Upgrade Classic Experience

[Hawkins_IT]

Our main Team Site is in the Classic Experience. What is the easiest way to make everything Modern Experience without compromising our files? Or is it easier to start from scratch with a Modern Site?

Thank you!!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hey @Hawkins_IT 

Check out Modernize your classic SharePoint sites | Microsoft Docs
For a Team Site you are in luck, as you have some options.

Before deciding on "modernizing" (i.e., groupifying) your existing site, I would consider how much content you have there (docs, pages, list items) and how complex is the architecture (i.e., custom columns, content types). If it's not overly complex, you will likely find it simpler and less risky to simply create a new modern site and move things over gradually.

[#3]

Hello David,

When you say create a new modern site, do you mean in the same instance or in a new instance created with a modern team or communication site?

[#4]

@pmcgrath I was suggesting creating a net new Team Site, which should default now to the Modern Experience. You can choose to attach the Site to a team if you like, or start it off as a stand-alone site.

[#5]

Thank you for your quick response.

I don't have a lot of experience with this so I might sound amateurish.

When you say net new Team site, can I do this in my current instance or do I need to set up an entirely new instance?

Example: Current instance root is company.sharepoint.com. New instance is business.sharepoint.com.

Thank you.

[#6]

Hey. No silly questions.
You definitely do not need to set up a new instance (tenant), as you can have up to 2million sites per tenant, and they can be a blend of Classic and Modern sites. You can create the site a number of different ways, depending on your access and needs. Does your site need to be attached to Microsoft Teams? If so, it's easiest to simply create a new Team within MsTeams itself, and this will always attach a corresponding Team Site in SharePoint.

[#7]

@DavidFrancoeur 

Thank you again for your response.

One last question, if Microsoft decides to twilight SharePoint Classic Experience would our current tenant be safe or would we need to migrate to a new tenant? Meaning, would our current tenant be unsupported and eventually removed.

This would influence our decision greatly and we cannot find any information on this.

Thank you.

[#8]

Microsoft might eventually deprecate Classic experiences but not without offering people a means to migrate or preserve the content they already have. I always advise customers that it's much more risky to invest in Classic because Microsoft has been very clear they are not going to introducing new features here. If you are creating something new, I highly recommend you pursue Modern as you will see much more in the way of long term benefits and a steady roadmap of innovations. But to your question, there is not really any chance your whole tenant would get decommissioned. The worst case would be lack of support for the Classic sites in the longer term.

[#9]

Thank you again for the quick response.

I guess what we need to know is if there is a difference between a tenant that was set up with a classic team site that you create modern sites on and a tenant that was set up as a modern team site/communication site.

Do they function differently or would the settings screens and site setting screens look and function the same?

Thank you,

[#10]

Best way to answer is that you have a tenant, which contains all your M365 services. SharePoint is one of those core services. Within your SharePoint environment, you have a number of sites (site collections). These can be a blend of Classic or Modern, Team or Communication. The SharePoint application underlies all your sites, regardless of type, it is not affected by which type of site you choose to use. Whether your first site on the tenant was classic or modern is irrelevant, it is just a site. Many people find this confusing because they assume the root site of their environment is somehow a reflection of their overall SharePoint configuration. It is not, it is simply another site. A tenant does not "get set up as a team site".

The Site Setting screens may look and behave differently between Sites that are Classic vs. Modern, but again, this is a site-level difference, not an environmental one.

Hope this helps.

[#11]

Thank you for the response.

This is the answer we were looking for.

Thank you for all your help.