Forum Discussion
How to coexist two site collection created for the different purpose for the same department?
- May 15, 2023It depends. For large organizations, HR might have multiple communication sites - one for Benefits, one for Recruiting/Talent Acquistion, one for Performance Management plus a "main" HR site that might be a hub for all of the HR sites. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites#what-should-be-a-hub-site for an example. No, you should not activate publishing features on your modern team site (you may break things if you do) and NO do not mix private team collaboration with communication sites for "publishing" content to a broad audience. Your team site is where you "make the sausage." The communication site is where you "sell the sausage." Your multiple site collections are NOT for the same purpose at all. One is for collaboration and the other is for communication. Different purpose, different audience. Especially with HR, you do not want private HR content on a "public" site. I teach a workshop on information architecture for SharePoint intranets if you want to learn more. The next one will be at 365 EduCon in DC in June.
It seems within HR, there are multiple "Teams" site for team work - while there is only one communitcation site for HR. Although it seems reorganizing whole site structure by reducing the subsite into site collection could be a good idea?
does that mean - each department/project should have two site collection for better collaboration and security? If so - I wonder if having multiple site collection for the same purpose is a good idea? Maybe in "Teams" ( Teams Channel) site, publishing features can be activated so the same site collection can be used for the content pages and team work for document collaboration? Is that a good idea?
Are there any best practices for SharePoint online site structure?
Best Regards,
T
- SusanHanleyMay 15, 2023MVPIt depends. For large organizations, HR might have multiple communication sites - one for Benefits, one for Recruiting/Talent Acquistion, one for Performance Management plus a "main" HR site that might be a hub for all of the HR sites. See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites#what-should-be-a-hub-site for an example. No, you should not activate publishing features on your modern team site (you may break things if you do) and NO do not mix private team collaboration with communication sites for "publishing" content to a broad audience. Your team site is where you "make the sausage." The communication site is where you "sell the sausage." Your multiple site collections are NOT for the same purpose at all. One is for collaboration and the other is for communication. Different purpose, different audience. Especially with HR, you do not want private HR content on a "public" site. I teach a workshop on information architecture for SharePoint intranets if you want to learn more. The next one will be at 365 EduCon in DC in June.
- tom_s1865May 17, 2023Copper Contributor
SusanHanley I have one last concern on the info architecture - Now, Associated site collection types could be "Communication site", "Team Site" and site collection created by "Microsoft Teams" - My confusion is, how do I decide if Microsoft teams site collection created to collaborate for the private project to be associated with the hub site collection? What are the pros/cons?
OR Microsoft teams site collection should never be associated with hub - because as you said, it;s made to "make a sausage" and private to the team? - Although I believe, if on the Hub portal, people even try to search the content, they will see/view result based on their permission and in that sense, probably associating "Microsoft Teams Site Collection" should be safe as respective people only be able to view the content?
Kindly help clarify 😞
- SusanHanleyMay 17, 2023MVP
tom_s1865 Another "it depends" answer. If you want the search scope for your hub to just show sites connected to the hub, don't associate private sites. Private content will be searchable at the organization level. Typically, private team collaboration sites are not connected to the hub(s) representing your intranet, but they could be. By associated to the hub, you will remove the ability of the Team Owner to set the theme on the SharePoint site associated to the Team. When a user goes to the team site, which they might not do if they are working in Teams, they would see the hub navigation - which could be helpful or could be a distraction. I typically do not consider private collaboration spaces part of the intranet, so I don't always connect teams sites to hubs, but there are exceptions when there is an outcome goal to scope search (or read permissions) to a group of team sites. If that is the use case, then I might associate a team site to a hub but not add it to the hub navigation.
- tom_s1865May 16, 2023Copper ContributorAwesome, You are the best! This clarifies all I had in my mind! Thank you so much for your attention and time 🙂