Sharepoint Landing Page is a Team Site, Company wants to switch to a Communication Site

Question

How do I create a new Communication Site, and make it the Welcome page?

It doesn't look like there is any way to convert the current site to a Communication site. I created a new Communication Page and a new Communication Site, but it wont let me change either to the welcome page.

I get this error "The specified welcome page is not valid or does not exist within the current site."

Sharepoint is so frustrating, when trying to complete such simple tasks.

nicolaskheirallah · Answer

Hi!So you need to be SharePoint admin,Go in to SharePoint Admin Center and Create a new Communication site (Or reuse the one you have) and then do a Site swap with the root site!Then go to SharePoint Admin settings and set that site as a Home site, that will make the Communication site the main landing page for the intranet

bjack19 · Answer

NicolasKheirallah&nbsp;&nbsp;When I go into Active sites as an Admin, I found the root site and selected "Replace Site". I copied the path to the site I wanted to replace it with. But I keep getting an error that says;"The new site name is too long using URL https://----------.sharepoint.com/sites/archive-2023-09-08T111053Z. The path for all files and folders in the site cannot exceed 400 characters."&nbsp;The problem is I'm not choosing that site name, sharepoint is attempting to change the current root site name to that after I try to replace it with the new one. How do I get Sharepoint to stop trying to change it to that name?

nicolaskheirallah · Answer

I'm guessing you have subsites or files within a long folder structure ? That's usually the culprite! Try moving them to a temporary site and then move them to the new site after the swap!

Avoid using subsites! Make the new home site a hub and those subsites to seperate teams or communication sites

SharePoint will change the name of it, it has to when doing the swap or else it would be conflicting. So it's going for that archived -date and time.

bjack19 · Answer

There is one Subsite connected to the current root site, when I try to move it, I keep getting errors. It looks like their file paths are too long (greater than 200 characters). There are thousands of files and hundreds of folders to go through. Is there and easy way to manage or fix all the file paths to be able to move them?

karen_dredske · Answer

It sounds like your root site is a classic SharePoint site. There are a couple of important facts you need to know before you do this site swap.1. The classic site will be archived if you swap it out. This means that all the content will no longer be accessible to anyone except the SharePoint Administrator.2. Unless you are a PowerShell guru, you're going to have to manage that subsite and file structure manually to clean it up. Even if you do know PowerShell enough to write a script, what you will have to do is to evaluate everything in that site anyway. Best thing to do. . . come up with a plan to migrate that content to a modern site before you even consider doing a site swap.3. You don't need to do a site swap to make your new communication site your home site. Just go to the SharePoint Admin Center &gt; Settings page and select Home sites &gt; You can then enter the URL of the communications site that you would like to be the home site for your intranet.IMPORTANT: Any users of that current root site are going to need to bookmark the direct URL to the root site to find it and the site below it. This classic site will be invisible as the homepage will redirect users to the new home site you are designating.

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Sharepoint Landing Page is a Team Site, Company wants to switch to a Communication Site

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