Office 365 Hub Sites Are Here! A Few Tips
It’s great to see the Hub Sites promised at Ignite last fall rolling out finally. Hub Sites will be the capability which allows us to associate related “modern” sites with each other. This is probably most common in Intranets, but other examples might be a set of Project sites, a multi-layered HR sites, etc. Keep in mind that the maximum number of Hub Sites today is 50, so plan carefully. (That’s a bigger number than you think, in most cases.)
I’ve been able to play with them a little in my tenant, and I thought I’d post a few observations based on confusion I felt as well as questions I’ve seen. You can read all the nitty-gritty details in this post from Mark Kashman (@mkashman) Organize your intranet with SharePoint hub sites, but here’s what I felt I needed to know.
To setup a new Hub Site in your Office 365 tenant, you only need to run a little Powershell. (I wish the way we have to first work with new capabilities was never spelled P-o-w-e-r-s-h-e-l-l, but that’s what it is. Build us a UI!) I don’t run Powershell all that often, so I needed a little refresher. Here are the steps:
- Open the SharePoint Online Management Shell. If you haven’t installed it yet, you can download it here.
- Run the following command:
Connect-SPOService -Url https://YourTenant-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential Register-SPOHubSite https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/YourHubSite
Yes, you must be a SharePoint Admin (or above) to do this. If you aren’t one, go bake your SharePoint Admin some chocolate chip cookies.
One thing to add, from Beau Cameron on Twitter. The latest SharePoint Online Management Shell now asks for Principals as a part of Register-SPOHubsite command. You can create a hub site without it, by just hitting “enter”. This is all a moving target!
- If you are fine with any Site Owner adding their site to this Hub Site, you can stop here. However, you’ll probably want to lock it down to a specific set of people. To do this, you create a mail-enabled group and give it permission to add sites to the Hub Site. For my Hub Site at /sites/Intranet, this goes like:
Connect-SPOService -Url https://YourTenant-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential Grant-SPOHubSiteRights -Identity https://sympraxis.sharepoint.com/sites/Intranet -Principals [email protected] -Rights Join
If the Powershell runs successfully, you’ll see a response that looks something like this:
The SiteId there is what will become the Managed Property DepartmentId in your search schema. The DepartmentId is applied to content in the associated sites, which enables the content roll ups we get in Hub Sites.
BTW, if you’re just playing around and you want to demote the Hub Site to a regular site, you can run the Unregister-SPOHubSite cmdlet.
I ran the Powershell and I have a new Hub Site. I’ve associated one other “modern” site with it. A few questions came to me immediately as I poked around. Melissa Torres at Microsoft was kind enough to answer my questions on the Tech Community,
After I set a new theme on the Hub Site, is there a lag before I see it on the associated site(s)?
Yes it’s not automatic, can take up to 2 hours.
I have two different browser tabs open to the Hub Site. I manually added a link to the associated site in one tab, but don’t see it in the other, even after a Ctrl-F5. My guess is something is cached that shouldn’t be.
Correct it is due to caching. We’re working on addressing this issue of switching between tabs.
I published a News item in the associated site, but don’t see it in the Hub Site. What’s the delay supposed to be there? Are all News items rolled up?
We use search to rollup content from the associated sites so it’s subject to that, and yes all news items rollup.
In case you were wondering, the HubNav ends up right below the Top placeholder, and above the mainContent.
Don’t have access to a Hub Site? Having questions about how it all works? Feel free to add your questions in the comments, and I’ll try to reply with answers.
References
-
- Organize your intranet with SharePoint hub sites by Mark Kashman (@mkashman)
- Implement security trimmed navigation in your Hub Site by Beau Cameron (@Beau__Cameron)
- PowerShell cmdlets for SharePoint hub sites, originally by Vesa Juvonen (@VesaJuvonen)
Have you heard any word from Microsoft if they are planning on giving a way to security trim hub navigation and communication site navigation?
@Rick:
The main intent at this point (IMO) is to enable Intranet scenarios, where the goal is for openness and communication. (Communication Sites make better Hub Sites than Team Sites, again IMO, though Team Sites can be Hub Sites.)
From Mark Kashman’s post: “Note: Sites associated with a SharePoint hub site don’t inherit the permissions of the hub site or any other sites associated with it. Each site, including the hub site, will retain their current permission settings. And as easy as it is to associate a site to a hub site, you, too, can dissaciate [sic] from one.”
It’s also important to point out that the Hub Site doesn’t automatically get any navigation elements from its associated sites; adding those links to the Hub Site nav is a manual step right now.
M.
Thanks. Makes sense. I think my question is less relates to hub sites and more just the modern sites in general. I think security trimming of the navigation and also ways to target specific user groups in other modern web parts is needed. Like the old audience targeting from classic. Even the ability to create links in the quick links web part and specify groups would be great so that we can target links that are only relevant to the various user groups. I see the first required webpart for our intranet project is a version of the quick links webpart that includes the ability to target the various links to different groups.
50 hub sites max: where did you get that limit? Also is it for Hubs or connected hub sites? I.e. I can have 50 hubs with 1000 connected sites, or is it 50 sites total that are connected to any hub(s)?
@Dennis:
The 50 number applies to the number of sites which are declared Hub Sites. I don’t know of a limit to the number of sites which can be associated with a Hub Site. 50 is a rather arbitrary number, and I’m not sure it will remain a restriction forever; it’s more a starting point, is my guess.
M.
Didn’t try it out yet – Can I Hubify a group site? I create a group via Teams/Yammer and get the associated SharePoint site. Can I hubify this?
@Dennis:
You can “hubify” any “modern” site, which right now (out of the box) means Team Sites and Communication Sites.
M.
If Register-SPOHubSite isn’t a recognized command does that mean hub sites haven’t rolled out to my tenant or that I need to do something to update the management shell?
@Noah:
My guess is that you need to update the SharePoint Online Management Shell. Link above!
M.
Thanks Marc, that did it. I had to uninstall and reinstall.
You can also do this from PNP PowerShell to. They have their own cmdlets for hubsites.
Bit of a duplication.
One bug I did notice with the hub navigation.
It disappears when you resize down the width of the screen. There comes a poont where it does not display it anymore. At least that is what I saw with edge.
Also originally this was to work with term store navigation, but I guess they dropped that from this release.
I still have to wrap my head around the permissions part and locking down hubs so only admins can be the only ones to change the hub as site is related too.
@Philip:
I can verify that the Hub nav disappears when I narrow down my browser. This is in Chrome.
If Term Store navigation was in the plan, I never heard about it, I don’t think.
I think the goal of making Hub Site creation an admin function makes some sense – but not in every organization. The key is for Hub Sites to be mindfully created rather than willy-nilly, like most sites have been created in the past. That said, I think it should be an option to allow wider permissions. Some admins would rather farm out the responsibility, I’m sure.
M.
Thanks Marc.
As for the term store navigation. Vesa was doing a demo of hubsites in on of his community calls and was surprised he could not find the options. So I am not entirely sure, but would make sense to have one place to control the navs on all the hubs.
Thanks Marc! I’ve run the Register-SPOHubsite command on a couple sites and they are returned when I run the Get-SPOHubsite. However, I don’t have the option to associate other modern sites with these hub sites from ‘site information.’ I don’t have the hub site drop down at all. Any ideas?
@Tom:
I saw the ability to associate sites with the Hub Site almost immediately. I wonder if there’s some lag in your tenant? Also, are you sure you have permission to associate sites? (If you’re doing all this, I assume you do, but I had to ask.)
M.
Yes – I am a SharePoint Admin. It’s been almost 2 hours and no change as yet. I have another tenant I’m going to test on.
Is the tenant a targeted release for all users tenant? As that should work..of it is normal release it won’t be there yet.
@Tom:
Did things kick in for you?
M.
Hi Marc and Philip,
I’m having the same issue when creating a Hub Site. After running the commands Register-SPOHubSite, I don’t see anything to add links to the associated sites and also if I want to associate any site with my Hubsite, I don’t see that option as well.
Also, we are part of targeted release (first release user tenants). Can you help me to figure this out?
Thanks
~Gurleen
Its the 3rd time i hear that, really look like a bug…
I suggest we all write on https://answers.microsoft.com/fr-fr ?
@Gurleen:
You need to be set to “Targeted release for everyone” in the organizational profile, not just specific users.
M.
My read only users don’t see news from sub site from the hub site, only it is working fine for site collection administrators…. weird behavior. I’m still wondering where I shall post this issue to microsoft. Do you replicate such problem ?
@Jeff:
The news roll up is security trimmed. Are you sure those users have permissions to the stories? You could make sure by having them go to the subsite to ensure they can see the stories there. Also, the roll up depends on the search index, though if your Site Collection Administrators are seeing the stories, that’s not the issue.
M.
I actually see the sites + news once i navigate in the site (the user is visitor on the sites)
our sharepoint colleague Albandrod can also replicate the issue https://albandrodsmemory.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/testing-out-spo-hub-sites/comment-page-1/#comment-1686
You’re right the news WP is security trimmed, but it seems only for internal users and not for guest users. Furthermore, I’m having a problem with the documents WP, is not showing the documents that I have access (only is showing the documents for the administrator, not for users).
posting there too : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_sharepoint-mso_win10-mso_o365b/hub-sites-do-not-shows-news-from-sub-hub-site-for/056c9fcc-fbd4-4d2e-bfcb-59c7b0462c3b
@Jeff and @Albandrod:
I think what you may be seeing here is the effect of a recent change (just on March 23) to the way permissions apply to external users. In short, unless an external user is explicitly added to a permission group, they don’t have permissions.
Let me know if this explains what you are seeing. If not, maybe it is a bug I can convey the appropriate powers at Microsoft.
M.
Even for internal users i get non working behavior as described in my post
Ok, it looks like you’ve already reported the issue. I’ll post back here if I hear anything on it.
M.
For info i am providing them information, troubleshooting is still in progress
For info im still providing info to Microsoft to troubleshoot this issue…
I have built a few communications sites recently and I am stoked to get a new Hub Site activated this week. I am hoping that lists that I create in the Hub Site will show up as a selection item in my List (Preview) web part on associated Communication sites. I would be fine with using highlighted content web parts, however seems that Microsoft removed some functionality in that to filter fields recently. SPFx and the Rest API may be the answer to solving some of these issues. Thanks for the good read Marc!
I successfully converted a modern teamsite to a hub site on one tenant. Followed teh exact steps on another, the powershell command Register-SPOHubSite ran without errors or warnings, to me this means success. But it would seem the UI didnt get the updates, like the “hub site settings” on the cog menu or the top menu nav under the topplaceholder(above content). Could this be that my user is the only user allowed first release updates on this tenant?
@Warren:
If the Hub Site setting “takes”, you should get a specific response from the Powershell command. I’ve added a screenshot to the post to show what it might look like. If you don’t get that response, you may not have the capability yet (I would think it’s rolled out now, but I’m not positive).
M.
@Warren, you may be correct. Hub sites are a tenant wide setting. Set your entire tenant to Targeted Release (if you are allowed) and it might show up.
Doh! I missed the Targeted Release for Users part. It does indeed require targeted Release for Tenant.
Yeah that must be it :-) So May it is. Seems I am always waiting for stuff. First it was the topplaceholder so we could have a megamenu pulling menu items from a list, then it is a bug with topplaceholder, which I reported (acknowledge, by other people also and still not fixed), then it was allowing powerApps to upload attachments for a list item, now its this ;-) I need to stop pushing the boundaries of Office 365 apps. This project I am working on for a client, I am using all the new stuff, as a result, we have to wait for things to become available.
At least it’s stuff worth waiting for!
Absolutely!