Plan, build, and launch a home site for your organization

2023-03-09 20:34| 来源: 网络整理| 查看: 265

Plan, build, and launch a home site for your organization Article 03/07/2023 12 minutes to read

A SharePoint home site provides a customized landing experience that reflects the organization’s brand, voice, and priorities. A home site also serves as the gateway to other portals in your organization’s intranet. Learn more about how Viva Connections and home sites work together to create employee experiences.

Note

A home site is not required for the latest release of the Viva Connections desktop experience. Learn more about the new experience, how to customize it, how to choose the default landing experience, and how to onboard new users.

If you’ve already created the communication site and are ready to specify it as your home site now, learn how to Set a site as your home site.

Use a SharePoint home site to:

Provide a gateway to other high-traffic portals Connect people with an intranet-wide search experience Showcase targeted news and content Take advantage of the new people engagement tool, Viva Connections Example of a home site: View in the SharePoint mobile app: What is a SharePoint home site?

You only need one home site to take advantage of home site features. Home sites do not replace communication or team sites, but instead provide a landing place for your organization. Think of home sites as an add-on to your intranet design. Home sites are SharePoint communication sites that have special capabilities such as being marked as an official source of news in the organization. Consider making your tenant's root site the home site. Next, review key differences between standard SharePoint communication sites and home sites.

Creating a home site so your organization can use Viva Connections? Consider following this design guidance.

Home site features explained:

Home sites are unlike any other site in SharePoint. When you set a SharePoint communication site as a home site, you’ll automatically apply special capabilities that make the home site an ideal landing destination for your intelligent intranet.

Search for content across the entire intranet

Home sites allow users to search for content (such as sites, news, and files) across the entire intranet rather than searching just the site like typical SharePoint sites. This becomes possible because the search scope for the home site searches the entire intranet instead of just the site collection like a typical site.

Official source of organizational news

By default, a home site is set as the organizational news source. News posts that are created from the home site automatically become official organizational news and take priority on the SharePoint start page and in the home section of the SharePoint mobile app. Administrators can set sites as official organizations news sources in the admin center.

Enable and customize global navigation in the SharePoint app bar

The SharePoint app bar features a global navigation option that displays intranet navigational nodes and resources no matter where users are in SharePoint. To take full advantage of this feature, you must have a home site. Learn more about how to enable and customize global navigation in the SharePoint app bar.

Use Viva Connections to integrate your intranet into Microsoft Teams

Viva Connections is designed to drive engagement, build community, and enable your organization to stay connected. To take advantage of this solution, you’ll need a home site. Then, you can integrate the home site into Microsoft Teams. Learn more about Viva Connections.

Before getting started

Before you get started planning and building your home site, review best practices and considerations.

Best practices for creating home sites: Because a home site is used by the entire organization, the site needs to be inclusive and easily accessible on all devices. Because the site needs to be inclusive and easily accessible on all devices, consider other languages that might be needed. The home site will be viewed by high volume of users. Make sure you manage site performance through the planning and building phases. Links in the home site's navigation can direct users to content in addition to global navigation which can be used to lead users to universally used resources and portals. Make sure the home site is discoverable by adding an entry point to the Microsoft 365 app launcher and a featured link on the SharePoint start page. News published from the home site should be relevant to the entire organization. Considerations: Align the branding on the home site to the overall intranet brand where possible. For organizations with many portals and resources, consider making your home site a hub site to expand navigational options and easily sync permissions and branding across many sites. If the site you want to be your home site isn't currently the root site and you want it to be, first swap the home site with the root site location, and then set the site as your home site. If you set up a home site first, and then swap it with the root site, you may lose home site settings and need to reapply them. Use a home site template from the SharePoint look book called The Landing to jump-start the design process. Summary of how to get a home site for your organization

Since home sites are the gateway to your intranet, you’ll want to prioritize content and resources that are relevant to most employees. Work with business owners and stakeholders to organize and align the flow of information and the navigational design. Then, use the Page diagnostics for SharePoint tool to ensure to best viewing experience. Next, set your communication site as a home site in the SharePoint admin center. Finally, use the Portal launch scheduler to plan the launch of your new site and make the site discoverable by adding links to key entry-points in the Microsoft 365 experience.

Before you get started planning your home site, hear from the Microsoft product team on how to think about and approach the design of your organization’s home site.

Plan Build Launch and manage - Align objectives with partners and business owners - Organize priority content - Design way finding for the home site and global navigation - Think about branding - Use audience targeting on navigational links, news, and web parts - Upload and organize site assets and content like logos and files - Customize the site to align with the rest of the intranet - Apply audience targeting - Turn on a content approval flow - Use PowerShell to turn the comm site into a home site - Swap the root site location with the home site - Measure site health and performance - Test on all devices - Share the site with your organization - Use the Portal launch scheduler to release the new site in phases - Make the home site discoverable - Announce the launch of the home site using various communication channels - Monitor site usage and analytics Plan your home site

A great home site starts with a plan. Because your home site is essentially the gateway to your intranet, you'll want to collaborate with other business owners such as human resources, leadership teams, and even your legal team to ensure the most important and universal resources are accessible for everyone in the organization.

Icon Action Get started Get organized Start by aligning objectives with stakeholders and organizing priority content and resources. Consider details specific to your organization like if the home page needs to be available in more than one language. Use modern SharePoint sites for the home site. Learn more about how modern SharePoint sites and how to create a multi-lingual site and pages. Plan navigation Then, organize the navigational structure for the home site itself and global navigation. Consider making the home site a hub site if you need to add an extra layer of navigation and make it easier to sync associated site permissions and branding. Learn more about planning site navigation and how to make your home site a hub site. Then, review guidance on how to set up global navigation on the home site. Personalize content Next, think about the difference audiences that your organization serves. Consider how elements on your home site like navigational links and certain web parts could benefit from audience targeting to specific audiences. Learn more about audience targeting. Gather branding assets Finally, start gathering assets needed to apply custom branding and other details to your home site, like logo files, color themes, and any custom solutions. Learn more about how to change the look of your site. Consider site performance Even before you build your site, understand the main elements that will make sure your home site is healthy. A healthy home site optimizes performance to ensure the best possible viewing experience. Use the Page diagnostics for SharePoint tool to make sure the home page is healthy before sharing with end users.Learn more about healthy portals and using the Page diagnostics tool for SharePoint. Build your home site

When you've prepared a plan, you're ready to start creating the home site in SharePoint. Start with a communication site, and after you have the general layout finalized, set the communication site as a home site in the SharePoint admin center.

Icon Action Get started Create a modern communication site Start by creating a SharePoint communication site and build out the site by using sections, web parts, and pages. Consider using a mega menu and footer to enhance way finding. Web parts that are useful for a home site include: News web part, My feed web part, Yammer web parts, Quick link web part, and the Highlighted content web part.Learn how to create a communication site, use modern web parts, and customize your site. Apply audience targeting Next, turn on audience targeting on for the home site. By enabling audience targeting, specific content will be prioritized to specific audiences in navigational links, news, and certain web parts. Learn more about how audience targeting works and how to apply it to navigational links, news, and web parts. Set up a page approval flow Then, make sure the home site is set up for regular content updates. Turn on content approval to ensure only high-quality content is published on the home site. Learn how to turn on a page approval flow. Swap the root site location with the home site Before you set a communication site as the home site, swap the communication site in place of the root site of your tenant as a best practice. The root site for your organization is one of the sites that's provisioned automatically when you purchase and set up a Microsoft 365 plan. If you set up a home site first, and then swap locations with your root site, you may lose home site settings and need to reapply them. Learn how to swap the root site with the home site. Set the home site Next, set the home site. Set up global navigation Then, enable global navigation to allow users to easily navigate to important intranet resources anywhere in SharePoint. Global navigation can only be customized from the home site’s home page.Learn how to enable and customize global navigation. Test site health and the viewing experience Finally, review portal launch guidance and understand the main elements that will make sure your home site is healthy. A healthy home site optimizes performance to ensure the best possible viewing experience. Use the Page diagnostics for SharePoint tool to make sure the home page is healthy before sharing with end users. Learn more about healthy portals and using the Page diagnostics tool for SharePoint. Launch your home site

After you've set your home site, it’s time to plan the launch and make sure the rest of the organization can find and use the home site.

Icon Action Get started Share the site and schedule the portal launch Start by ensuring your home site is healthy, and then its time to share the site with the rest of the organization and schedule the launch. Use the Portal launch scheduler tool to gradually roll out the home site to batches of end users. Using a phased approach is ideal to manage any performance issues that may arise and to ensure a positive viewing experience. Learn how about how to use the Portal launch scheduler tool. Improve discoverability Next, make sure people in your organization can easily find the home site through a few different entry points in the Microsoft 365 experience. Add a link to the home site in the Microsoft app launcher (sometimes called the waffle) and on the SharePoint start page. Learn more about how to add a custom tile to the app launcher and how to add a featured link to the SharePoint start page. Engage your audience Then, let your organization know about the new home site resource, and other new elements like global navigation. Consider multiple communication options like a SharePoint news post that can also be shared in email and in Microsoft Teams. Learn more about how to create and post SharePoint news and share it in an email. Manage and maintain your home site Finally, when the site is healthy, launched, and being used by the organization, monitor site usage and maintain the site. Site maintenance should include making sure site content is relevant, there aren’t any broken links, and that the site stays healthy and performant. Learn how to view usage data and analytics for your site and how to maintain your site over time. Integrate the home site into Microsoft Teams using Viva Connections Expand the reach of the home site and help meet users where they're already working by making it easy to access and share content all in one place. After you have a home site and the global navigation enabled and customized in the SharePoint app bar, you’ve met the requirements to integrate the home site into Microsoft Teams using Viva Connections. Learn more about the Viva Connections end-user experience. Home site FAQs

Q: I have a new site that I want to use as my home site. What do I do? As long as your site is a communication site, you can set the site as a home site.

Q: What’s the difference between a home site and the SharePoint start page? The content on the SharePoint start page is driven and managed by Microsoft Graph. Content is personalized to the individual users’ recent activity, followed sites, and content that is saved for later. The home site is a landing experience for your entire organization. It displays universally relevant content and directs users to other important portals like Human Resources and company directories.

Q: Can I integrate the SharePoint start page with my home site? 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) isn't available at this time. However you can add a featured link to the SharePoint start page to increase home site discovery.

Watch for updates in the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

Q: Can my organization have more the one home site? At this time, each organization can have only one home site.

Resources

Watch: Build and launch a SharePoint Home Site: Tips and Tricks From The Product Team

Planning your SharePoint hub sites

Creating and launching a healthy SharePoint portal

Use and customize the The Landing template from the SharePoint look book

Design a SharePoint home site for Viva Connections

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