Removing the empty classic team root site and create a new modern communication root site

Steel Contributor

I want to start a new Office 365 project. and i am facing with the same old/new issue, is that there root site collection is actually a classic team site collection. but i want to have it as modern communication site. now i found some links which provide a long appraoch of converting classic team site into modern communication sites and some people mentioned that this appraoch is not supported. so i am not sure if i can simply remove the root site collection and create a new communication site inside the root. i do know that removing the root site will make all the site collections un-accessible till we create a new root site collection. so i can arrange this with our customer and do the deletion and re-creation over the week end.

but i am not sure if deleting the emty classic team root site and create a new communication site is considered a valid and supported appraoch ? as i am not seeking to convert anything, since the current classic root team site is empty...

Thanks

17 Replies
I would recommend either redirect to the communications site

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Developer/Convert-Classic-root-site-to-Communicati...

Or waiting for the supported cmdlets on the M365 roadmap scheduled for Q2

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

AFAIK, a remove and add would not be a supported scenario.

Best, Chris

 


@Christopher Hoard wrote:
AFAIK, a remove and add would not be a supported scenario.

Best, Chris

@Christopher Hoard 

is there any official documentation about this ? that it is not supported? and why this will not be supported if new tenants will have their root site collection as a communication site collection..

No official documentation that I can find that it is either supported or not supported. As this uservoice is currently open for it

https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/20308864-set-comm...

And the fact that they are bringing out shell commands to convert suggest it is unsupported.

Of course, nothing says it 100% isn’t. I am also going on the fact of doing things, they not work and contacting MS support only for them to say it is not officially supported after. I guess my point is there is nothing official to say this supported

Best, Chris
Wait for official support or attempt anything else on a developer site. Don’t use your customer’s production platform.

 


@John Wynne wrote:
Wait for official support or attempt anything else on a developer site. Don’t use your customer’s production platform.

@John Wynne 

so you are saying that deleting the classic team site collection and re-creating a new modern communication site is not supported? i can not imagine why this is the case.. also i can not wait to get official announcement, as we need to start with the project. and if we apply a redirect then we will have to migrate all the content to the root site in the future..

now if deleting the classic root team site and create a modern root site is not supported, then i will  work on the current classic team site, and will use the modern UI in this case... what do you think ?

Yes, classic site with modern UI elements or one of the above!

Hope this answers your question

Best, Chris

 


@Christopher Hoard wrote:
No official documentation that I can find that it is either supported or not supported. As this uservoice is currently open for it

https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/20308864-set-comm...

And the fact that they are bringing out shell commands to convert suggest it is unsupported.

Of course, nothing says it 100% isn’t. I am also going on the fact of doing things, they not work and contacting MS support only for them to say it is not officially supported after. I guess my point is there is nothing official to say this supported

Best, Chris

@Christopher Hoard 

ok i got your point. so if this is the case, then what do you think of just using the current classic team site as-is.. and i can define modern pages and use the modern UI on the custom lists i am planning to add.. so in this case the classic team site will just look as a modern communication site...

 


@Christopher Hoard wrote:
Yes, classic site with modern UI elements or one of the above!

Hope this answers your question

Best, Chris

@Christopher Hoard 

the problem with the 2 links you provided, is that they contain lot of suggestions, and many of these suggestions are been described as unsupported as mentioned on the replies... so can you link me with the supported solution? or they all fall under having modern UI inside classic team sites?

No, it is not supported yet. Stay classic until it is. This will be supported in the future and bear in mind you are in the same position as everyone else who remains within a supported SPO environment. You may experience all kinds of unpredictable issues by changing fundamental sites. Remember you will be able to ‘upgrade’ in a supported way in the future. If you have access to a Microsoft support team discuss with them but the advice remains your root site is essential for smooth operations only perform supported actions.

 


@John Wynne wrote:
No, it is not supported yet. Stay classic until it is. This will be supported in the future and bear in mind you are in the same position as everyone else who remains within a supported SPO environment. You may experience all kinds of unpredictable issues by changing fundamental sites. Remember you will be able to ‘upgrade’ in a supported way in the future. If you have access to a Microsoft support team discuss with them but the advice remains your root site is essential for smooth operations only perform supported actions.

@John Wynne 

 

ok i agree with you and thanks for the great replies. so what i am planning to do is as follow:-

1. create all the lists and libraries inside the current classic team site.

2. where i will be using the modern UI.

3. later in the future if Microsoft provide a CMD or a feature to enable on the classic root team site, then we can enable it, which will/should convert the classic root team site to a modern communication root site, and without having to migrate any thing or losing any of the data we already have? so we even do not have to delay our project

 

what do you think about my above 3 points?

It’s a sensible approach and remember you will have Microsoft support. There is plenty of official Microsoft expertise here (not me!) and via your official help on your tenant. Microsoft Docs is an excellent resource.
That is a good solution and supported. Then switch over when the shell commands are released in Q2.

To note the other ways are supported too - a redirect to a communication site is in a standard web part and the shell commands to convert will be released fully supported.

Glad we helped get you to a solution!

Best, Chris

@Christopher Hoardthanks for the great replies.


@Christopher Hoard wrote:
To note the other ways are supported too - a redirect to a communication site is in a standard web part

now adding a redirect is not an appraoch we want to follow, as our customer want the intranet to be on the root (which is understood). it tooks us decade till we convince them that the url for the root should have sharepoint.com inside it :)

 


@Christopher Hoard wrote:
 and the shell commands to convert will be released fully supported.

i am not sure if the shell command will be supported on classic team sites which contain lists and libraries and data? or Microsoft will assume that the script will/should be run on empty root site?. for example i have this scenaro in my mind which is capable to break the shell commands, now if you create a new modern communication site, you can not enable the publishing features. so let say inside our current root classic team site we have enabled the publishing features on the site collection and site levels,, so what will happen when we run the shell command to convert the classic root to modern communication site? For me i usually on any classic team site (online, root or even on-premises) first thing i do is that i enable the publishing features, but for our new project i will not enable those publishing features,, as i do not want to complicate or break the proposing shell commands.. any advice or opinion on this will be highly appreciated ?

Thanks

@john john  take a look at the announcements that were made this week at the SharePoint conference, there are lots of changes coming soon for what you can do with the root site. If your schedule allows, it will be easier.

 


@Dean Gross wrote:

@john john  take a look at the announcements that were made this week at the SharePoint conference, there are lots of changes coming soon for what you can do with the root site. If your schedule allows, it will be easier.


@Dean Gross 

can you let me know where i can read more about the announcement? and what will be the features for the root? second point, will there be any harm if i add some lists and libraries to the current root site, and then convert it to a communication site? as we are planning to submit 2 site collections (the classic root team site + another communication site under /sites/), so i will not be able to delay this anymore..


@Dean Gross wrote:
see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/Updates-to-SharePoint-security-admi..., the Invoke-SPOSiteSwap cmd is coming

the announcement regarding this is a bit confused, where they mentioned:-

 

SharePoint Site Swap (Coming Soon)

In addition to these improvements to the SharePoint admin center, we’re also introducing new Windows PowerShell cmdlet (invoke-spositeswap) that allows you to replace the root site within a tenant, e.g. https://contoso.sharepoint.comwith an existing site, such as https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/<site>.

 

So seems we will not be able to convert our current classic root site with its data to be a modern communication site,, but rather we need to do swapping.. so in our case if we do all the modifications on the current root classic site, we will not be able to convert it to a modern communication site?