News and Communication Sites

Analogy categoryAnalogies

Communication sites are a modern SharePoint site template designed for broadcasting information to a broad audience rather than collaborating on files. They come in three out-of-the-box designs — Topic, Showcase, and Blank — and every communication site includes a Site Pages library pre-configured to support the News web part, which surfaces recently published pages as visually rich cards.

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Cricket analogy: A communication site is like a broadcaster's studio set for match coverage — Topic is the standard analysis desk layout, Showcase is the highlights-reel format, and Blank is an empty studio you dress yourself.

Communication Sites Under the Hood

Under the hood, a communication site is provisioned from the SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0 web template, distinct from the TEAMCHANNEL#1 or STS#3 templates used for team sites, and it does not come with a default Microsoft 365 Group or Teams team attached unless you explicitly connect one. This makes communication sites well suited for department portals, executive updates, or HR announcement hubs where broad readership matters more than collaborative document editing.

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Cricket analogy: A communication site without a Group attached is like a stadium's public address system — built purely for broadcasting to the crowd, not for the dressing-room chat where the team collaborates.

Publishing and Boosting News Posts

News posts are simply modern pages published to the Site Pages library and then surfaced through the News web part or the SharePoint mobile app's News feed; clicking Post news on a page promotes it. A site owner or the communications team can further 'boost' an important post so it pins to the top of the organization's News feed across the intranet, a capability governed by the Manage News permission and typically reserved for a curated set of communicators on a hub-connected home site.

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Cricket analogy: Boosting a news post is like the ICC pinning a marquee World Cup final highlight to the top of every fan's app feed, overriding the normal chronological order of match updates.

powershell

# Create a Communication Site using the Topic design
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite `
    -Title "HR Announcements" `
    -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/HRAnnouncements" `
    -SiteDesign Topic

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/HRAnnouncements" -Interactive

# Create and publish a news post
Add-PnPPage -Name "OpenEnrollment2026" -LayoutType Article
Add-PnPPageTextPart -Page "OpenEnrollment2026" -Text "Open enrollment starts August 1."
Set-PnPPage -Identity "OpenEnrollment2026" -Publish

# Promote the page to a News post
Set-PnPClientSidePage -Identity "OpenEnrollment2026" -PromoteAs NewsArticle

The News web part supports three source options — this site, a selected list of sites, or all sites in the current hub — making it easy to aggregate news from every department connected to a hub site onto one landing page.

Boosting a news post organization-wide only works from a hub-connected home site with Manage News rights; boosting a post from a regular team site will only affect that site's own News web part, not the tenant-wide feed, which is a common source of confusion for new communicators.

Communication sites use the SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0 template and come in Topic, Showcase, and Blank designs.
They do not include a Microsoft 365 Group or Teams team by default.
News posts are modern pages promoted via 'Post news', surfaced through the News web part.
Boosting a post pins it to the top of the org-wide News feed, gated by Manage News permission.
The News web part can aggregate posts from one site, selected sites, or an entire hub.
Org-wide boosting requires a hub-connected home site, not just any team site.
Communication sites suit broadcast scenarios like HR, exec updates, or department portals.

Practice what you learned

1. Which web template underlies a communication site?

2. What are the three built-in communication site designs?

3. What permission is required to boost a news post to the org-wide feed?

4. From which type of site can a news post actually be boosted organization-wide?

5. What does the News web part's 'source' setting control?

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News and Communication Sites