Convert Classic root site to Communication site

[Ravi Chandra]

In our recent intranet projects, we recommend users to go with main Intranet site using communication site template and we expect that to be the root site collection of the tenant.  The issue is every tenant root site collection is a based on classic team site template and we will never be able to convert it to a communication site template. Apart from this big limitation, it gives other design challenges like missing global navigation, left nav etc.

One of the blog says about create a communication site, save the template as wsp. Delete the root site collection and recreate the site using the communication template that we saved earlier. Is this method is approved by Microsoft?

https://hangconsult.com/2017/06/29/change-sharepoint-online-root-site-collection-to-use-the-new-comm...

Ravi

[#2]

No, this method is not supported by Microsoft....might I ask why you don't simply use modern features in the root site collection in SPO

[#3]

As Juan said not supported. In the near future they are adding the ability to change the navigation to either left, top or none. This will let normal left nav looking modern sites look like comm sites. Just have to wait for that feature.

What I’ve done is just created a comm site as our landing page and pointed everyone to it. And on the toot collection made a classic page he home page and put a redirect on it to redirect to the comm site. Been working fine.

[#4]

Thank you Juan and Chris,

As of now, I will take the redirect option, so users land on the Comm site from root site collection.

Thanks!

Ravi

[#5]

How do you make this redirect work. Can you provide a step-by-step approach?

[#6]

Yeah. Tomorrow when I get in. But it’s just a response redirect script web part on the homepage. Just make a 2nd blank page and put the redirect script on it. Then set it as homepage. That way you can always get back to your default.aspx if you have too. Anyway if you need more instruction let me know and I’ll do some screens and the script.

[#7]

Super simple...

On the root site collection add a classic page and add a script editor webpart. Paste the below code. Update the site URL.

=================================

<script>
var wikiInEditMode = document.forms[MSOWebPartPageFormName]._wikiPageMode.value;
if (wikiInEditMode == "Edit")
{
// wiki page is in edit mode
}
else
{
// wiki page is not in edit mode
location.href = 'NEW SITE URL';
}
</script>

===========================================

Ravi

[#8]

There ya go. Even better way ;).

[#9]

Please see this https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Communications-Sites-AMA/Change-Tenant-Root-into-a-Communicat...

[#10]

@Ravi Chandra 

Can we create Communication site with modern Ui, inside classic root site in SharePoint online?

[#11]

@Ravi Chandra Where exactly is the code going please? Site Settings > Site contents > New page > Add web part "Code snippet" > paste in code? This is the more apparent place to create a new page; not sure if there is a different place to add maybe a classic page or if this type of page is alright. 

[#12]

@Ravi Chandra 

Hello,

I have root site  with template publishing and another 50 subsites (below)  with teams template (modern or classic ) . If i want to change only the root site template to communication without affecting the rest of the sub-sites how to proceed ?

Thank you 

[#13]

Thank you so much for sharing this. It worked for me and I have now redirected people to the new Modern SharePoint site I created for the Home of my client's intranet

[#14]

There is a new method to achieve this supported by Microsoft, I've wrote a blog post explaining how to do it.

https://sharepoint.handsontek.net/2019/08/23/change-the-root-site-collection-of-your-tenant-to-moder...

All you have to do is to execute the site swap comandlet available on the latest version of the SharePoint Online Management Shell.