You can roll up and display content from across multiple sites in SharePoint Online using the news, documents, and events web parts. This video will demonstrate that process.
This video is part of my FREE 30+ lesson self-paced online training course called Collaboration in Microsoft 365 (OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams). Enroll today at https://www.NateTheTrainer.com for the full learning experience including lesson discussions, quizzes, exams, and a completion certificate.
The News, Highlighted content, and Events web parts allow you to pull in content from sites other than your current site. So, for example, if you’re building a home page for your site and add a news web part, you can choose to pull in a partner department’s site’s news to your site as well to provide a variety of relevant content to your members.
If you’ve just copied your multi-page Power BI report’s URL and pasted into the properties of a Power BI web part on a SharePoint page, you may have noticed your pages aren’t appearing as options in the Page name dropdown.
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This is because the URL you copied from Power BI likely contained a specific page in the URL itself, ending in something like …/ReportSection1 (which is referring to a specific page already).
To fix this and have your pages show up as options in the dropdown, simply remove the ReportSection1 (or 2, 3, etc.) from the end of the URL in the Power BI report link box and try again.
To speed things along, I usually cut (Ctrl+X) the corrected URL, click outside the box to “reset” the web part, then paste (Ctrl+V) the corrected URL and wait for my page names to appear. This is demonstrated below.
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Here’s a related video demonstrating how to embed a Power BI report on a SharePoint page including fixing the multi-page issue mentioned above.
Depending on whether your SharePoint site is built on a team site template (has a left-hand navigation menu) or a communication site template (no left-hand navigation menu) you will have different options available for web parts to be used on your site’s pages.
Part of this may be because communication sites are not built on Microsoft 365 groups which are required for creating assets like Planner plans. The Planner web part requires its hosting site to share a supporting Microsoft 365 group. You’ll also notice a much more limited selection of third-party (non-Microsoft) web parts available in communication sites.
Note Even though communication sites aren’t built on Microsoft 365 groups, you can use pre-existing Microsoft 365 groups to grant access/membership to your communication site.
These web parts help remind us of the purpose behind each template. Team sites are meant to be used for collaboration – therefore we see much more collaborative tools available in this template. Communication sites, however, tend to be more consumer-oriented and don’t typically need the third-party apps or collaborative tools to share their documents, news, knowledge, etc. with consumers.
Team sites have the most web part options, including many third-party options. The following web parts are unique to team sites:
Asana
Bitbucket (and Bitbucket Server)
GitHub (and GitHub Enterprise)
Google Analytics
Incoming Webhook
JIRA
Office 365 Connectors
Planner
RSS
Salesforce
Stack Overflow
Trello
UserVoice
Web parts available in a team site | Click to enlarge
There are currently no web parts in communication sites that are not also available in team sites.
In the following table, you’ll find all of the default available web parts, their descriptions, and which template(s) they’re each available within.
Web part
Description
Team
Communication
Asana
Track projects from start to finish
X
Bing Maps
Display a location on a map using Bing Maps
X
X
Bitbucket
Manage and collaborate on your code projects
X
Bitbucket Server
Manage and collaborate on your code projects
X
Button
Add a clickable button with a custom label and link
X
X
Call to action
Add call to action text and an image paired with a clickable button
X
X
Code Snippet
Add a Code Snippet to the page
X
X
Conversations
Show conversations from a Yammer group, user, topic, or home
X
X
Countdown Timer
Count down or count up to an important event
X
X
Divider
Add a line to divide areas on your page
X
X
Document library
Show a document library from this site
X
X
Events
Display upcoming events from your sites in a layout you choose
X
X
GitHub
Manage and collaborate on code projects
X
GitHub Enterprise
Manage and collaborate on code projects hosted on a GitHub Enterprise instance
X
Google Analytics
Get Google Analytics summary reports
X
Group calendar
Display a calendar from one of your Office 365 groups
X
X
Hero
Prominently display up to 5 pieces of content with links, images, pictures, or photos in a highly visual layout
X
X
Highlights
Show highlights of Yammer conversations
X
X
Image gallery
Show several images, pictures or photos in a gallery layout
X
X
Incoming Webhook
Send data from a service to your Microsoft 365 Group in real time
X
JIRA
Gather, organize, and assign issues detected in your software
X
Kindle Instant Preview
Show a preview of a Kindle book
X
X
List
Display a list from this site
X
X
List properties
Connect to a list web part on the same page and dynamically display a selection from that list
X
X
Markdown
Use Markdown language to add and format text
X
X
Microsoft Forms
Add a survey to collect responses or show results
X
X
Microsoft PowerApps (Preview)
Show a custom app created with PowerApps
X
X
My feed
Display a personalized feed of content and activities
X
X
News
Show news posts from one or more sites in a variety of layouts. You can filter news and target news to key audiences
X
X
Office 365 Connectors
Connect with other services to show updates and notifications from them
X
Organization chart
Show an organization chart (org chart) with structure and connections for a selected person
X
X
Page properties
Show details about your page like date, content type, or custom properties
X
X
People
Display selected people and their profiles
X
X
Planner
Show and work with a Planner board or charts
X
Power BI
Display a Power BI report
X
X
Quick chart
Show data in a simple bar or pie chart
X
X
Quick links
Show a collection of links in a variety of layouts with options for icons, images, and audience targeting
X
X
Recent documents
Display recent documents for the current user
X
X
RSS
Get RSS feeds for your group
X
Salesforce
Build relationships with your customers
X
Saved for later
Show the current page viewer’s documents and pages that they saved for later
X
X
Site activity
Show site activity such as files uploaded or edited, lists created, and more
X
X
Sites
Show important or interesting sites on your page
X
X
Spacer
Add vertical space between areas on the page
X
X
Stack Overflow
Ask and answer programming questions
X
Stream
Display a Stream video or channel
X
X
Trello
Manage Trello cards and tasks all in one place
X
Twitter
Display a Twitter feed
X
X
UserVoice
Collect new customer ideas, and track and respond to customers’ problems
X
Weather
Show the current weather in a location you choose
X
X
World clock
Show one or more clocks with time zones you choose
X
X
YouTube
Show a YouTube video on the page
X
X
A table detailing available web parts and in which site template you can find them for use.
Note: This article pertains specifically to SharePoint Online (M365).
Audience targeting can be used to surface relevant information and resources to specific groups of people throughout SharePoint. This post will focus specifically on enabling audience targeting on your site’s pages and news so that you can create individualized experiences for users based on their identity or role.
The overall process consists of three steps:
Enable the audience targeting ability for all content in your Site Pages library.
Specify the appropriate audience(s) for specific pages/news items within the library.
Modify any existing web parts (news or highlighted content web parts) to enable audience targeting (simply meaning to utilize any audience targeting configurations that have been specified for the content surfacing in that web part).
Step 3 is not required if you only wish to have audience targeting “seen” on the SharePoint start page, mobile app, or other non-customized areas where news may surface.
How audience targeting works
If you specify an audience for content, it will be shown in relevant areas (SharePoint start page, mobile app, news or highlighted content web parts using audience targeting, etc.) to members of the audiences only. This is not a security feature – the content is still discoverable by other users – just not surfaced upfront conveniently for them.
If you are a member of an audience specified on a news piece, you’ll see that news wherever it’s being called up. If you’re not, you won’t see it but can still search or browse to find it.
If no audience is specified for an item, it will be shown to all users. Or if a web part (such as a news web part) has disabled audience targeting, any specified audiences on individual pieces will be disregarded and the content will be shown to all through that particular web part.
Here are the detailed steps to set up audience targeting:
Enable audience targeting for Site Pages (and news)
1. Go to your Site Contents > Site Pages library
2. Select the settings gear > Library settings
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3. Choose Audience targeting settings
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4. Check the box for Enable audience targeting and then click OK.
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Specify an audience for SharePoint pages or news
1. Now return to your Site Pages library and select a page or news item to which you wish to add audience targeting.
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2. Open the details pane (i icon) in the upper right
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3. In the Properties section, enter up to 50 M365 Group names, user names or emails, etc. to whom the selected content should be targeted. Notice it also adds the specified audience in a column in the library. Your additions are saved automatically.
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Modify web parts to utilize audience targeting where available
1. Edit the page on which you’ve placed a news or highlighted content web part.
2. Click the edit icon (pencil) on the particular web part for which you’re enabling audience targeting.
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3. In the Filters section, toggle Enable audience targeting on. (Note: News source must be This site or Select sites. Recommended for current user doesn’t have audience targeting settings).
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4. Republish your page when ready.
This can take some time to fully update in your site, so check back after a while to confirm functionality.
After completing these three sections, you’ve now
allowed content within the pages/news library to be used in audience targeting scenarios,
chosen specific pieces to which you’ll apply audience targeting,
and modified the web parts where content will surface to utilize those pieces’ audience settings when appropriate.
Missing two of your favorite web parts? Don’t fret.
Make sure the site collection feature “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure” is activated
Make sure the site feature “SharePoint Server Publishing” is activated
Still not there? Check “Settings” in the admin center to see if custom scripts are allowed on personal and self-service created sites (allow both). This can take up to 24 hours to take effect.
If you can’t wait (and you’re using SharePoint Online), use PowerShell to make the change immediately, changing my site details to your own
I love SharePoint’s Content Query Web Part (CQWP) – but if you’re missing a feature in your site collection(s), you may not have it! Luckily you can get it back in just four clicks.
Go to Site Settings
Click “Site Collection Features” under “Site Collection Administration” (Note: Must have full control or site collection administrator permissions to see this option)
Activate “SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure“
Now your CQWP should be available as a web part under Content Rollup.
If you need to activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure across all site collections in a web app, I recommend checking out Salaudeen Rajack’s site, SharePointDiary.com, for instructions on doing this via PowerShell.
In the modern SharePoint experience, you can clean up ordinary link lists with very little effort, thanks to SharePoint’s icon library.
Whether you need a Teams icon (teams), dog (fangbody), tooth (teeth) or football (football), you can search for icons and use those for adding visual cues and iconography to your sites. Here’s how you can implement this on your page(s):
The aspx page that holds the content of the pop-up
The script that loads the aspx page in a modal dialog upon page load
Save this .aspx page to your “Site Pages” directory.
-OR-
Copy and paste the following into a new .aspx page in your Site Pages or Pages (Settings wheel –> Site Contents –> Site Pages or Pages) directory:
We will be performing routine maintenance on SharePoint Librarian Monday morning from 4 am – 5 am. There may be a brief disruption for users online during that time. The maintenance window is scheduled for 1 hour.
[/code]
Modify the content in the aspx page beneath the modal-content div and above the input tag to include your own images, formatting and message text.
Save this javascript file to your Site Assets (Settings wheel –> Site Contents –> Site Assets) or scripts folder
-OR-
Copy and paste the following into a new javascript file in your Site Assets:
Note: Wrap the following in script tags:
[code] _spBodyOnLoadFunctionNames.push(‘showPopup’);
function showPopup() {
var options = {
title: “Notice“,
url: “https://sharepointlibrarian.sharepoint.com/SitePages/HomePopUp.aspx” };
SP.UI.ModalDialog.showModalDialog(options);
}
[/code]
Update the script to include the URL of your newly saved aspx page and a title for the pop-up window (optional).
Add a content editor web part to the page on which you’d like the pop-up.
Edit page
Add web part
Edit web part
Paste URL to the javascript file in your Site Assets and click “OK”
Save page/stop editing
That’s it! Your pop-up should now function upon page load. When/if you wish to “turn off” the pop-up without deleting the files (so you can reuse later easily) just add “//” before line 7 in the javascript file and save to “comment out” the function. This prevents the pop-up from loading. When you’re ready to use the pop-up again just remove the two slashes and save.
I recommend using SharePoint Designer to easily access and modify the ASPX page and/or javascript file.
Below on the left are two traditional, out-of-the-box solutions for showing Today’s events in SharePoint. Notice how both take up a lot of extra space repeating today’s date (which we don’t need to see at all in a web part called “Today’s Events”) or showing gray space where there are no events. Soak that in – prime real estate on your home page goes to non-existent events. These also may require overlays and other manual labor processes that need adjusted every time a calendar is added or removed.
But on the right is what you could have. It uses search instead and displays events from all calendars a user has access to in one place. It shows only the necessary information on the home page and links to full details. And with a little CSS included in this post, it can look polished and themed. Imagine all you could do with that saved space on your home page…
I jokingly said at a recent presentation that I thought adding weather to our intranet’s home page was a good idea for employees like me who work in the basement and don’t see much of “the outside.” But it can also help with planning and decisions depending on your industry and daily routines.
Accuweather has a free script for a widget you can use that resizes perfectly on different screen sizes. I’m impressed with its simplicity and how dynamic it is.
All you need is a script editor where you’re placing the weather on your page and the following script from Accuweather.com. This script will work as-is from a straight copy and paste, but you should generate your own code from their website to paste after the closing style tag so that when clicked, users will be taken to more info specific to their location instead of mine. You can start from scratch on their site, just be sure to add the “style” tag and content below before the script they generate for you. This will get rid of a rather pesky button they include.
I jokingly said at a recent presentation that I thought adding weather to our intranet’s home page was a good idea for employees like me who work in the basement and don’t see much of “the outside.” But it can also help with planning and decisions depending on your industry and daily routines.