Getting creative with SharePoint News

Ideas

I have been a huge fan of SharePoint News ever since its release. Not to long ago, with the Classic SharePoint Experience, it wasn’t easy to setup an out-of-the-box news solution. We had to apply custom page lay-outs, content types and XSLT style sheets. A lot of development, time and money. Those days are finally over with SharePoint News.

The following advantages are applicable by using SharePoint News:

  • Incredibly easy to use for business users.
  • Multiple lay-out options to fit your design needs.
  • Out-of-the-box news archive.
  • Distribute news with the news digest.
  • Comments, likes & save for later.
  • Integrated with the Microsoft SharePoint Mobile App.

Great advantages with an out-of-the-box solution! There have been a couple updates for SharePoint News: New views for the news Web Part and SharePoint Page Properties. I would like to show you some creative options by using these two updates within your Intranet Portal. I created a SharePoint Communication Site for the DG Product Line Portal. This Portal showcases all the DG Products of Contoso. I assigned this Portal as SharePoint Hub, and added three news Web Parts on the home page:

SPnewscreativity 1

The first Web Part is a carousel and only displays news pages tagged as being displayed for the carousel. How can you do this? Microsoft released Page Properties last August. I applied the following page property:

SPnewscreativity 2

The authors are apply to select yes (carousel) when they want to display the news page within the carousel. I had to use a SharePoint choice field because the yes/no column isn’t supported by the filter mechanism of the News Web Part. That leads us into the configuration of the carousel Web Part:

SPnewscreativity 3

 

I disabled the title and command buttons of the news Web Part. By disabling this option, the button for creating a news page, news link and web part header disappear. That’s a great option to save space and improve usability. The site itself already contains a new button with the option to create a news page and link. Why add two? I also applied a filter, referring to the carousel property within the news page. We also want to display other news pages on our home page so let’s look at the second Web Part:

SPnewscreativity 4

Again, I hid the Web Part header and new button. I also applied a filter referring to the carousel page property. The ‘Show compact view’ applies the list view as can be seen in the first screenshot. This view looks really nice under a carousel and saves up space on your home page. Preventing a lot of scrolling down for your business users. The third web part displays news from connected Team Sites through the SharePoint Hub. Let’s look at the configuration:

SPnewscreativity 5a

Unfortunately, the option ‘All sites in the hub’ literally show all news pages. Also the ones I created on the DG Product Line Portal. Those news pages are already visible in the carousel and list view Web Parts. I had to select the two Team Sites with the news pages I want to display. Let’s look at the last part of the configuration:

SPnewscreativity 5b

 

I hid the title and command and go for the hub news view. Unfortunately, there isn’t a filter option available in the hub news view. Apart from the small workarounds, I am very happy with the end result! I hope you enjoyed this example and can use it within your own company portals empowered by the SharePoint Communication and Team Sites.