Change News Page to Site Page

[Deleted]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a method of changing a News Page to a Site Page.  These pages were created prior to the hub sites being rolled out, now they are showing up in the News sections of all pages.

I'm familiar with the Promoted State column, but I haven't been able to find instructions on how to actually change the value in that column.  I've seen references to using Flow but never any instructions on actually doing that.

Any tips on this would be appreciated.

[#2]

Are you site collection admin on that site?

Yes, I created the site and am the admin. 

Is the column maybe marked as read only in the content type somehow for the Site pages library in that site?

Not as far as I can tell. I did look, but since I'm just a newbie as far as Sharepoint is concerned, I might have missed something.

I wish this was more exposed since I would rather have a normal user with author roles not have to go through all of these steps to demote a news item to a regular site page.

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@ChrisWebbTech wrote:
Are you site collection admin on that site? Never seen a column protected like that, that's interesting. Is the column maybe marked as read only in the content type somehow for the Site pages library in that site?

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Thanks for trying to help this Drupal guy as I try to get up to speed on Sharepoint! I'll keep reading up to see if this is the best approach for our site.

[#3]

Agree, it should be built in.

[#4]

@Deleted 

We can demote or unpromote news using following list view extension

https://sharepointhd.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/extensionlist-view-command-set-for-unpromotting-a-news-or-unplublish-a-news/

[#5]

I'am facing the same issue like @Noel_Suarez. new created target release tennant here an a comms site. The column "Promoted State" is read-only in the quick edit mode so I can´t change the value. 😞

[#6]

Try using a Grouped by Promoted State view and see if you can drag the article between groups. I have used that approach too and it worked. At least it did the last time I tried!

[#7]

you need to use powershell to convert it from read to write only 

https://sharepointhd.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/extensionlist-view-command-set-for-unpromotting-a-news...

@AndreeS 

[#8]

@Susan_Hanley 

I tried it, but it didnt worked. I found an other way - after publishing the page, i clicked on following option in the right bar.

[#9]

That also works to go from regular page to News. The reverse is where Promoted State editing helps.

[#10]

@AndreeS @Noel_Suarez I know it's been months, but just ran into this and found a way to make the column editable (it was also greyed out and read-only in quick edit mode for me -- early/targeted release on our sites, too) and thought I'd share in case anyone else runs into it.

I did 2 things -- and I think the first was unrelated to it working, but just in case it isn't... I checked the page out. Can't imagine this had any effect, but...

What I think actually changed it was going into the column settings and editing one thing. I didn't do anything big. Since Promoted State is a number format and I only wanted to remove one promoted/news article (and change no other pages), I chose not to have min/max both be "0" -- but I did change the number of decimal places from Automatic to 0. I saved the change, it acknowledged that the column had been changed/updated, and then I went into quick edit mode and the column was editable. And the article is no longer in the site collection's News webpart or Microsoft's new News.aspx page that they rolled out on our sites a couple weeks ago. And the article is still in all the other places it should be.

[#11]

This method work to allow editing of Promoted State in Quick Edit

[#12]

@pjbarry21 - this worked a treat! Thanks for coming back a few months later to share your findings.

[#13]

@pjbarry21 Thanks for sharing. I tried this in my own tenant and found that you actually don’t have to make any changes at all. Just click Edit on Promoted State and save without making an update. That seemed to do the trick to “unlock” the column for quick edit. You just need to remember to publish the page again after you make it Promoted State = 0. 

If you decide to make the page News again (using the Promote button on the page), the Created date stays the same but the First Published date is updated - so the page will become “new” News again. 

[#14]

@SusanHanley So glad it's easier to do now. I'm wondering if it may have changed since I originally posted this (so much changes so often these days with it being online now) -- because I'd tried clicking edit and saving (I find a lot of things just need a quick save to unlock them), and still had the greyed out column. It just wouldn't let me do it at the time. Glad that it looks like it's easier to change it now, though!

[#15]

I just spent hours (trouble shooting, documenting, emailing, discussing, emailing again) on this very issue: "Why does a news article persist in the hub news?"

Luckily, I had bookmarked this thread months ago. I pulled it up today because the MS engineer needed to know how to edit Promoted State. I glanced through the posts again and saw this reference to hub news not updating.

So, yes, I'm in the middle of a ticket for an issue that was reported two years ago!! 

Why hasn't this been fixed? 

There could be a perfectly valid reason why it hasn't been fixed. If that's the case, Microsoft needs to provide better documentation. Why do I have to search and search for things like:

• what is promoted state?
• what do the different values mean?
• how do I show the column?
• why can't I edit via Quick Edit (but only sometimes)?
• how to remove news from hub news?

I'm clearly venting here, but I would also like to see a response from Microsoft about plans for fixing the problem and updating documentation.

Does anyone know if this is on UserVoice or has been submitted elsewhere? I'd like to upvote. 

Thanks.

[#16]

I found a related request in User Voice if anyone wants to comment on it.

[#17]

I am unable to edit the Promoted State value.  This field appears to be readonly.

[#18]

Thank you @pjbarry21 - this was what I needed to be able to edit the promote state value after following instruction to expose Promote State column!!

[#19]

@pjbarry21 Thanks for the solution! Confirm that it is enough to open edit column and save without making any changes to be able to edit Promoted State.

[#20]

If you want to edit the Promoted State there is a easy way and I just found that just go to the Promoted state column --> Column settings --> edit ---> Don't change anything just save the column and now that Promoted can be found in the page details where the field will be editable and Hope this helps for everyone out there.

[#21]

@AIM4Dream I just logged in to thank you! Microsoft keeps changing everything and any info that is older then a few months is not relevant anymore. I was searching around for a few hours and it seems you saved me a few more 🙂