Way to convert existing site to modern team site UI?

[Chris Gilson]

The new modern team site home page looks great and new team sites get to use it.  How about existing sites?  Is there a way for a site owner to convert their site (especially the home page) to the modern team site UI?  One of my colleagues found a post to do it with PowerShell as a SharePoint admin, but it would be nice if the site collection owner could change it in a way similar to the setting for the document libraries modern experience.

[#2]

Can you please share a link to that post?

[#3]

AFAIK such a conversion does not exist...what you can do in your existing team sites is just create modern team sites and use modern WebParts there...so in theory existing team sites are new team sites too...;-) the missing part here is how to link an existing team site to an Office 365 Group that it's something it will come (no ETA yet)

[#4]

Of course... ;)

[#5]

The quick way to do this: build a new page inside the Pages library, and then use the "..." content menu option "Make Homepage" to set the new page as the default home page for the team site.

[#6]

@Chris McNulty are there any known compatibility blockers?

We can create new pages in some of our team sites but not others. I can't see anything different between them.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks 

[#7]

I'd also like to see that powershell script :p

But yeah, basically create a new modern page, add the webparts manually and save it as homepage.

Only difference I've noticed is that, currently unchangable, banner behind the page title. This banner does not existing in Office 365 Group Team Sites (page title is almost directly below the action bar [+NEW, ...]) where as in manually created modern pages, there is a large gap between the action bar and the page title.

Does anyone know a way around this?

[#8]

Chris - do you know how to get rid of the banner from the modern pages? I love the way the team site home page looks when the site is created from Groups, but we won't be using groups at this point. I'd love the 'full page' experience for the home page.. then just use the banner pages for news (like the demoed at Ignite).

[#9]

I have the same issue, is there a solution yet?

[#10]

I just copied the default home.aspx from a new group-site to my old site. Seems to work fine to avoid the large top-banner for now.

[#11]

If you are up to adding a modern web part you can use the custom script / content editor web part to add custom html to the page allowing you to hide the banner:

Github link

SharePoint Add-in Package

After installing to the app catalog, add the app to the site then edit the app properties.

Add to the CSS Editor property:

.pageHeader {

   display:none;

} 

[#12]

Is it possible to change the look and feel of a normal (in our case - home)-page in the new UI? I found this url, but actually do not know how to start...

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/pnp_articles/modern-experience-customizations-customize-pages

When creating a new page I do not have the option to create a new UI page. 

[#13]

Found mine have automatically switched. If I click on the cog in top right then hit "Add a Page" new UI one is automatically brought up.

Have done that for the time being on some newer team sites, along with switching the experience for doccument libraries and lists.

Still would love the other bits and pieces that come with modern UI, I remember seeing a powershell script for it a while back that can change it at the site collection level but can't find it anywhere. If anyone has it please do post, would be much appreciated!

[#14]

And how about the other way around?  The 'new' Team sites get automatically created when you create a 'team' group in MS Teams (as ...sharepoint.com/sites/... ) - these already have document library, calendar, etc.  Can I simply convert these into a "classic" SharePoint site (as ...sharepoint.com/SitePages/... )??

[#15]

I belive if you set a classic page (in the SitePages library, create a new Classic Page if necessary) as the homepage in a Group site it will get you essentially that.  You'll still get the modern view by default when browsing site contents or an app view but you can also toggle that with the Switch to Classic button.

[#16]

I'm really sorry - I meant a SharePoint site as in ...sharepoint.com/[site].

Maybe this will explain it better:  When you simply go to the URL https://[tenant].sharepoint.com, it directs to https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/SitePages/Home.aspx, which looks like this:

I added a new Subsite named "IT", which I linked across the top when I set it up, as you can see in that screen shot.  So when you click on "IT", it goes to https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/IT/SitePages/Home.aspx, which looks very much like the screen shot above.

Now....say I created a Teams group called "ITProjects", which when you click on that from the Teams landing page, it goes to https://[tentant].sharepoint.com/sites/ITProjects, which looks like this:

Can I simply convert that teams site at ...sharepoint.com/sites/ITProjects to a subsite like IT at ...sharepoint.com/ITProjects that I can link across the top just like "IT"??

Or is there no way and I have to just create it from scratch like I did with "IT" and move content over as needed?  Which is not a big deal if that is the case...I just figured being able to convert will make things a little easier.

Thanks!

[#17]

Just to get this right, do you want to unmodernize your "IT Projects" site, or do you simply wish to create a shared top level navigation?
If it Is the latter, then you should understand the concept of the SiteCollection first.
tenant.sharepoint.com is the top level site collection of any SharePoint deployment. Therefore when you create a subsite like "IT" you'll have the option to create a shared top level navigation for this SiteCollection only, as this was the default setting for classic SharePoint sites.

everything after /sites is what is onPrem called a "managed path". Every new SharePoint site that is connected to an Office 365 Group, creates its own SiteCollection under this managed path.

Currently there is no easy way to create a so called Global Navigation that works across SiteCollections. It's not impossible, just not of the box.

The real answer lies behind the question what you really want to accomplish. Do simply want to modernize your current TeamSites for tenant.sharepoint.com, then you simply could, by creating modern pages and making them the default homepage. Only annoyance is that new subsite don't inherit from the modern template
If you want to use profit from all the other Office 365 Groups features than you'd have to migrate content from the old SiteCollection to the new one. The only unknown variable for this is the use use for your current tenant.sharepoint.com SiteCollection, the site the is currently labeled "Home" in your screenshot.
To simulate your current deployment you'd have to create a new Office 365 Group and give it a proper name (e.g. IT Department) and then create subsite for "IT Projects", though I would say you could probably leverage the existing site.

Groups just work on a flatter topology than previous SharePoint deployments that leveraged a lot of subsites.

[#18]

This is not exactly true. Using the managed metadata service you can create a global navigation across all site collections or different ones for different site collections.

[#19]

I stand by comment as "there is no easy way" :).
Also as far as I remember, you only use a managed metadata termset once, which means you wouldn't be able to reuse is across multiple site collections, which Office 365 Group TeamSites are. I might be wrong about this though.
There certainly are ways to do it, but nothing as easy a just flipping a switch.

[#20]

This is the method I have been using, however please be warned there are quite a few issues that I've discovered with Modern pages on none Microsoft Teams Sites, please see my post here for details: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint/Warning-Modern-Pages-on-Existing-None-Microsoft-Te...