You may already know about and use the SharePoint automatic news digest, which is sent to users with news that is relevant to them. Microsoft is adding new features to enhance the experience:

• The ability to brand your news digest with your organization’s theme colors and logo
• Intelligent ranking so that users see the news most relevant to them
• Enhanced design for easier consumption of news
• Upcoming Feature: This update to the news digest will also reflect organization boosted news when it is available in your organization. You can follow the News Boost feature roll out with this blogs post: Boost the visibility of SharePoint news.

Once this feature is rolled out to your tenant, you can prioritize important news and announcements to appear at the top of the news feeds across Microsoft 365. You can boost the visibility of a news article for a set time, until an employee has seen your content, or until viewers have seen the item in their feed a set number of times.

When this will happen

Microsoft will gradually roll out these updates to targeted release customers starting in mid April, and will complete the rollout to all customers by the end of June.

How this will affect your organization

Users who already receive the existing automatic news digest will start receiving this updated version of news digest:

More details:

• The news digest is sent on a weekly basis.
• Only published news posts are sent in the digest.
• If there are no news posts that are relevant for the user then no email is sent to the user.
• If your organization has boosted news items which users have not read, these will be sent in the digest.
• Only news posts which users have access to view are sent, so rest assured that users won’t see news that they don’t have permission to access.
• If users want to opt-out of receiving the automatic digest, they can click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email.
• If your organization news site is already branded, that branding will automatically be applied to automatic news digests.

Boost the visibility of a SharePoint news

With this update, you can boost a news post for specific duration. When the duration criteria is satisfied, the news post returns to its normal position in the news feed. Below options will be available to set the boost duration:

• Until news post is viewed
• Until a specific number of impressions is reached
• For a specific time frame

Enable/Disable SharePoint Auto News Digest

If you want to turn off the SharePoint auto news digest feature at the tenant level, you can use below PowerShell command with tenant administrator privileges:

Set-SPOTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest $false

If you want to enable this feature again on your tenant, you can use below PowerShell command:

Set-SPOTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest  $true

What you need to do to prepare

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

To learn more about the auto new digest and how to manage:

• Automatically sending news post digests

In today’s fast-paced work environment, staying up to date with the latest news and updates within an organization is crucial. SharePoint Online offers a powerful feature called Auto News Digest, which automatically aggregates the latest news posts from various SharePoint sites and Organization news sites that are relevant to users and sends an automated email to users.

SharePoint uses Microsoft Graph to determine if the news post is relevant for a user or not. SharePoint sends one email digest per week. By leveraging this feature, users can stay informed without having to manually visit each site individually, saving time and ensuring they don’t miss out on important updates.

In some cases, organizations that already have a high volume of emails may choose to disable SharePoint Auto News Digest feature to minimize the number of additional emails being sent to users. You can use any one of the approaches given below for enabling or disabling auto news digest feature in SharePoint online for all users at tenant level.

Using SharePoint Online PowerShell

Use below SharePoint Online PowerShell script to enable or disable the SharePoint auto news digest feature in SharePoint online at tenant level:

# SharePoint online admin center URL
$adminCenterUrl = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter your SharePoint admin center site URL (e.g https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com/)"

# Connect to SharePoint online admin center
Connect-SPOService -Url $adminCenterUrl

# Enable Auto News Digest in SharePoint Online
Set-SPOTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest $true

# Disable Auto News Digest in SharePoint Online
Set-SPOTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest $false

# Disconnect SharePoint online connection
Disconnect-SPOService

Using PnP PowerShell

You can use below PnP PowerShell script for enabling or disabling the SharePoint auto news digest feature in SharePoint online for all users at tenant level: 

# SharePoint online admin center URL
$adminCenterUrl = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter your SharePoint admin center site URL (e.g https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com/)"

# Connect to SharePoint online admin center
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $adminCenterUrl -Interactive

# Enable Auto News Digest in SharePoint Online
Set-PnPTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest $true

# Disable Auto News Digest in SharePoint Online
Set-PnPTenant -EnableAutoNewsDigest $false

# Disconnect SharePoint online connection
Disconnect-PnPOnline

Conclusion

SharePoint Auto News Digest is a valuable feature that helps streamline information delivery within organizations. By enabling this feature, SharePoint can automatically compile and deliver news and updates from various SharePoint sites directly to users’ inboxes. Disabling Auto News Digest is also straightforward, allowing organizations to customize their SharePoint experience based on their specific requirements. SharePoint Online PowerShell and PnP PowerShell scripts provide convenient methods to enable or disable Auto News Digest effortlessly, empowering administrators to optimize their SharePoint environment for efficient information sharing.

Learn more

• Boost the visibility of SharePoint news
• Enable or Disable the Social Bar (Like, Views, Save for later) in SharePoint at tenant level
• Enable or Disable the Return to Classic SharePoint link in SharePoint Online
• Set a page template as default page template in SharePoint Online
• Allow use of custom scripts in SharePoint Online using PowerShell