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It's Matt here.
Welcome to Collaboration Coach.
Today we're going to look at SharePoint Home sites
to see what they're all about and why they're useful.
First of all
a Home site isn't a new type of SharePoint site.
That's what I assumed when I first heard about them.
We still have just two types: Team sites and Communication sites.
A Home site is actually a new setting for an existing Communication site.
It allows you to make a Communication site the landing page...
...for all the users in your SharePoint intranet.
So to set a Home site you need to have your Communication site ready first.
The goal of a Home site is to make it easier for people...
...to move around your intranet and find what they're looking for.
I thought I'd demonstrate the differences that setting a Home site makes to a SharePoint intranet
by comparing them before and after.
So on the left we have the regular intranet in Microsoft Edge
and on the right the same intranet after the Home site was set
-and this is in Google Chrome.
I have an intranet called "Work @ Collaboration Coach".
It's a Hub site so it has the additional navigation at the top
with the links to the other sites associated with this hub
and you can see the green branding as well.
If you want to know more about Hub sites click on the link in the right corner now
as I made a video on that that explains it in much more detail.
So in my view there are five main benefits that the Home site brings.
So let's go through them one by one and compare the before and after.
The SharePoint start page is where you go when you press the SharePoint tile...
...on the Office 365 home page or the app launcher.
That page is personalised for you because it shows news and sites
that you have recently visited or followed.
The Home site integrates with the SharePoint start page.
Once you've configured your Home site
you'll see any branding and navigation that's on the Home site on your start page.
As an example, on the left you can see what the start page looks like...
...before the Home site was set.
It has the news and site sections
but it doesn't have the branding and navigation of the Home site.
Now on the right you can see what the start page looks like after the Home site has been set.
It now has the navigation and the branding of the Home site.
Next you're going to see a link on the Home site to the start page.
This allows users to easily move between the organisation content on the Home site...
...and their own personalised content on the start page.
On the left now you can see that there is no link to "My SharePoint"
but there is one on the right.
As an administrator I can edit the "My SharePoint" link.
I can change it
or remove it.
And when I click on it, it takes me to the SharePoint Start page.
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Next you're going to see a change in search.
Usually when you search from a site it will only search for content within that site.
When you set up a Home site it will change the scope of your search...
...to everything in Office 365.
When I search from the search bar on the left here
I see that I'm getting my results from the Work @ Collaboration Coach site
and I can change that scope if I want.
Clicking "Organisation" here will change the search scope to everything in Office 365.
But if I do the same from the Home site over here on the right
you'll see that the scope is the organisation by default.
Moving on...
...the Home site is automatically set up as an organisation news site.
That means that all news items created in that site get a noticeable tag...
...to highlight their authority.
In the regular intranet a piece of news created on the Work @ Collaboration Coach site
looks the same as all the news from all the other sites.
In the Home site intranet the same news item is highlighted
to show that it's from an authoritative news site.
Lastly, users of the SharePoint app on iOS and Android will see a home button...
...on the "Find" tab of their mobile app.
I have the SharePoint app for iOS running
on the iPad here
and you can see the home button in the top right hand corner.
Ok, so they're all the changes you're going to see when you set your Home site.
Now let's have a look at some of the rules of Home sites.
So first of all you can only have one Home site.
A Home site must be a Communication site.
A Home site can be a Hub site but it can't be associated with a hub.
So finally, creating a Home site is an administrative task
and you will need to be a SharePoint service admin or a global admin to do it.
You'll also need PowerShell access to SharePoint.
Once you have that, creating a Home site is very simple.
It's one line of PowerShell
and all you need to know is the URL of your Home site.
I'll put a link in the description with an article that describes what you need to do and how to do it.
So that's it.
That's how you can use Home sites in your SharePoint intranet.
I hope this was useful.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
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