#Microsoft365 – Gone are the days where users would navigate to the Intranet to see the latest news (or did that ever happen?). See the options for promoting news and announcements from your Intranet and learn about what’s coming.

For previous posts in my #Microsoft365Challenge go to the index page.

Disclaimer:  I write articles about Office / Microsoft 365. Content is accurate at time of publication, however updates and new additions happen daily which could change the accuracy or relevance. Please keep this in mind when using my blogs as guidelines.

Creating News Articles:

The new Communication and Topic site templates include the News web part on the landing page. Users with contribution rights can easily add new articles from the front landing page.

Click on +Add

A new page which sits in your Site Pages library will open:

  1.  Add a banner (you will be allowed to add focus point on larger images)
  2. Give your page a name
  3. Add web parts

Depending on the type of article you would like to publish you need to consider the layout. For news type articles I always use multiple columns as it just looks more professional. Before adding web parts, click on the ‘Edit Section’ on the left:

These are the type of web parts you can add. I’ll be using Text and Images for this article. Take note that the Document Library and List web parts are still in preview. I’ve noticed that these still have some glitches around the font size and responsiveness on the mobile view. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

 

Published Articles:

Below you can see the News page. See how the placement of text / images can make your article appear more professional. This is very similar to wiki pages, but MUCH easier to add content as images auto-resize etc.

When published the article will automatically appear on the landing page:

On the mobile view it will show on your landing page as well as under the filtered news from all the sites you follow. The articles are beautifully responsive on the mobile app as well:

Promoting your article:

On the News page you’ll see a “Send by email” button in the top left of the page. You can send this page as a notification to a selected group of people.

The email received will have the banner image and first part of the text. You can also add a personalized message. This will be a link to the article, it will not formulate the full article in the mail:

Updates coming soon: 

  • Email News digest  – which allows for selected, consolidated news email update
  • Promote – simplified promoting to add to navigation, mobile app and email
  • Start with copy – use existing ‘template’ when creating similar pages
  • Page animations – with parallax views
  • Mobile notifications – important news will pop up on mobile devices

See resource below for more detail on the updates.

Resources:

Day 181 SharePoint Wiki Pages

Refine your message and increase your reach with SharePoint communication sites

 Purpose of this blog challenge:

I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available.  A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.

Feel free to #AskBraam if you have questions or would like me to write about a specific topic. I’ve created a Flow to monitor Twitter for the #AskBraam hashtag and will try my best to incorporate any questions into the blogs, or answer them directly on Twitter. This is a “Learning through Sharing” approach to teach my pet sheep about Microsoft – read more on this here.