Forum Discussion
ROLLING OUT: SharePoint Online team sites + Office 365 Groups & Pages
This is great news. I just want to know the following, as I tweeted at Jeff Teper earlier.
Hey https://twitter.com/jeffteper/ when the full rollout of modern team sites occurs, will there be any difference between a previous SP Team Site + New Group?
- Adding to this, is how to recognise whether this is an officially provisioned team site or a user provisioned group team site?
Mark-Kashman If we have disabled user self-service site creation, then will it affect the groups-connected-site creation as well?
No. It only removes the entry point from SharePoint home. Users, in this scenario, would still be able to create a Group from Outlook, and the end result (starting soon) means that they group gets a team site, too, alongside the shared calendar, inbox, notebook, etc...
LincolnDeMarisMicrosoft
Joe, are you asking if if all team sites that exist today will end up looking like brand new team site + groups provisioned in the new way?
We won’t ever replace your existing customized classic pages with modern pages. We want to offer the new homepage as an option, especially for team sites that haven’t customized their homepage. We don’t have a plan for “upgrading” or “converting” classic pages with classic web parts into modern pages – that’s upgrading content and is basically impossible. You can always create a modern page inside any team site, put the Quick links and Activity web parts on it, and enjoy the benefits of the new homepage :)
"Modern team sites” aren't a radically new thing. They’re just team sites, with more and more of the apps inside sporting new modern experiences – homepage, pages, documents, lists, site contents, and more coming. Every team site that exists today is a “modern team site” because of the modern experiences we’ve already shipped.
- Hi Lincoln,
My sites aren't highly customized beyond some web parts I don't even need. Some of my templated sites are already using the modern libraries and lists, but I like the new "modern" home page to bring the look and navigation together. Right now, the home page (and settings pages) look completely different from the lists and libraries. I'd like to stop that.
Further, I'm rebuilding all my sites right now (I'm about a year into our rollout, and have learned a lot / need to adapt). What I really need is the ability to generate the full "modern" build including home page. If that includes creating a group, I'll create a group. No problem there. I think there just needs to be more documentation as to what is changing, what is staying the same, and what paths (SharePoint Admin, Subsites, O365 Groups) lead to the same place.
Thanks.- LincolnDeMaris
Makes sense.
For the time being, the easiest way to do what you want is to just create a new modern page, add the Quick Links and Activity web parts to it (or any other web parts!) and set that as the homepage of your site using the "Make Homepage" command in the Pages library. Give that a try when the new bits hit your environment and let us know how it goes.
At a platform level, both new and existing team sites are the same. The main difference is that team + groups comes with the new home page, the Quick Links and Activity modern web parts and the integration with Office 365 Groups for Files and Site within the apps Office 365 Groups provides membership to (the others being Conversations, Calendar, Notebook, Planner, etc.).
We are working at wiring up all Groups entry points - the big one for us is the SharePoint home, where you create a new subsite today, soon you will generate a unique site collection connected to Office 365 Groups. This is already in place for other entry points - like from within Outlook.
It is still possible to create a default team site from the Sharepoint Online admin center. These wouldn't have a connection to Office 365 Groups.
At the Ignite 2016 conference (end of Spet.2016), we'll have more to share for what it means for existing team sites to add access and control with Office 365 Groups membership, plus bringing the new home page and modern web parts.
Thanks,
Mark
- Great answer. I still have a couple of questions though. If we decide to go with Team Sites now, will we ever be able to connect those to some corresponding Office 365 Groups? I mean will we be forever locked to that decision? If so that would make us wait and see before we create any team sites for now.
AllanWith exactly the situation I am in now. I need all the functionality of Groups, I love them. But I use Team Sites because I need the ability to add Content Types and Site Columns specifically. Now you can add both of these to the Groups Library but.....
When a Group is provisioned the Site Collection for that Group is not provisioned until someone clicks on the Files Link. After someone click the files link then the Site Collection is spun up and you can add CTypes and Columns.
If there was a way to provision the Group Site Collection at the time the Group is created then that be be brilliant, and I can do away with Team Sites all together.
Appreciate the blog post/update, and the replies here Mark-Kashman
>SharePoint home, where you create a new subsite today
>still possible to create a default team site from the Sharepoint Online admin centerIn both of the above what is created is a Site Collection. I know it's sort of a nit-pick if you're using high-level terminology, but it's also true that for many of us that's an important detail/difference. I hope that the language in the Ignite materials were be precise in this respect.
>SharePoint home, where you create a new subsite today
I'd be curious if you have any stats on how many companies have disabled that (we have). Though I suspect many of us will un-disable it since self-creation with Groups amounts to the same effect. :smileyhappy:
FYI for "up to Today":
1. "create site" creates a subsite in an IT-chosen site collection; unless they developed a custom solution to do otherwise (there is a custom solution in GitHub that does this :-)).
2. New private site collection created from within SPO admin center = unique, new site collection.
And "tomorrow" when you "create site" from SharePoint home, it'll be a new site collection for the Group, primarily exposed via "Files" and "Site" from the group nav.
So Mark-Kashman, does this mean then that we can now provision Content Types and Site Columns to Office 365 Groups? Also any new on the Branding side of things?
Under the covers it's a full-powered SharePoint team site - so yes. And no news on branding beyond the new look & feel of the home page for Office 365 Groups team sites. We're thinking in this area with a few things to share at Ignite 2016 timeframe.
The foundational element of both is a SharePoint Online team site. For the modern team site connected to groups, it is adding new fuinctionality (home page, Quick links, Activity, integration with Office 365 Groups, etc.). Today and going forward, any new group gets a site. And coming soon will be the reverse, any new team site gets a group. And today, if you create a new group from within Outlook, that group gets a site. There will be methods from the SharePoint Online admin center where IT/admins can create standalone team sites from the admin console - these wouldn't be connected to Groups. And, existing team sites don't yet have the option to take on the modern home page; this is in the works.
You're asking the right questions and we'll have more to say on this next phase of development in/at the Ignite 2016 timeframe.
- Thanks. I really am just confused about where I should build going forward. I'm currently redesigning my team site template, and if I have to use groups to get the "soon to be" feature set, I'll just do that.
Thanks. Can't wait for Ignite.
