Modern Communication Site Planning Guide.pptx

Modern Communication Site Planning Guide

1. You’ll want to adapt this recipe! Please feel free to adapt this planning template to meet your needs. The document is a combination planning template and training/best practices document – really designed to help site owners get started planning their journey to modern communication sites. Caveat: This guide is current as of April 15 2019. Have questions about this guide? Contact Sue Hanley [email protected] Note: the planning guide was originally developed for Shire (now Takeda) and has been generously shared as a community resource. It has been updated many times since it was originally published to reflect new practices and capabilities in communication sites. 1 Please adapt the recipe!

2. What we did … At Shire, we presented this guide to users as a series of 4 separate documents/pages on a single page in our Office 365 Help site. This document includes the content for the first three parts of our planning guide. The different documents are set up as different sections in this document. Getting Started/Planning Template Set Up Steps – these are the configuration steps that can be incorporated into a site design Best Practices – additional tips and best practices that are, for the most part, available as pages in our help site. RECOMMENDATION: Break this content up into multiple documents and a series of pages as we did. We found that the giant document was too intimidating for users – even with a “reading roadmap” at the beginning. 2

3. Modern Communication Site Design Planning Guide April 15, 2019

4. Getting Started Communication sites are designed to inform and engage. While you may have collaborative elements such as a form or a library when any visitor can contribute a document, communication sites are typically focused on telling a story and providing information that the visitor can read or download. When you need a site to collaborate with members of your team, you want to create a team site . Learn more about what type of site to choose . To get the most value from this guide, you will need to understand the terminology and basic structure for SharePoint Communication Sites. A good place to get started is with this help guide from Microsoft: What is a SharePoint communication site ? If you have used SharePoint for team collaboration, you will notice that many of the same capabilities of modern team sites are also available in communication sites, such as document libraries, lists, and news. Most of the web parts are the same for both types of sites. One notable exception is the Group Calendar web part, which is “powered” by Outlook. Communication sites are not “backed” by Office 365 Groups – so they do not have an Outlook/Exchange calendar or a group email address and, therefore, the Group Calendar web part isn’t relevant for communication sites. One other important difference is that communication sites use SharePoint groups (Owners, Members, and Visitors) for security. Modern team sites use Office 365 Groups for membership and access. If you are only familiar with “classic” SharePoint sites, communication sites will feel both modern and fresh. And, most importantly, communication sites are responsive by design – meaning that they will look just as beautiful on your mobile phone and tablet as they do on your laptop or desk top. 4 Communication sites Initiative, campaign or event Share work with organization Community of practice or interest Training and policies Updates and reports Modern Communication Site Overview Training from Microsoft What is a SharePoint communication site?  Create a communication site in SharePoint Online Add a page to a Communication site Add or remove columns on a page Customize the Navigation Using web parts on pages Customize your SharePoint site  - icon/logo, navigation, theme, description (Site Owner only) Create a column in a list or library

5. How to use this guide Use the pages in this guide to help plan your site. The most important reasons to start with the guide are to: Make sure you have a good understanding of the users of your site so that you can design content to meet their needs Provide instructions to help users align their site to your organizational standards Provide a document that you can share with others to align your objectives and approach before you get started. Be sure to delete any pages or sections that are not relevant for your site. There will be content that you won’t need and pages that simply provide instructional information. These pages have grey backgrounds and should not be included in your final design plan. Pages that provide a template for your design plan have a white background. 5

6. Outcomes and Objectives Site Visitor and Business Goals

7. Think about the site visitors: Who are they? What are the experiences that you want to enable for them? Great communication sites tell a story for their visitors. You can’t create a great communication site without understanding your visitors. Think about these questions. Use the questions to think about what site visitors need from your site. Who are your visitors? What are they looking for? What are the top tasks they need to perform based on the services you provide? (Think about their top tasks, not just what you want to tell them. Also, think about the top questions or phone calls that you get.) What terms make sense to them? Remember, your visitors don’t know as much as you do about your content – so you need to think about their “language” and terms that mean something to your visitors. What do they want to learn ? What do they want to do ? What outcomes do you want to achieve? How will you know if your site is successful? Don’t plan to add content just because you can. Add content that helps achieve your outcomes AND that you are committed to maintaining. Out of date content clutters search and makes your site harder to use and trust. It may help to think about groups of visitors and define your goals for each group. You can use the following format to identify your major visitor groups and their key outcome goals. 7

8. Example: Talent & Org Development How will we measure success? Increase the number of people who participate in leadership development programs As a(n) … I need to … So that … Employee find out about the leadership development programs that are available to me for my role I can easily register for required and elective learning opportunities. Employee find learning resources – such as leadership oriented content publications that I have access to so that I can be more successful in my job. T&OD promote the learning opportunities for employees to make it easy to register for courses we can see meaningful improvements in leadership outcomes. T&OD promote different learning opportunities at different times of the year we can more effectively react to changing needs.

9. User and Business Outcome Objectives As a(n) … I need to … So that … 9 We will know the site is successful because/when …

10. Site Permissions Who are the Site Owners? You should have at least 2. Site Owners have permission to “design” the site and add additional users. Who else should have contribute or edit permissions? You can have as many contributors as you want (but you may want to keep the number small so that you can provide appropriate oversight). Contributors/Editors are added to the Members security group. They can add content but cannot add other Contributors or Visitors to the site. Are any non-standard permissions needed? For example, do you have a list that everyone in the organization should be able to contribute to? If so, you may need to “break” permissions on that list or library. 10 Permission Group Members Site Owners (full control) Site Members (edit) Site Visitors (read)

11. Page Versioning Determine whether or not Page Approvals need to be enabled for the site. If so, be sure Major/Minor versions are enabled for the Pages library. Who needs to approve new pages? 11

12. Design Plan Most of the pages in this section are guidance and should be deleted from your plan.

13. Plan your sites with a combination of pages Navigation Categories of information for the journey Navigation pages provide some high level content, but they are mostly about presenting categories of information to help you execute your journey through a site. Navigation pages provide a decision-point for the user: which path to take next? Supporting content can help the user make the best decision. Other elements may be on this page as well. Navigation pages may lead to destination pages, ancillary pages or more navigation pages. Destination Destination pages are where you consume content. They are usually the end point of your journey. A destination page presents information for the visitor to read, print, download, etc. The content is king; integrated assets and compelling content take center stage. There are no pages “beneath” it in the structure (except for ancillary pages that provide more detail).

14. Think about visitor experiences Try to minimize the number of clicks it takes to get to your content. There is no magic number and your visitors will be willing to click if your categories make sense and you really need an extra page to expand your information. But be thoughtful. Do you have documents that don’t need to be documents? Content that doesn’t need to be printed – that provides information or guidance – is almost always going to be easier to read and consume as a page instead of a document . Can you turn your documents in to pages to help your site provide a better story? Keep it simple. You are probably going to want to plan your home (landing) page first. But when you build your site, you will want to create your home page last. In reality, planning will be iterative – you may start with the home page and recognize that you will need detail pages (both navigation and destination) to support the home page. That’s where this guide can help you because there is a place to document all of the pages that you need to create – so you can potentially assign page creation to someone other than yourself! 14

15. Page Content Always consider the reader as you design content for pages. Are you providing a service for employees? Make sure your page describes the service and includes basic information about how to get the service, how long it takes, who is responsible and who can be contacted for help. Think about the life-cycle of your service and create your content to help your users throughout the life cycle. For example, if you are providing services related to Travel, think about dividing the presentation of your content into time periods: before you go (requesting permission, planning, and booking), while you are away (safety, security, and emergency information), when you return (expense reporting, trip reports). 15

16. Do you have an existing site that you are “modernizing?” Even if you are starting with an existing site - use the move to a new modern communication site to re-think your site’s story. Plan your target site using the guidance described earlier and the proposed templates for your organization. This doesn’t mean that you should forget about what you have already – especially if the content is being used and has been kept up-to-date. But is that the case for all of your content? A good practice to assume if you are modernizing is to start with the idea of “all content left behind” and use your new site as an opportunity understand your visitors. Talk to them. Find out what they really need from you. This is the content that needs to easy to find. Next, obtain an inventory of all of the content on your current site. For each element in the inventory, identify whether it should be Deleted (if so, do it now!), Archived (because it is a business record), Migrated (because it is current and you still need it), Updated and then Migrated, or placed on another site and just referenced or linked on your own site. You don’t have to think about each piece of legacy content “ sparking joy ,” but you should ask: “Is this content adding value to the business/visitor?” “Am I committed to keeping it up-to-date?” “Is my business group responsible for this content?” If not, it’s time to say goodbye to the content (or get another group to migrate it) and not move it in to your new site. Once you have identified the content you want to keep, make sure you have a “home” for it in the site that you will use this guide to plan. Make sure every element has a home and if not, think about whether you may have missed a category in your planning. 16

17. Site Structure Example Example Site Structure Diagram focused on the relationship of the site to other sites. It can be helpful to create a visual diagram of how the various elements of your site relate to one another. This can help you explain how the site will be used to your visitors, other Site Owners, and the Site Owner who follows you! Optionally, add a page to visually describe your site and/or how your site relates to other sites. Home Strategy and Vision Contacts About Services Service 1 Service 2 Service 3 Site Page Example Site Structure Diagram focused on the content of the individual site. You can also include lists and libraries in this diagram.

18. Site Structure (Optional)

19. Planning the Home Page The home page of your site is important – because it is where your visitors get their “first impression” of your site. Consider defining a “starter” home page layout your organization communication sites to create a familiar design pattern for web site visitors. It is a good idea to follow the recommended home page site layout so that your visitors will be able to quickly find the information they need when they travel from site to site in the organization. However, if a particular web part or feature isn’t going to be used on your site, you do not have to use it and can delete it! The goal of each site is to create a great experience for visitors to ensure that they can access the services your organization provides, learn more about what you do, understand your areas of expertise, and engage with your team. The goal of the design pattern is to make that very easy for your visitors – so they do not have to spend time thinking, “how are they organizing the content on this site?” 19

20. Sample Site “Template” Site designers were encouraged to use this structure unless they had a very valid business reason not to. However, they were also told to delete web parts they don’t plan to use. 20 Top Section: Key content category links Next Section: News and top tasks/ frequently needed individual item links Next Section: Top Categories: Services, Button Link to Policy Information, Calendar Bottom Section: “About Us” – Content Manager on the left and links to About and Contact and other general information links

21. Design Details Optional pages to use to make notes about the content you want to gather and use for your site. Review the guidance in this section even if you do not plan to document each area of your site.

22. Top Navigation Links (visible on every page) Link Name URL or HEADER? Notes 22 It’s usually a good practice to remove the “default” links (except Home) after you have initially configured the site and think about what information will be most helpful to users as they navigate through your site. You can have up to three levels of navigation in either a cascading or mega menu structure . Use top navigation to present a comprehensive table of contents for your site. Links can be Headers or URLs with the new modern “change the look” option. Be mindful about mixing “tabs” that are headers with tabs that are not – test with visitors to make sure your link labels are clear. Learn more about planning navigation: Planning Navigation for the modern SharePoint experience .

23. Site Pages Plan Page Name Content Enable Comments? Notes Home Only fill in this column if it helps you plan your site. If it’s obvious from the page title or it won’t help you review it with others, leave it blank! No About No Contacts “Whom to call for what”. Think about presenting the topic and then the person since your visitors may not know who works in your area – but they will know what type of support or service they need. Use People web parts on this page so that contact information will be dynamic and to leverage the properties of this web part. No Add as many rows (and pages) as you need to plan your site. 23

24. Home Page: Hero Content (2-5 links) – point to a page or document on your site Link Name URL (destination for the link – use “page on site” if the link is to a page on the site) Call to Action? (if yes, what should the label be?) Notes Primary Tile only 24 Plan to use the hero web part for content that you want to promote for a long period of time. Use News for dynamic content. Think about the type of images that work to tell your story. Pick an image that aligns with the destination for the link and relates to the topic of your page.

25. Home Page: “Featured” Content/Key Services Links (key categories of information Link Title URL (destination for the link) Notes Add rows as needed 25

26. Home Page: “Frequently Needed” Links – individual documents or pages (content doesn’t have to live on your site) Link Name URL (Optional) Description 26 Use this area to link to individual items or tools or pages that might appear deeper in your structure but are frequently needed by visitors

27. Home Page: “About” Links Link Name URL Notes About Link to page on the site Use this optional page to describe mission, vision, values and/or key leadership. (Optional) Contacts (only if you do not list contacts on your About page – which is the best place for this information) 27

28. Optional: Page Organization Optional metadata that can be used to dynamically connect related pages using the Highlighted Content web part

29. Page Organization Think about how you may want to group and organize your pages. For example, do you want to be able to “roll up” all news articles about a specific topic or of a specific type (such as People Spotlight)? If so, you can use Page Properties to add properties to a page that you can then use to group and organize your pages. Will you have multiple pages about a specific topic that you want to be able to easily connect to each other? You can use page properties for this as well. Document the list of properties for your pages along with the values for those properties. As a best practice, create your page properties as site columns , not list columns. This will allow you to potentially share the same property on both documents and pages. Learn how to create and edit page properties : https://support.office.com/en-us/article/view-edit-and-add-page-properties-778018d3-8269-4fd2-a55d-8c0e5b72b938 . Learn how to use page properties in the Highlighted Content (“roll up”) web part : https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-the-Highlighted-content-web-part-e34199b0-ff1a-47fb-8f4d-dbcaed329efd To use a page property in the Highlighted Content web part, select The page library on this site as the source. 29

30. Page Organization 30 Edit page details when pages are in Edit mode Page details show up on the right side of pages. Use Page Properties in the Highlighted Content web part Optionally display the Page Properties on a page with the Page Properties web part

31. Optional Pages for Libraries and Lists Delete if you don’t need these 31

32. Document Libraries Document Library Type of Content Who should have access (Read/Edit)? Notes/Comments/Special Columns 32 All sites come with one Document library. You can use folders in a document library to organize your content – but you don’t want to have more than 1 level of folders within a Library so rather than creating nested folders, it’s better to create multiple libraries. You may want to add additional Document Libraries if you have: Different columns or attributes for different types of documents Different security on a large collection of documents Different content managers for major groups of content and you want to allow one group to manage one collection and another group to manage another So, you may need more than one Document Library!

33. Plan Site Columns for Documents If you want to group or filter content in a list or document library, you may want to have some site-specific columns to use in your document libraries or custom lists. Best Practices: Create most of your custom columns as Site Columns rather than list columns so that they can be re-used in more than one list or library on the site. If you need create a column with a generic name like Topic or Document Type, add a prefix to the name like HR Topic or HR DocumentType (if you are creating an HR site). Create all column names in “CamelCase” (all words “ smushed ” together with no spaces). After you create the column, go back and re-name it and add in the spaces. This will make it easier to find and use the column in search and Highlighted Content web parts. Before you save your first column, create a group that starts with a period “.” For example, if you are on the WeLearn site, create a group for your columns called .WeLearn Columns . This makes it easier to use your columns in lists and libraries. Create a new group the first time you create a custom column . After the group is created the first time, select it from “use an existing group” for other columns. Name your columns with singular nouns . For example, Document Type, not Document Types. Make sure each column is unique and necessary . Don’t add metadata just because you can – add it because it adds value to users. 33

34. Site Columns Name Type Description Group Initial Values Used For

35. Document Library Plan (describe site and local columns for each document library) (one page per library) Name Type Description Values

36. Custom Lists (use one template for each list) Attribute Type Description Notes Title Single line of text

37. Step-by-Step Site Set-up Adapt as needed and ideally, create a custom site design so individual site owners don’t have to do this manually!

38. Configuration Steps – to be followed after you create your plan! 38 Create your site from SharePoint Home. Select +New Site and pick Communication Site. Communication Sites should be created as Internal sites. Use the Topic template to get started but then configure the home page according to our standards. Go to the Site Pages library and make the All Pages view the default. Add Promoted State to the view by clicking the + Add column and then Show/hide columns . Click the box in front of Promoted State and then Apply . Be sure you save your view after you add the Promoted State (save the view as All Pages). Once you have added Promoted State to the view, click Edit the current view and select Version and Checked Out To for the display and un-check Created and Created By and save the view again. From your view, click on Promoted State and choose “ Group by Promoted State ” and save the view again. You will now be able to distinguish News pages (Promoted State = 2) from regular pages (Promoted State = 1). 1 1 2 3 3 2

39. Configuration Steps, continued 39 Check the versioning settings from Library Settings for Site Pages and Documents. You have the option of keeping major/minor versions enabled or saving MAJOR versions only. If you want to add a workflow to review pages before they are published, then you will need to leave major/minor versioning enabled. Only Site Owners and Members (editors) can see minor versions of pages. Go to Site Settings and select Site Administration > Regional Settings. Change the time zone to one that is most relevant for the site administrators. Note that your users will set their personal time zone preferences for calendars and dates. Create the pages that you need for your site based on your design plan. Remember: pages first, home page last. To make a visual connection to a page that you will link to on your home page, plan to use the same image in the banner area of the page that you plan to use in the hero or featured content web part. If you want to do so, add a custom site icon for your site. If you don’t plan to use a Hero web part on the home page, you can delete the web part, add an image, or create a site page and make it your home page. This will give you the ability to use any of the available options for the title region of your page – but your home page will need to have a title. (The default home page does not display the title of the page.) To make a different page your home page, add a new page called Home-Alternate (or a name of your choice). You can re-name the page title after you create the page to have the name of your site, but creating the page with this name will help you find it later on. Don’t delete the original home page – you can leave it as is and use it later on if you decide that you prefer that layout. Put your selected banner image or title option on the new home page and then configure the page with the web parts that you need based on your design plan. Create the pages (without the content) that need to be linked on your home page. Add the web parts in your plan to lay out your home page to follow your organization best practices. If you are using the hero web part, decide if you want to “drag” it to a single column section instead of the default “full width” section. Think about your top navigation! Once you have configured your site, you will want to remove all of the links other than Home and replace them with something relevant for your users.

40. Configuration Steps, continued 40 REMEMBER: Your site is private until you are ready to share it with others – so it’s just yours while you are working on it. When you have finished configuring your site, follow the steps for How to Launch Your Communication Site on the Communication Site Planning Guide page in the help site. These steps provide a list of QA tasks to make sure that your pages provide the best experience for your users.

41. Site Pages with Pages Grouped by "News" vs. Other Pages 41

42. Moving Pages from News to “not News” Navigate to the Site Pages library. Make sure you are looking at a view that is grouped by Promoted State. Select the All Pages view. If it doesn’t already show Promoted State, click the + symbol and check the box in front of Promoted State and click Apply. Click the dropdown next to Promoted State and select Group by Promoted State . Select the page in the Promoted State = 2 group that you want to move and drag it to the group above it. Watch the video on the right to see how it’s done. Your page is now a “regular” site page. Note that this works in both directions – you can drag a site page (Promoted State = 0 to Promoted State = 2 and the page will now show as News. 42 Promoted State Page Type Site Page 2 News Click to watch

43. Add a Site Icon to your site to replace the square with the letters in the upper left hand corner Go to the Corporate Brand Approved Icons library to the select the icon you want to use for your site. Download the icon to a place on your computer. Click the gear and select Site Information . Select the icon image and click OK. Click OK to save the icon. You should see the icon reflected in the top left corner of the site.

44. IMPORTANT: Configuring links to images or documents on pages or in lists on Communication Sites When you need to create a link to a document or image, always use the People with existing access link. Find the asset you want to link to. Click copy link in the command bar. Do not use the default link. Expand the drop down. Select People with existing access. Click Apply. Make sure that you copy the link with the red icon that says Only people who already have access can use this link . 44 Using the link shown in this screen shot ensures that your link will be visible to anyone who already has access to your site using the same permissions they already have for the site.

45. Communication Sites Guidelines, Tips, and Best Practices

46. Home Page 46

47. Planning Your Home Page | Why you need to think about your users and their experiences Focus on the user Use your home page to promote content that users of your portal need frequently . Think about what people call to ask for most often . Look at usage information to see what content is used the most. Try to balance the content you want to promote with what your users need the most. Assume that most users will “hit and run” on your home page. That means your focus should be helping users understand: Where am I? What can I do here? Where can I go next? Keep it simple You do not need to point to every single item that a user might want on the home page (unless you don’t have a lot of content). Allow the user to quickly focus on major categories of content so that they can quickly find what they need. It is more important to have accurate and searchable content with no duplicates or invalid versions than it is to provide a link to every single document in your site! Keep content up to date At the end of the day, your users care the most about accurate and reliable content. Content management is as important as page organization! Use the principal of “progressive disclosure.” Your users want to be able to quickly find what they need to get their jobs done. When you have a lot of information to present, your page can become overwhelming – making it take longer to find information. Progressive disclosure allows you to maintain the focus of your user’s attention by grouping detailed information into logical categories so that users can quickly scan the categories and then “click through” to learn more about that category. Initially, show users only a few of the most important options. Offer a larger set of specialized options “upon request.” In other words, disclose these secondary features only if a user asks for them (by choosing to click on the category or group). 47

48. To hero or not to hero, that is the question! Don’t assume that your site must have a hero web part!! Do consider using the Hero web part when … There is a “main event” page that helps users get started. There is permanently useful information that users ALWAYS need. The Hero brings that content front and center – and makes it super easy to find. Use a “layered” Hero when your link needs more context OR if you can tell the entire story on the home page with no more than 5 layers. Don’t use the Hero web part when … When your image isn’t supposed to be a link! You have more than 5 major topic areas that you want to promote in visual links on the home page. When you are presenting information of equal value and there is no primary “entry point” for the content story. You want the tiles to link to content that is not on your site. Do not use the Hero web part to link to other sites (because you cannot force the link to open in a new window, which means your users will leave your site when they click the tile). This might be OK in some circumstances, but think carefully if you want your users to leave your site and make sure the label for the tile is very clear. 48 If you decide not to use a hero web part, add a new page to your site. Use the instructions on the next page to make that new page the home page for your site.

49. “Hero” web part guidance You can promote a maximum of only 5 elements in the hero web part – but you are not required to have 5 elements! Use the number that aligns with what you want to promote. Hero images must have a link associated with them. They are not for page decoration. Use them to provide your users with links to the information they need and that you want to promote.  You can use images and text in the “hero” web part or you can use a solid colored block . (For now, you can’t change the color of the block but that capability will be available at some point.) If you are using 5 promoted content links in the hero, think about breaking up the images with solid blocks . The solid blocks help break up the images and direct the reader around the hero area logically as shown in the example. Darker images work better in this web part. This allows the white text of the Title to have more contrast. To make your site look really gorgeous, adjust the color of all of your images so that they look related. (You can do this with PowerPoint if you don’t have a photo editor.) Placement of the elements in the hero matters in mobile experiences. The hero web part “collapses” into a left-to-right scrolling single panel on mobile devices. The primary image is always first and users will need to scroll left to right to see secondary images – so give some thought to mobile experiences as you plan your page. Do all sites need a hero web part? NO!! Don't use the Hero Web Part if you don't have any content to promote on a persistent basis or if you have more than 5 services to showcase. If you find yourself struggling to figure out what to put in a Hero web part, you probably just need a hero "image." If you want your image to take up less vertical real estate and still show in a full width, choose an image that is no higher than 375 pixels. Try 1900 x 375 to make sure your image works on different screen sizes. Tip: If you only have 1 “main event” for your site, consider using a “layered” hero web part with 1 tile. The layered format allows you to showcase a title for the link as well as a short description – and this can be a really effective way to present information on your home page. (See example on the next page.) If your site doesn't need a Hero web part, you can create a "regular" page and add a banner image. Navigate to from the Site Pages library, find your page, and select "Make homepage" to turn your "regular" page in to the site home page. If you think you might want to use the Hero web part in the future, don’t delete the original home page. Just change the name of it to be Home-OLD or something that will help you remember that this page is not being used! The mobile view of the hero web part collapses all the tiles. The right most tile (the one with the blue box) will always show up first. 49 1 1 2 3 2 3

50. Single column hero web part with 1 link in the layered layout In this example, the hero web part is in a single column and the section has a dark background. 50

51. News on Modern Communication Sites | What you need to know News pages should have an image! You can select the image to use in Page Details but by default, SharePoint will pick the header image first. If there is no header image, it chooses the highest quality image in the first section on your page. The way to add a News page is to click the +Add link in the News web part. News is a special type of page that you can identify with a metadata attribute called Promoted State. News pages have Promoted State = 2. "Regular" pages have Promoted State = 0. News articles are saved in the Site Pages library. People who “follow” your site will see news on the home page and on SharePoint Home. The feature is called Promote as News and is available from the Site Pages library. If you use this feature, your page will now “permanently” live as News. If you want to change it back to a “regular” site page, go to a view that shows all pages grouped by Promoted State and drag the News page into the group for Promoted State = 0. 51

52. “Featured Content” tips: Organizing and labeling your content categories Don’t group by type of content . Most of the time, your users don’t care whether your content is a list, a document, a video, or a PowerPoint presentation. They care more about how that content provides a service or helps them get their job done. Monitor usage data to understand what users need . Telling your “story” is not just about what you want people to know – it’s also about what they need to get from your area. Pay attention to the usage data for your site. If content that people need frequently is “buried” on your site, consider promoting it in the appropriate link area. Don’t “invent” labels . Use terms that users will immediately understand in your navigation. Test the labels with a few users outside your functional area to make sure they make sense to people who aren’t as familiar with your area as you are! Be specific and comprehensive . Describe all the content that users will find if they click on that link. Front-load the term and be concise . For example, instead of Information about our Company, use Company Information. Instead of History of our Function, use History. Make sure your labels are mutually exclusive . You want to try to avoid surprises in your navigation – and make it easy for users to understand “what will I find here?" Consider grouping by “audience” – but only if it makes sense for your topic . For example, if your site is about performance management, you might want to have a navigational tab for “People Managers” and “Individual Contributors” to consolidate content for each of these roles. 52

53. “About” Links Don’t use the home page to provide a long paragraph of “who we are and what we do” information. This is useful information for new users, but regular users of your site want to get to the services that you offer – not the content that doesn’t change very often. In general, home pages should not be used for static text that doesn’t change often and provides limited value to users once they are familiar with your site. Consider creating an About [Name] – Create a page in your Site Pages library to use to describe an overview of your organization, key contacts, organization information. (mission, vision, values). Point the About [Name] link to this page. You can use this page to show “whom to call for what” if that is relevant for your group or team. Optionally, you can also create a Contacts page for this purpose. FAQs – If you think FAQs will help your users, you can add a link to an FAQ page in the “About” area as well. But before you add FAQs at all, think about whether you can beef up your site content so that you don’t even need FAQs!! Try to keep the number of FAQs short so that they can easily be scanned by your users. We recommend that you use a Page for FAQs to make them very easy to scan. Create a page with a section for each individual question. Option 1: Use a One-Third Left layout and put the question in the first column and the answer in the wider second column. Option 2: Use a single column layout and put the question as the first item in the text box (use an H2 style) and then use a regular paragraph style for the answer. Consider making multiple FAQ pages can easily group them by topic that your users will understand. 53

54. Top Navigation 54

55. How should I use the top navigation links? Use the top navigation links to direct users to key content areas that appear on every page of the site. These links will show up on every page of your site – so think about content that users will need no matter where they are on the site. That’s what should be in the top navigation! Use top navigation links for  pages  or  sites only , not documents. If you want to link to a document, create a page and embed the document on the page.​ Links that are not pointing to your tenant will automatically open in a new window. Links that point to content on your tenant will open in the same window. Think about how this experience will work for your users – links that open in the same window but are not on your site will take users to another location – and they may lose context. Be sure your labels are clear if your top navigation takes a user away from your site (and your site is not part of a hub family that provides an easy way to return back to the starting site). The “real estate” available in the top navigation is limited, so plan the links you use in this location with that in mind. Take a look at the default top navigation that SharePoint provides for you. This is rarely going to be helpful for your users so once you have configured your site, you will want to remove all of the links other than Home. Learn more: Planning navigation for the modern SharePoint experience . 55

56. Should I use a mega menu? Mega menus are a new option available to all communication sites. The primary difference with mega menus is that all options are shown to readers at the same time - without having to expand or click a link. Mega menus show the second level of navigation horizontally and the third level vertically. It is a good practice to use all three levels of navigation when you use a mega menu. 56 Type of Navigation Best for ... But be careful ... Cascading Scenarios when you only need one or two levels of navigation Simple site structures Link labels are important with both cascading and mega menus - make sure the names are short and clear. Be careful with multi-level menus. Don't have just one sub-link. Use a header for the top link if you have sub-links. Mega menu Scenarios where you have three levels of links Scenarios where you can easily create three levels of groups for links Scenarios where you have a long list of sub-pages and menus Sites where it will be helpful to show every major option at one time without scrolling Don't use a mega menu if you are struggling to come up with three meaningful levels with clear names - but sometimes, you might have to repeat the name of the Level 1 header in the Level 2 header. Order the groups in a logical way. Make sure the items belong to the same group. Do not duplicate links in the same main navigation tab. It's OK to have one level 2 link that has no level 3 links - but if you have more than one level 2 without level 3 links, use a cascading menu.

57. Naming Recommendations for Pages, Lists, Documents, Folders, and Libraries 57

58. Naming Convention Best Practices Document File Names Put spaces between words. The URL will have %20 but there will be a lot of extra characters at the end so a few %20’s won’t matter! Be sure to add a Title to all documents Do not put version numbers or dates in file names (except for reports) Folders Put spaces between words. Make the names as readable as possible but keep the labels short. Pages (News and Site Pages) Create with spaces in the name. SharePoint will replace spaces with dashes. Avoid special characters. You can add special characters to the Title after the page has been created. Libraries and Lists Create with no spaces between words in the name. For example: DocumentLibrary . After you have created the library or list, go back in and edit the Title and add a space between the words. This will create simple URLs (with no %20 between words) but have “readable” library titles in views and for search. Columns Site Columns Create with no spaces between words in the name. After you create the column, go back and edit the column name to add spaces between the words. List Columns OK to create with spaces. For common names like Topic, Category, and Subject, always add a prefix when you create the column so that you can clearly identify your specific column if you need to use it to map a refinable string value or use in code. For example, instead of Topic, create WeLearn-Topic (and then re-name after you create the column). 58

59. Pages 59

60. Creating Pages You have several options for laying out the content in pages. Before you commit to a particular option, think about the story or message you want to provide on your page. If you have a page that is laid out the way you want and you want to re-use the metadata, use +New>Copy of this page to create new pages. You can also create or save a page to be used as a template for other pages. 60

61. What should I do when I add a page? You will see a pop up when you create a new page (or click the Promote link in the command bar). 61 Option What happens if I click this? Select if … Don’t use if … Add page to navigation The page is added to the top navigation for your site The page is a “main” topic for your site and it meets the best practice guidelines for top navigation . This is a “secondary” page that you will link from a main page or a links list. Post as News on this site The page is assigned a Promoted State of 2 and it shows up in your News pages. You want the page to be a News article. Note: this allows you to create news from anywhere in your site. You don’t want the page to be promoted as News. Email You will see a “pop up” box with a place to enter an email address and a message. You want to send a link to the page to someone who already has access to the site. You don’t want to send the page to someone! Save as page template You will create a new page that will be saved as a template in the Templates folder in Site Pages. Users will now see your page template as an option when they create a new page. You want the structure of the page you created to be re-used for other pages on the site. You don’t want to use your page as a template. Yikes! I selected “post as news” and I don’t want it to be news!! What do I do now? See tip on the next page!

62. Moving Pages from News to “not News” Navigate to the Site Pages library. Make sure you are looking at a view that is grouped by Promoted State. Select the All Pages view. If it doesn’t already show Promoted State, click the + symbol and check the box in front of Promoted State and click Apply. Click the dropdown next to Promoted State and select Group by Promoted State . Select the page in the Promoted State = 2 group that you want to move and drag it to the group above it. Watch the video on the right to see how it’s done. Your page is now a “regular” site page. Note that this works in both directions – you can drag a site page (Promoted State = 0 to Promoted State = 2 and the page will now show as News. 62 Promoted State Page Type Site Page 2 News Click to watch

63. Identifying “unpublished” pages All of the pages that don’t have .0 at the end of the Version Number are “un-published.” To create a view that just shows unpublished pages, use the following steps: In the Site Pages library, create a calculated column ( IsPublished ) with the following formula: =Version-INT(Version)=0 Make the field Type = Yes/No. Create a view showing IsPublished = No. This will show you all of the pages on your site that have not been published. Note: Due to an "issue" with SharePoint, the value of the " IsPublished " attribute won't update after pages are edited - so the "report" has only temporary value . However, you can create a new column using the formula described above to generate the report/view at any time. When you do that, delete the IsPublished column from the list, re-create it with a different name, and edit your view. 63

64. IMPORTANT: Configuring links to images or documents on pages or in lists on Communication Sites When you need to create a link to a document or image, always use the People with existing access link. Find the asset you want to link to. Click copy link in the command bar. Do not use the default link. Expand the drop down. Select People with existing access. Click Apply. Make sure that you copy the link with the red icon that says Only people who already have access can use this link . 64 Using the link shown in this screen shot ensures that your link will be visible to anyone who already has access to your site using the same permissions they already have for the site.

65. Link Behavior Best Practices Where it is possible to select link behavior, use the following practice: 65 Where does the link point? Open the link in … Content on the same site Same window Content on another site In general, you don’t want to open links on behalf of the visitor. But consider the user experience and if you can, try to let the user know that the destination is not on your site. External links and links to documents automatically open in a new window. Currently, the only Microsoft web part that allows you to open links in a new window is the Text web part. (This is in the backlog for other web parts.) In general, you don’t want to clutter the users’ desktops with open windows – but you also may want to be sure that they stay in the context of your site.

66. Using Images on Pages 66

67. Images Where are images stored? There is no “images library” in modern Communication Sites. By default, when you upload an image to use on a page, the image is stored in the Site Assets library. When you upload an image the first time, a folder is automatically created in the Site Assets library called Site Pages. In addition, a new sub-folder is automatically created with the same name as the page title and that folder is used to store all images you upload on a specific page. (This folder does not get re-named if you re-name the page.) Recommendations : Use the same image on the page header for a page that is referenced by either the Hero web part or Quick Links to provide a consistent experience for your users. Try to use a different image for every page and every news article . Images are used to provide a unique identity for the content in the page or news article. 67

68. Writing News Articles 68

69. Tips for writing news Always use an image in your articles. ! You can select the image to use in Page Details but by default, SharePoint will pick the header image first. If there is no header image, it chooses the highest quality image in the first section on your page. If you use a banner image, choose a darker image so that the title stands out when people read the article. Create an interesting title so that readers will want to read more. Try to summarize the main point of the article in the first sentence or two . That is what readers will see in the news summary on the home page. Or, use the Description in Page Details to summarize the main point of your article. Use News Link to link to news that you curate from another source. 69