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Team site or Communication site? in this tutorial, we will learn about what is a modern team site in SharePoint, what is a communication site in SharePoint Online, and what is the difference between a team site and a communication site in SharePoint Online. Then we will learn about how to create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell and how to create a communication site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell.
Microsoft has integrated SharePoint Team Sites with Office 365 Groups in August 2016. This modern team site with pages, lists, libraries, and team news, with the help of Office 365 groups can collaborate, communicate, and coordinate with each other.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online?
- What is a modern team site in SharePoint online?
- What is a communication site in SharePoint online?
- When should we use a team site or communication site template?
- Create a modern team site SharePoint online – manually
- Prerequisites – Install PnP PowerShell in SharePoint online
- Create a modern team site using PnP Powershell
- New-PnPSite – create a modern SharePoint online site:
- Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell:
- Other parameters in creating a modern team site – New-PnPSite:
- How to create a SharePoint communication site?
- Create a communication site in SharePoint online, using PnP PowerShell: Script execution
- Create a communication site in SharePoint online – PnP PowerShell:
- Other parameters in creating a communication site – New-PnPSite:
What is a modern team site in SharePoint Online (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)?
A SharePoint team site is a great place to share content, information, and apps between you and your team members. It gives a very well-designed box home page web part so that easily a user can navigate to their respective area of work from the home page.
Web parts available on the modern team site home page:
- News
- Quick Links
- Activity
- Documents
What is a communication site in SharePoint Online (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)?
A SharePoint communication site is a great place to share information with others. You can share news, reports, statuses, and other information in a visually compelling format.
Web parts available on the communication site home page:
- News
- Events
- Documents
When should we use a team site or communication site template (Team site or Communication site SharePoint Online)?
As we know the modern SharePoint online provides only two templates:
- Team Site and
- Communication Site
Then, in which scenarios, we should choose which one? There is no straight answer for this – as both have their own needs and scope in the business. But as a general rule of thumb, we can set the rule as if the audiences of the site are supposed to be more where its contributions are less, then we can go with the communication site.
For example, if we want to market any product for the sales team, we can go with the communication site, in fact, the company’s main website is also we can design using the communication site template. Because in this kind of site, we don’t need a frequent update, once a while, some dedicated people will update the content of the site. The bottom line is we can think communication site as a public-facing site and that is the reason we don’t see quick launch navigation as it needs more content areas to display.
On the other hand, the team site is used for the team where a group of people will contribute to the site, but the audiences of the sites are less as compared to the communication site – mainly it is used for the internal team of the company where multiple people collaboratively work with each other but exposed only to set of people. Actually, the meaning of collaboration in SharePoint comes to reality through the team site.
Create a modern team site SharePoint online – manually (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)
Here, we will learn about how to create a modern team site in SharePoint online manually.
Login to your SharePoint Online root site like below:
"https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/"
Click on the app launcher button from the left panel, then click on “SharePoint”.
Then, we’ll land on this page:
"https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx"
Click on the “+ Create site” button.
Then, we’ll be presented with two templates:
- Team site
- Communication site
Click on the “Team site” template.
Enter the below:
- Site Name(mandatory) – any meaningful text.
- Site description(optional) – any meaningful text.
Keep other settings as is and click on the “Next” button.
We’ll be landing on the below page with the below two boxes:
- Add additional owners(optional) – To add additional site owners to the site.
- Add members(optional) – To add members to the site.
Click on the “Finish” button.
Finally, we can see that a new modern team site has been created like as below landing page with so many out-of-the-box web parts.
By now, we have learned how to create a modern team site in SharePoint online manually. Now, we will learn how to create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell.
Prerequisites – Install PnP PowerShell in SharePoint online (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)
In order to execute the PnP PowerShell in SharePoint online, we need to install the PnP PowerShell in SharePoint Online. For the installation, please refer to my previous article Office 365: Getting started with SharePoint PnP PowerShell – installation
Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP Powershell(Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online):
New-PnPSite – create a modern SharePoint online site(how to create a modern team site in SharePoint Online):
Using the ‘New-PnPSite’ command we can create a modern team site and communication site in SharePoint Online. The New-PnPSite cmdlet creates a new site collection for the current tenant. Currently, only ‘modern’ sites like Communication Site and the Modern Team Site are supported. If you want to create a classic site, use New-PnPTenantSite.
Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online):
Using the below PnP PowerShell script we can create a modern team site in SharePoint Online.
############################Description########################################################## #The below script will create a modern team and communication site in SharePoint online using PnP ################################################################################################# CLS $userName = "Global-sharepoint2019@globalsharepoint2019.onmicrosoft.com" $passWord = "YourSPOOnlinePassword" $encPassWord = convertto-securestring -String $passWord -AsPlainText -Force $cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $userName, $encPassWord Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://globalsharepoint2019-admin.sharepoint.com/" -Credentials $cred #######################The below command will create a modern team site in SharePoint Online########################### New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title 'Modern Team Site Test 2 - created by PnP' -Alias "ModernTeamSiteTestByPnP" -IsPublic Write-Host "The modern team site has been created successfully."
After executing the above modern team site creation using the PnP script, if we navigate to the “https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/ModernSiteByPnP” which was created through the PnP script, we can see the below modern SharePoint online site.
Other parameters in creating a modern team site – New-PnPSite (how to create modern team site in SharePoint Online): Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online
New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title 'Team Contoso' -Alias contoso -IsPublic
This will create a new Modern Team Site collection with the title ‘Team Contoso’ and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’ or ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/teams/contoso’ based on the managed path configuration in the SharePoint Online Admin portal and sets the site to the public.
New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title 'Team Contoso' -Alias contoso -Lcid 1040
This will create a new Modern Team Site collection with the title ‘Team Contoso’ and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’ or ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/teams/contoso’ based on the managed path configuration in the SharePoint Online Admin portal and sets the default language of the site to Italian.
How to create a SharePoint communication site (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)?
In this step, we will learn about how to create a communication site in SharePoint online, the steps are the same as modern team site creation which we have seen in the previous step, just we need to select the “Communication site” template instead of “Team site” in the “Create a site” template selection page as like below:
In the next screen provide the “Site name” and “Site description(optional)”, then click on the “Finish” button.
On the next screen, we can see that a new communication site just has been created.
Create a communication site in SharePoint online using PnP PowerShell: Script execution (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)
Using the below PnP PowerShell script we can create a communication site in SharePoint Online.
Create a communication site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online):
Using the below PnP PowerShell script we can create a communication site in SharePoint Online.
############################Description########################################################## #The below script will create a modern team and communication site in SharePoint online using PnP ################################################################################################# CLS $userName = "Global-sharepoint2019@globalsharepoint2019.onmicrosoft.com" $passWord = "YourSPOPassword" $encPassWord = convertto-securestring -String $passWord -AsPlainText -Force $cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $userName, $encPassWord Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://globalsharepoint2019-admin.sharepoint.com/" -Credentials $cred #######################The below command will create a modern team site in SharePoint Online########################### #New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title 'Modern Team Site Test 2 - created by PnP' -Alias "ModernTeamSiteTestByPnP" -IsPublic #Write-Host "The modern team site has been created successfully." #######################The below command will create a communication site in SharePoint Online########################### New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title 'Communication Site Test 2 - created by PnP' -Url "https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/Communicationtestsitecreatedbypnp" -SiteDesign "Showcase" Write-Host "The communication site has been created successfully."
Notes:
- Topic to share information such as news, events, and other content.
- Showcase to use photos or images to showcase a product, team, or event.
- Blank to create your own design.
Other parameters in creating a communication site – New-PnPSite (how to create a modern team site in SharePoint Online): Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title Contoso -Url https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso -SiteDesignId ae2349d5-97d6-4440-94d1-6516b72449ac
This will create a new Communications Site collection with the title ‘Contoso’ and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’. It will use the specified custom site design for the site.
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title Contoso -Url https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso -Classification "HBI"
This will create a new Communications Site collection with the title ‘Contoso’ and the url ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’. The classification for the site will be set to “HBI”
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title Contoso -Url https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso -ShareByEmailEnabled
This will create a new Communications Site collection with the title ‘Contoso’ and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’. Allows owners to invite users outside of the organization.
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title Contoso -Url https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso -Lcid 1040
This will create a new Communications Site collection with the title ‘Contoso’ and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso’ and set the default language to Italian.
Summary: Should we create Team site or Communication site (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)?
Hence, in this article we have learned the below topics with respect to SharePoint online modern team and communication site creation:
- What is a modern team site in SharePoint online?
- What is a communication site in SharePoint online?
- Create a modern team site SharePoint online – manually
- Prerequisites – Install PnP PowerShell in SharePoint online
- Create a modern team site using PnP Powershell
- New-PnPSite – create a modern SharePoint online site:
- Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell:
- Other parameters in creating a modern team site – New-PnPSite:
- How to create a SharePoint communication site?
- Create a communication site in SharePoint online, using PnP PowerShell: Script execution
- Create a communication site in SharePoint online – PnP PowerShell:
- Other parameters in creating a communication site – New-PnPSite:
- How to create a modern team site in SharePoint online programmatically using PnP.
- How to create a communication site in SharePoint online programmatically using PnP.
- Difference between team site and communication site in SharePoint Online.
See Also: SharePoint Online tutorial (Team site or Communication site in SharePoint Online)
You may also like the below SharePoint Online tutorials:
- Office 365: Getting started with SharePoint PnP PowerShell – installation
- In 2 steps convert a classic SharePoint page to modern using PnP
- Office 365: Retrieve hub sites and associated sites using PnP Powershell
- In 4 steps access SharePoint online data using postman tool
- SharePoint admin center: Learn SharePoint online administration in an hour – step by step
- SharePoint REST API: GET vs POST vs PUT vs DELETE vs PATCH
- Office 365: Understanding the hub site in SharePoint online
- PnP-PowerShell
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