation, search and news roll ups.

A home site serves as the top level portal with unique functionality like special SP mobile treatment, organizational news, tenant wide search, etc.

6. Can a home site be a hub as well ?

a. Absolutely ! 

7. Isn’t there a SharePoint home already ?

a. Its now the SharePoint start page. It’s the OOB SharePoint page powered by graph intelligence available for all users . It’s a personalized way finding and resources tool and it will continue serving its purpose. SharePoint home site, on the other hand, is an organization’s top portal. It’s a carefully crafted collection of news, content, conversations and video to deliver an engaging experience that reflects an organization’s voice, priorities and brand.

8. When can I get SharePoint home sites ?

a. We are targeting CY2019Q4 time frame for starting roll out. Please watch for updates in the Microsoft 365 public roadmap