Forum Discussion

Iron Contributor

Apr 16, 2024

I need to remove "Made For Email" templates from SharePoint.

Although I have made a point to inform our staff several times, the "Made For Email" templates are too prominent for them to avoid. These News Post templates lack features that we require to properly...

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SusanHanley

MVP

Apr 16, 2024

How about just making them less visible? To do that, create a custom template for news pages based on one of the other page templates (not the "Made for Email" ones). Then, select it as the default for the site from the template picker when you are creating a page. This will make it so that users see your template first when they are creating news posts. The Made for Email templates are still there, but they are "hidden" behind a tab so that users would have to consciously pick them if they wanted to use them. This has been a game changer for my clients who do not want news publishers to use the "out of the box" templates. That said, you can also create your own template from one of the Made for Email templates and add metadata as well if you want to use it to curate posts - but if you prefer the "standard" page structure, you can just create your own template from one of the other "out of the box" ones. The key is to set your template as the default. That will bring up the one you selected and any other custom templates on your site before the Microsoft ones.

JeffNiemi

Copper Contributor

Aug 16, 2024

SusanHanley I see Microsoft removed all of the non-email templates from the News Port creation. This has caused a minor panic internally. I'm not sure if Microsoft did this on purpose recently or if it was a mistake. They also had the PromotedState flag on the Page showing up as 1 instead of 2, which stopped our flows from sending our custom notifications. Microsoft eventually restored the PromotedState to a 2 (after I had adjusted all of the flows), so I'm hoping they also restore the non-email templates.

Maybe they thought they were doing everyone a favor instead of breaking everyone's customizations to make News work in their environment? I'm not sure if these updates hit everyone else this week, but I am holding off on making any documentation or process changes until the News stabilizes. Do you happen to know anything about this? Does your customization to hide their templates still work? I need to figure out something for my users.

Thanks!

Jeff

SusanHanley
MVP
Aug 16, 2024
JeffNiemi Here is what happened. What Microsoft did was to make ALL news posts "made for email" so that you can both publish a news article in SharePoint and then optionally send the article as a full page to a distribution list via email instead of just a summary with a link. (It was announced in a roadmap post: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?featureid=393335.) This was definitely intentional and is rolling out now. Promoted State = 1 still means what it has always meant - an unpublished news post. Once you post an article in SharePoint, the promoted state = 2. I don't think they intend to revert back, but you don't have to use the email distribution option. If you close out the prompt to send as email, the article remains as just a news page in SharePoint. You may need to adjust your custom flows - or consider if you still need them. But yes, if you set one of your custom templates as a default, your templates will show up first when someone creates a page, but you may want to create new templates so that your templates have the "made for email" feature.
- JeffNiemi
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 16, 2024
  SusanHanley Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate it!