Forum Discussion
Advantages to Flat site structure versus sub-sites?
This was the key selling point for me, the ability to manage and support the organisation better, rather than a hierarchy that will be inflexible and will only add challenges as needs evolve:
"One of the key principles of modern intranets based on SharePoint is that each unit of work should get a separate site collection to optimally manage governance and growth over time."
"In the past, many organizations used subsites to create connective tissue for their intranets, using the site collection's shared navigation to connect sites and the hierarchical structure of subsite relationships to nest sites within sites. However, subsites don't give any room for flexibility and change. Since subsites are a physical construct reflected in the URL for content, if you reorganize your business relationships, you will break all the intranet relationships in your content. Subsites can also create challenges when it comes to governance because many features (including policy features like retention and classification) in SharePoint apply to all sites within the site collection, whether you want them to or not. This means that you must frequently enable a feature for the entire site collection, even if it's only applicable to one subsite."
From https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites, also more guidance here, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-guide#plan-the-site-collections-you-need-to-create.
This was the key selling point for me, the ability to manage and support the organisation better, rather than a hierarchy that will be inflexible and will only add challenges as needs evolve:
"One of the key principles of modern intranets based on SharePoint is that each unit of work should get a separate site collection to optimally manage governance and growth over time."
"In the past, many organizations used subsites to create connective tissue for their intranets, using the site collection's shared navigation to connect sites and the hierarchical structure of subsite relationships to nest sites within sites. However, subsites don't give any room for flexibility and change. Since subsites are a physical construct reflected in the URL for content, if you reorganize your business relationships, you will break all the intranet relationships in your content. Subsites can also create challenges when it comes to governance because many features (including policy features like retention and classification) in SharePoint apply to all sites within the site collection, whether you want them to or not. This means that you must frequently enable a feature for the entire site collection, even if it's only applicable to one subsite."
From https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites, also more guidance here, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-guide#plan-the-site-collections-you-need-to-create.
This makes a lot of sense! Thanks Cian Allner and ChrisWebbTech
