SharePoint home sites: a landing for your organization on the intelligent intranet

[Brad McCabe]

Visionaries driving digital transformation and creating the modern workplace know the intelligent intranet is the heart of a digital workplace.  The intelligent intranet delivers experiences that provide shared content and solutions for collaboration, drives employee engagement and communications, and harnesses collective knowledge by connecting people and content.

Today at the SharePoint Conference, we announced SharePoint home sites, the latest innovation for the intelligent intranet, powered by Microsoft 365.

Introducing SharePoint home sites

SharePoint home sites are the landing sites for your organization that bring together news, events, content, conversations and video to deliver an engaging experience that reflects your voice, your priorities, and your brand.  Home sites are built on top of familiar communication sites.

“Novartis is a leading global healthcare company committed to reimagining medicine. As part of its focused data and digital transformation, Novartis will launch a new global corporate intranet for its 100,000+ employees. The solution, built with Microsoft certified partner Wizdom, intends to use SharePoint Online and will embrace all relevant functions of Office 365 to fuel its digital ambitions. Novartis is excited to explore the new Home site capabilities, especially the improvements to search, cross-site navigation, organizational news and the mobile front page.” – Philip Martucci, Director Content & Channels, Novartis

Wizdom homesite site design

Home sites are natively responsive, so you can rest assured that every page will be beautiful, fast, and accessible on any device.  Coming later this year, a dedicated home button will allow one touch access to your home site in the SharePoint mobile app.  You can also configure your company logo in the Office 365 navbar to link to your home site. Doing this means your home site will always be one click away in any of the Microsoft 365 web applications.

One touch access to your home site from anywhere in the SharePoint mobile app

Admins can configure a custom Microsoft 365 theme for their organization so that their company logo, i.e. Contoso Electronics, will take employees back to the home site from many Microsoft 365 web application. Support for larger images and additional file types has recently been added. Learn more here.

Admins can configure a custom Microsoft 365 theme for their organization so that their company logo, i.e. Contoso Electronics, will take employees back to the home site from many Microsoft 365 web application. Support for larger images and additional file types has recently been added. Learn more here.

News can come from many different sites in your organization but often you want to have an "official" or "authoritative" site for organization news. Home sites allow you to balance organization news, which is distinguished with a visual cue, with personalized, relevant content that can be targeted to employees.

Visually highlight news from organizational news sites for employees

Engaging experiences are key to the intelligent intranet and home sites allow you easily embed conversations, video, and content from Microsoft 365 and more so you can connect with the information and activities that matter to you, across all your devices.

It’s easy to embed rich video from Microsoft Stream, conversations from Microsoft Yammer, or other social

Integrated search, powered by artificial intelligence, allows deeply personalized insights to be surfaced to make employees more productive and take advantage of the collective knowledge from your organization both inside and outside of Microsoft 365.

Microsoft search is fully integrated to allow employees Discover answers, insights and take actions in your modern workplace

Robust menu options, such as the recently released megamenu, allow you to create a visually engaging navigation experience that can show multiple levels at the same time.  This enables you to better organize and showcase the related content and sites from across your organization.

The mega-menu allows you to show multiple levels at the same time, no fly-outs needed

Building a great looking home sites shouldn’t have to take months.  With the new organization design for communication sites, you have a great starter to get you going fast.  New page options, like a vertical column, and ever-increasing list of out of the box web parts provide additional design options to meet your needs with less development time.

Once you have built your communication site how you like it, as the admin you can make it a home site with a simple PowerShell command.  That PowerShell command will automate all the essential configurations for you:

• The site is configured as an official organizational news site.
• Search scope is set to tenant wide for the home site.
• Enables one click access from the SharePoint mobile app.

SharePoint home sites empowers you to create beautiful, fast, natively mobile, digital experiences for organizations, divisions or functions with just a few clicks.  To see these technologies in action, watch the SharePoint Conference 2019 keynote, and check out the other posts today to the SharePoint community blog.  We are excited to see what you will create.

[Chris Webb]

@Tobias Scheuermeier @That is use a single column layout with a new vertical column that you can add to the right of the page. It’s in first release tenants now. 

[Donia Strand]

Hi Tobias,

I think that is the new Vertical Section in Communications site that you see. It just became available in our tenant. 

[techrtr1961]

So, has this been rolled out everywhere? Tried to run the scripts yesterday and got the "not supported" message.

[Jim Duncan]

1. Create a new Communication Site
2. Pretty it up as much as you can to make it look/act like the SharePoint Home experience mentioned above
3. Invoke-SPOSiteSwap to make this new Communication Site the root site
4. Wait for release of SharePoint Home cmdlet mentioned above
5. ...
6. Profit!

[Benjamin Bennett]

@Jim Duncan Unfortunately it's not entirely that simple. The Home Site will add a menu throughout the tenant, and I need to have a way to create the menu hopefully before launching the site as part of a larger portal upgrade. I'm hoping there's a way I can develop out the menu before it appears for users, so I'm not editing live content throughout our entire tenant.

[MrUhderhill]

@Benjamin Bennett because of the reasons you shared and others, I have decided to create a Development tenancy so I can play around before changing the live site.  This is even more important since Home Site is only one per tenancy.

My 2 cents!

[Benjamin Bennett]

@MrUhderhill That's an interesting idea. I've never worried about that with other sites and hubs, as I could just restrict permissions to just myself. That said, what would happen if I restricted permissions of the Home Site to just myself? :thinking_face:

[Norman Bercasio]

@Jim Duncan 1. What is the different between Invoke-SPOSiteSwap vs "Make Homepage" link?

@Benjamin Bennett  1.  Invoke-SPOSiteSwap will replace the Homepage default page so if you limit the permission to yourself, users won't be able to view the homepage.

[Caio_Spinola]

Please forgive me if what I'm about to say is wrong, my technical knowledge in sharepoint is very restricted, but I've tried to Invoke-SPOSiteSwap and it was hell to me.
It swaps the whole site collection with another one, and my root site collection was the company intranet... so in the end I realized I was going to need to move all libraries, pages, and subsite structures to the new one in order to get the new communication home page template to the already built content.
Is there an easier way to SiteSwap and not have to rebuild it all in the new site collection?

[Benjamin Bennett]

@Brad McCabe @Norman Bercasio  I think this is the main determining factor:

Q. Will the Home Site menu show up for a user of another site in the tenant if that user doesn't have permissions to the Home Site?

If the answer is yes, then you have to edit the menu while it's live.

If the answer is no, I can simply restrict permissions to myself (and a small test group), build and test the menu, and then open permissions up to the full user base.

Does this sound right? Can someone confirm the answer to the question?

[Norman Bercasio]

@Caio_Spinola 

 I am very worried now doing siteswap now. My current root site collection has a lot of subsites. So from reading your post, they won't get migrated to the new site collection, am I right?

[MrUhderhill]

@Norman Bercasio / @Caio_Spinola my understanding of Site Swap is, that it is just a way to promote a different site to be your tenancy root, nothing else, which means, anything that you had in the site collection / sub-sites will remain there but no longer as your tenancy root and you will now have a new modern collaboration site at the root.

I see this only valid for those companies wanting to "upgrade" to the modern intranet, in which a Collaboration Site could be configured and then promoted to be the tenancy root when ready.

I'm sure this new modern collaboration site (with the new home site super powers whenever is released), could have menu options pointing to the old classic subsites, this is my assumption, those subsites are not gone, I assume you will be able to link to them from your new modern navigation.

[Vamsi K K]

@MrUhderhilldo you mean 'Communication Site' by 'new modern collaboration site'?

[MrUhderhill]

@Vamsi K K sorry, you are right Communication Site, hahaha, thanks

[Jim Duncan]

Would it look something like this?

$existingRoot = https://[tenant].sharepoint.com/
$newRoot = $existingRoot + /sites/NewSiteThatWeMade
$placeToMoveExistingRoot = $existingRoot + /sites/TheOldRootSiteCollectionAndAllOfItsContents

Invoke-SPOSiteSwap -SourceUrl $newRoot
         -TargetUrl $existingRoot
         -ArchiveUrl $placeToMoveExistingRoot

If you did that, you could configure the Highlighted Content web part(s) on the new Home Page to pull content from https://[tenant].sharepoint.com//sites/TheOldRootSiteCollectionAndAllOfItsContents (assuming you didn't want to migrate the content into the new Communication Site).

[CW_213]

Does anyone know if Home Sites are going to roll out on government tenants if and when it drops?

[Peter-Ross Cuthbert]

Any word on when this will be available? It doesn't seem to be in the roadmap from what I can see. Also any info around the Powershell command would be valuable. I've seen one called Set-PnPHomeSite, but there is limited documentation and it just throws a 403 when I attempt to use it (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/set-pnphomesite). I'd imagine this command will be available on the SPO site of Powershell though?

[Benjamin Bennett]

Will the full Home Site menu be visible at the top of the SharePoint Start Page?

[DC Padur]

When a Home site is set up, the site navigation (and hub navigation, if present) will show up in the SP start page. 

[Anthony_Tudor]

Hi everyone, 

Love the sound of home sites, think It'll be a great addition to the toolset. One thing im unsure of, is the purpose of the root site collection in this new ecosystem? If SharePoint home becomes the landing page of SharePoint, wouldn't you just bypass the root site altogether?

[Eric Schrader]

This is still not released.

Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/HomeSite"

andddd error!

Set-SPOHomeSite : The requested operation is part of an experimental feature that is not supported in the current
environment.

[Andrew Chang]

Looks like Home Sites is still not rolled out as of today:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl "https://tenant.sharepoint.com/"

Confirm
Before you set a Home site, make sure you review the documentation at
https://aka.ms/homesites. Continue?
[Y] Yes  [N] No  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): Y
Set-SPOHomeSite : The requested operation is part of an experimental feature
that is not supported in the current environment.
At line:1 char:1
+ Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl "https://tenant.sharepoint.com/"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-SPOHomeSite], ServerExcep
   tion
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerException,Micr
   osoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPOHomeSite+SetSPHSite

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

[singletrackvale]

I got a wide mix of answers at Ignite for when I'll get Home Sites.  Anything from "it's starting to roll out now" to "it'll be out by the end of year".

Guess I'm just going to have to test the script every day!

[Andrew Chang]

@singletrackvale

In the Microsoft Roadmap, it says it's scheduled to roll out in Nov. 2019: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=home%2Csites

I am crossing my fingers.

[Heiko Fuhrmann]

Have this feature for more as one  site good idea like for departments, but for whole organization as central starting intranet I think not. So we moved from Spo site to Azure solution. Several reasons. like functions ,features, content management audiences ,performance, csi azure pipelines in  automatic way, full devops/vsts approach.

[jamescragle]

After installing the latest PowerShell module for SPO I was able to execute the Set-SPHomeSite command. 

[KjartanH]

Will the Communication Site's URL change when set to a Home Site?

[RyanM_AATPOC]

I am still unable to create a Home Site in my tenant - I also see this message:

Set-SPOHomeSite : The requested operation is part of an experimental feature
that is not supported in the current environment.

I have the latest PowerShell module for SPO, and I'm in targeted release.

Are Home Sites only enabled for select tenants? 

[MrUhderhill]

RyanM, roadmap shows February/2020 now, not available to my knowledge, still waiting 

 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=home%2Csites

[RyanM_AATPOC]

@MrUhderhill 

Thanks - I see this has now been updated to March 2020.

[mike_norrie]

@DC Padur An example of requiring multiple home pages in a single tenant.   A College/University may require Staff and Student home pages to be different. 

[Chloe Gilbert]

10 months later and we are still waiting for this, it has been postponed again. "Updated March 2, 2020: To ensure the proper experience we are postponing this release. We will provide an updated schedule via a new Message center post once it is available. We apologize for the inconvenience." Seriously, why announce so early if you didn't have anything even working? I understand about building excitement for a product but this sort of behaviour just undermines us when we are telling colleagues about upcoming stuff and then you dont deliver. They just laugh and move on. I'm trying at the moment to deliver a SharePoint based intranet to my organisation, now after this news they are talking about scrapping that plan and going with something else. I mean, please for all that is holy, sort yourselves out.

[Denis Tiri]

Indeed @Chloe Gilbert

Totally agree.

One year later and I can't even find it on the roadmap. 

Only the button in SharePoint mobile is rolling out.

But the integration with the start page: nowhere to be seen?

[MrUhderhill]

@Denis Tiri , coincidentally, I received an e-mail yesterday indicating that Home Site is rolling out now, take a look at the roadmap: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=26842

If you have access to the admin portal, this is the link to the communication I received: https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/home#MessageCenter?id=MC212106

[Denis Tiri]

@MrUhderhill Unfortunalty as stated in my post, that's only for the button in the mobile app (and it sets the site automatically as authoritive news, something that's just one cmdlet anyway ...)

It does not contain the integration with the startpage.

[Chloe Gilbert]

We've had the communication in the Admin Portal, but we're still getting the message: Set-SPOHomeSite : The requested operation is part of an experimental feature that is not supported in the current environment.

[Denis Tiri]

On my tenant, that command succeeded yesterday, and we got the home button on the mobileapp

[NAARCHARJULIO]

SharePoint debe ser una comunidad donde exista un supervisor líder un ingeniero Desarrollador que da la ultima palabra después en una discusión donde todos opinan y Este ingeniero da su ultima opinión a los 30 días pasados de la publicación. los usuarios también deben registrar su correo electrónico para poder analizar las respuestas dada por cualquier miembro de la comunidad con la finalización del comentario de parte de un ingeniero Desarrollador que esta analizando todas las respuestas de parte de los miembros de la comunidad, mirando y calificando con una , dos o tres Estrellas alas mejores Respuestas.

[Eric Adler]

I am unable to run the Set-SPOHomeSite cmdlet. I have the newest version of the  sharepoint online powershell and can do all other activities connected to the tenant. I have uninstalled reinstalled several times.

This is the error I get, please help:

Set-SPOHomeSite : The term 'Set-SPOHomeSite' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or
operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try
again.
At line:1 char:1
+ Set-SPOHomeSite
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Set-SPOHomeSite:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

[Daniel Westerdale]

@Eric Adler 

Looks like you are trying to run the Commanlet in PowerShell Core 7, rather than Windows PowerShell 5.1 .  You can check, with this command

$PSVersionTable

At your  your Windows PowerShell prompt  ( I recommend the WIndow Terminal), you can check existence of the required modules with:

 get-installedModule -Name Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell

Thereafter, you can connect to tenant admin url.

 connect-SPOService https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com
 Get-SPOHomeSite

[Eric Adler]

I was doing it with the newest version of SharePoint Management shell. 

I used a different machine and it worked the first time.

[Chris_Shin]

When I set a home site, the connection to the SharePoint Start Page does not happen. There's no theme sharing, the hub menu and the site menu does not appear there, and the My SharePoint link / Featured link don't get generated.

Anyone else experience this?

[kenneho]

@Chris_Shin , I have the same issue. Did you figure out why? 

On https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/home-site it says: 

Integration between the home site and SharePoint start page (where the branding, theming, header, navigation, and footer elements from the home site are applied to the start page and users can easily navigate between the pages) is not available at this time. Please watch for updates in the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

However, on a few different online resources, people are demonstrating these very features, but maybe they're on targeted release tentants or something. 

[Chris_Shin]

@kenneho good catch. I missed that note on that article. I suspect you're right on the targeted / preview availability.

[Benjamin Bennett]

Is there any update on support for multiple Home sites? I'm at a college where we'd like the option of a separate Home site for Employees and Students, even though they're in the same tenant.