In this article, I will demonstrate how to provision a SharePoint online modern site using a Power automate flow. As there is no standard Power automate action for creating a SharePoint site (previously called “site collections”) using SharePoint connector, we will use the Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint action and SharePoint REST API in Power automate flow.

Follow below steps to create a SharePoint online modern communication site using Power Automate flow:

1. Go to make.powerautomate.com and create a new Instant cloud flow with Manually trigger a flow trigger.

2. Add Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action in Power automate flow.

3. Use configurations for Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action in below format:

Method: POST

Uri: _api/SPSiteManager/create

Headers:

{
	"accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
	"content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose"
}

Body:

{
	"request": {
		"Title": "My Communication Site",
		"Url": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MyCommSite",
		"Description": "My Communication Site created using Power Automate flow",
		"Owner": "gsanap@contoso.com",
		"Lcid": 1033,
		"WebTemplate": "SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0",
		"SiteDesignId": "6142d2a0-63a5-4ba0-aede-d9fefca2c767",
		"ShareByEmailEnabled": false
	}
}

Where,

Url

URL for the new SharePoint online modern site (site collection)

LCID

Locale identifier (LCID) for the site language. 1033 is for English language, check LCID for other languages at: Language.Lcid property

WebTemplate

WebTemplate property is used to specify which type of SharePoint site to you want to create. You can use following values for this property:

• Communication Site: SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0
• Team Site (not connected to M365 group): STS#3

SiteDesignId

SiteDesignId property is used to apply site template (previously called “site design”) to newly created SharePoint site.

If you want to apply an out-of-the-box available site template, use the following values:

• Topic: 96c933ac-3698-44c7-9f4a-5fd17d71af9e
• Showcase: 6142d2a0-63a5-4ba0-aede-d9fefca2c767
• Blank: f6cc5403-0d63-442e-96c0-285923709ffc

ShareByEmailEnabled

If this property is set to true, it will enable sharing SharePoint files via Email.

Your final Power automate flow should look like this:

4. Save your flow and Run it using Test > Manually options at the top right corner. After flow run completes successfully, navigate to the site URL mentioned in Send an HTTP request to SharePoint action in Power automate flow and you will see a newly created SharePoint online modern communication site like:

Learn more

• Update SharePoint Site Logo using Power Automate
• SharePoint Online: Add Site Collection Administrator (SCA) using Power Automate
• Add an image to SharePoint Image columns using Power Automate

With growing adoption of Microsoft Teams and Channels, Microsoft heard the feedback to simplify the management of Teams and Channel connected sites. Microsoft is enhancing the Active sites page experience in SharePoint admin center to include channel sites that are provisioned when a special channel is added to a Team in Microsoft Teams.

So now, when you go to a teams-connected site in SharePoint online admin center, you see all corresponding channel sites and can ensure that right optional security policies are inherited from the parent site.

Enhancements included in this release:

• New Site connected to Teams view that filters the sites list to only sites that are Teams connected.
• New Teams column identifying the site is connected to teams.
• New Channel Sites column identifying the team connected site has associated Private or Shared channel sites.
• Additional entry points to channel sites from Teams connected site info panel.
• All new Active sites pivot showing the channel sites associated to the teams connected site.
• The pivot includes a list of channel sites that are associated to the Teams connected site. This list will only include Private sites as of now and will expend to include other special sites in the future. Channel are view only and inherit properties from Teams that are managed in Teams admin center.
• New Type column that accessible from the new Active Sites pivot.
• Ability to manage Channel site storage limit.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 82161.

Release Timeline

Rollout will begin in early December 2021 and it is expected to complete the rollout by late January 2022.

How this will affect your organization

Historically, channel sites have been only accessible to admins through PowerShell and through the Microsoft Teams client app. With these enhancements admins can now access channel sites through SharePoint online admin center UX as well.

What you need to do to prepare

No special preparation is required. Once the enhancements are available in your tenant you will be able to start using them immediately, without any impact to your day-to-day experience.

Learn more

• SharePoint admin center: Manage Teams and channel connected team sites

Previously in SharePoint site when you click on the navigation link, the default behavior was to open internal links in the same browser tab and external links in a new browser tab. Now, Microsoft is releasing a new feature which will allow users to manage the experience for each navigation link item to open in the same tab or in a new tab.

This new feature will add new Open in a new tab option in navigation link settings. Open in a new tab option is available while adding new navigation links or editing existing navigation links. Using this feature, users will have the option to be able to choose to open navigation links in the same tab or in a new tab for:

• SharePoint site navigation – header and footer
• Hub site navigation
• Global navigation in SharePoint app bar

This feature is available for both SharePoint communication sites and team sites navigation.

Follow below steps to configure navigation link item to open in a new tab:

1. Go to your SharePoint site and click on Edit link at the bottom of the vertical navigation (or to the right of the horizontal navigation).

2. Hover in between the existing navigation links in the menu where you want to add a new link and select + icon.

3. On the Add a link dialog box, choose Link under Choose an option dropdown and enter web address & display name for the navigation link.

4. You can see the new Open in a new tab option at the bottom of Add a link dialog box. Select the Open in a new tab checkbox to open the navigation link in a new browser tab.

5. Click OK on Add a link dialog box and then Save the navigation settings. Now, when you click on the newly added navigation link item, it will open the associated web address in a new browser tab.

Note: The new open in new tab experience will not work on the footer navigation links when initially available. This will become available with future release at a later date.

Release Timeline

• Targeted Release: Microsoft began rolling out this feature in early September and it is expected to complete the rollout by late September.
• Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out this feature in late September and expects to complete the rollout by mid-October.

You can read more about this feature and rollout (General Availability) information at Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93318.

This feature update will bring users a new navigation option for SharePoint team sites. Team site owners will be able to switch the team site navigation orientation from vertical to horizontal. Additionally, site navigation visibility can be turned off completely.

This new navigation switcher feature allows site owners to customize their team site by changing navigation’s orientation and visibility to achieve a different look and feel, layouts, and alignment styles.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85568.

When will this happen?

• Targeted release (selected users and entire organization): Rollout will begin in mid-September and expect to be complete in mid-October.
• Standard: Rollout will begin in early November and expect to be complete in mid-January (previously late November).

How this will affect your organization

For SharePoint online team sites, users will see a new option when you navigate to Settings > Change the Look > Navigation. In the navigation panel, users can choose to show or hide the site navigation. If users decide to display the site navigation, then they’ll be able to choose either a vertical or horizontal orientation.

Note: The Mega menu style is only available for the horizontal orientation.

• The Vertical option displays site navigation on the left of the site content
• The Horizontal option displays site navigation on the top of the page just below the site header like on a SharePoint communication site

What you need to do to prepare

You do not need to do anything to prepare for this change. This new navigation feature is optional and existing team site navigation will not change. Notify site owners that this new option is available in addition to other ways to customize your SharePoint site.

Learn more

• Change the look of your SharePoint site
• New Site Header Options in SharePoint Online

Microsoft is introducing scenario-based site templates in SharePoint online. This new SharePoint release of scenario-based site templates will help you expand what’s possible with content, pages, and web parts while helping you quickly get started building your own site.

Each template contains pre-populated content and web parts that are fully customizable to meet the needs of your organization. This feature is rolling out on SharePoint Online web and mobile.

This feature is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70574.

How this will affect your organization

Users will be able to benefit from the ability to browse, preview, and apply site templates to a new or existing SharePoint site. Users can select a site template that meets organizational business objectives and best fits the site goal while ensuring a higher level of consistency throughout their organization. They can then review pre-populated content and customize the site to address their needs.

This feature is by default ON with no admin control.

Apply a template to an existing site

Users can choose to browse site templates and can apply a template to an existing site at any time by accessing the template gallery from Site Settings and then Apply a site template.

Apply a template when you create a new site

If a site owner is visiting their new site for the first time, they may see a message asking if they want to use a template that will take them to the site templates gallery.

Note

When you apply a template to an existing site, your content will not automatically merge with the new template. Instead, a new default home page will be created along with other new content. Existing pages, libraries, and lists will be saved and can be accessed in Site contents.

Available scenario-based site templates

Communication site templates

Team site templates

From your organization

Site templates created by your organization, also known as third-party templates, can be found in the tab titled From your organization when selecting a site template. Customization instructions will vary depending on the site template design.

Notes

• In previous versions of SharePoint, site templates were called site designs but will be referred to as site templates moving forward.
• The Site designs entry point will be replaced by the Apply a site template entry point in the Settings panel.
• In this new site template experience, a progress screen is displayed while the site template is being applied instead of a notification bar.
• Today, the new site template experience cannot be disabled and you cannot view template version history but will be included in future updates.

Release Timeline

Targeted Release (Selected users and organization): Microsoft will begin rollout in late June (previously late May).

Standard Release: Rolling out in late August (previously late July).

What you need to do to prepare

1. Share this template guide with end-users: Learn how to apply and customize SharePoint site templates.
2. For tips on improving and customizing your site, review the SharePoint Next steps panel.
   • The Next steps experience currently exists on Team sites and is now being introduced to Communication sites.
3. For admins using custom site templates (previously known as site designs and sometimes called third-party templates), review learn how to create a custom site template and site script.

When you create a team in Microsoft Teams, a SharePoint team site will automatically get created in tandem and you are also able to connect any existing SharePoint team site to a new team in Microsoft Teams. These are called Microsoft Teams connected team sites.

For private channels in Microsoft Teams, a SharePoint team site automatically gets created and is known as a channel site. These Teams connected team sites and channel sites are managed differently than your typical SharePoint team site.

Microsoft is making small updates to the viewing and management experience of Teams connected team sites and channel sites to simplify the end-user experience.

Key Points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81945.
• Timing: This will roll out for Targeted release (select users and entire organization) beginning in late June and be complete by early July. Standard release will begin in mid-July and be complete by early August.
• Rollout: tenant level
• Control type: user control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization

The below updates to the viewing and management experience of Teams connected team sites and channel sites will simplify the end-user experience in the following ways:

Updates to managing site classification and site permissions

Previously

Site classification (sensitivity) and advanced site permissions could be managed in the SharePoint team site Settings pane.

Currently

Site classification (including sensitivity labels and information barriers) will be read-only in SharePoint. Site permissions will not be available to edit in the SharePoint Advanced Settings page and instead will be managed in the team settings in Microsoft Teams.

The only exception to this rule is for a parent site. The parent site is a group connected team sites that hosts standard channels and is connected to private channel sites. The Parent site still allows edits to the site permissions from SharePoint.

New visual updates to the SharePoint team site header

A Microsoft Teams icon in the site header and Go to Channel button in the document library command bar are designed to help users confirm the type of SharePoint site & channel and easily navigate to the connected team in Microsoft Teams or private channel.

Removal of the Go to Channel banner in document libraries

The Go to Channel link has been updated to consistently be available in the command bar when viewing document libraries, while removing the additional banner that was occupying space in the library.

Simplified SharePoint team sites

This update improves the template utilized for the channel sites by having the classic SharePoint features off-by-default and will employ the full capabilities of the modern team site.

What you need to do to prepare

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

Learn more:

• Manage Teams connected sites
• Private channels in Microsoft Teams

In my previous blog, we saw how to enable or disable the Social Bar (Like, Views, Save for later) in SharePoint Online at tenant level using SharePoint Online PowerShell, PnP PowerShell and CLI for Microsoft 365. In this blog we will explore how to enable or disable the Social Bar for individual SharePoint online site collections.

You can use any one of the approaches given below for enabling or disabling the Social Bar (Like, No. of Comments, Views, Save for later) for individual SharePoint online sites.

Using SharePoint Online PowerShell

Use below SharePoint Online PowerShell script to enable or disable the social bar from site pages for specific SharePoint online modern experience site:

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

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

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

# Disable the social bar from SharePoint online site pages
Set-SPOSite -Identity $siteUrl -SocialBarOnSitePagesDisabled $true

# Enable the social bar on SharePoint online site pages
Set-SPOSite -Identity $siteUrl -SocialBarOnSitePagesDisabled $false

# Disconnect SharePoint online connection
Disconnect-SPOService

Using PnP PowerShell

You can use below PnP PowerShell script to show or hide the social bar from SharePoint online modern experience site pages for individual SharePoint site:

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

# Connect to SharePoint online site
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $siteUrl -Interactive

# Hide the social bar from SharePoint online modern site pages
Set-PnPSite -SocialBarOnSitePagesDisabled $true

# Show the social bar on SharePoint online modern site pages
Set-PnPSite -SocialBarOnSitePagesDisabled $false

# Disconnect SharePoint online connection
Disconnect-PnPOnline

Using CLI for Microsoft 365

Use below CLI for Microsoft script to show or hide the social bar from SharePoint online modern experience site pages for individual SharePoint site:

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

# Connect to SharePoint online tenant
$m365Status = m365 status
if ($m365Status -match "Logged Out") {
    m365 login
}

# Hide the social bar from SharePoint online modern site pages
m365 spo site set --url $siteUrl --socialBarOnSitePagesDisabled true

# Show the social bar on SharePoint online modern site pages
m365 spo site set --url $siteUrl --socialBarOnSitePagesDisabled false

# Disconnect SharePoint online connection
m365 logout

Conclusion

By using the PowerShell scripts given in this blog post, you can enable or disable social bar features from SharePoint online modern site pages for specific SharePoint online sites.

Learn more

• How to Enable/Disable the commenting in SharePoint Online/Microsoft Lists
• Set a page template as default page template in SharePoint Online
• Enable or Disable the Return to Classic SharePoint link in SharePoint Online
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using PnP PowerShell
• Set up a home site in SharePoint Online using PowerShell
• Add/Update image columns in SharePoint lists using CLI for Microsoft 365

Microsoft is currently rolling out SharePoint app bar and Global navigation to SharePoint online tenants. By default the home icon in app bar is linked to the SharePoint start page. To change this behavior, you need to enable the global navigation. Enabling and customizing global navigation in SharePoint requires a home site.

SharePoint online home site is also required to use Microsoft Viva connections in Microsoft Teams desktop client.

So, if you are planning to customize the global navigation or use Microsoft Viva connections in Microsoft Teams, first you have to set up a home site for your SharePoint online tenant. Home site is a SharePoint site that you create and set as the top landing page for all users in your intranet. You can set only one SharePoint site as a home site which must be a communication site.

Steps to set a site as your home site

1. Create a communication site to set it as the home site or use existing communication site.
2. Customize the communication site by adding navigation, header, footer, site logo, news, events and other web parts as per your requirements and brand.
3. Use PowerShell commands to set a communication site as the home site.

Use PowerShell to set a communication site as the home site

After you create and customize the communication site that you want to use as your home site, you need to run a PowerShell commands to set it as your home site. To run this commands, you must be a global admin or SharePoint admin in your Microsoft 365 tenant.

Using SharePoint Online PowerShell

1. Download the latest version of SharePoint Online Management Shell.

2. Connect to SharePoint admin site as a global admin or SharePoint admin using below command:

Connect-SPOService -Url https://<tenant>-admin.sharepoint.com

3. Run below command to set a communication site as the home site:

Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/<communicationsite>

Using PnP PowerShell

You can use PnP PowerShell Set-PnPHomeSite command to set the home site for your SharePoint tenant.

Connect-PnPOnline -Url https://<tenant>-admin.sharepoint.com/ -Interactive
Set-PnPHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl "https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/<communicationsite>"

Using CLI for Microsoft 365

You can use CLI for Microsoft 365 spo homesite set command to set the specified communication site as the Home Site.

m365 login
m365 spo homesite set --siteUrl https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/<communicationsite>

Points to remember

• Only one communication site can be set as the home site.
• Search scope for the site will be changed to tenant-wide search.
• The site will be automatically set up as an organization news site.
• The first time you set up a home site, it might take up to several minutes for the changes to take effect.
• If you run the above command again to switch your home site to a different site, it might take up to 2 hours.
• Home site can be registered as a hub site, but it can’t be associated with a hub.

Unregister a home site from your tenant

If you have registered a site as a home site in your tenant previously and now you don’t want to have any home site in your tenant, you need to run the following PowerShell command with administrator privileges:

Remove-SPOHomeSite

This removes the current SharePoint Online Home Site setting. Note that you do not need to specify the URL of your home site.

Learn more

• Set up a SharePoint home site from the SharePoint admin center
• Set SharePoint site home page using PnP PowerShell and CLI for Microsoft 365
• Set SharePoint site home page using PnP PowerShell and CLI for Microsoft 365
• SharePoint Online: Empty Recycle Bin using PnP PowerShell
• Change SharePoint Online List URL using PnP PowerShell
• Update SharePoint Page Banner Image using PnP PowerShell
• Add/Update image columns in SharePoint/Microsoft Lists using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using CLI for Microsoft 365

One of the primary goals of the Intranet portals is, of course, to share the news and announcements within the organization. SharePoint has some fantastic options available in this area, thanks to the mighty News Web Part. I blogged quite a bit about the News Web Part and various capabilities we have (i.e., the ability to schedule or expire news posts, etc. Today, though, I want to share some advice on a few ways to organize department news on your SharePoint Hub, especially if you are part of a larger organization.

Use Case

Most small organizations have just one area for news and announcements on the main landing page (Home Site). And most likely, you have just one person managing those announcements. However, if you are part of a larger organization, you probably have different categories of announcements managed and curated by different employees and departments. So the advice below is really for this situation described above.

Option 1: Organize department news via Metadata Categories

The first option would be to utilize multiple News Web Parts on the same site and filter them based on the metadata tags assigned to each news post. The idea is that you will create a Metadata Column called Category or Department on the Site Pages Library on the main Intranet Hub Site and tag each news post against that respective category (i.e., HR News, IT News, General News). Then, on the main landing page itself, you will add several news web parts, one for each category, and then filter the News Web Parts based on the corresponding page property (i.e., Category = HR News). If what I described above sounds a bit complicated, do not worry; I explained how to set this up in great detail in this post.

Tagging a News Post against a predefined category

Filtering the News Web Part for a specific Category (Page Property)

Pros:

• All the news posts reside in one site and one library (Site Pages Library), making it easy to maintain (i.e., add/edit/delete/schedule/expire)
• This option is great if you have different categories of news to publish but have one person to maintain them all

Cons:

• In the case of multiple authors, no way to split security since all news posts reside in one site/library (need to give all authors Edit access to the main Hub Site).

Option 2: Organize department news via separate sites on Hub

The other option to organize and publish the news on an Intranet is to utilize the Hub functionality of SharePoint. The idea is that each area/category of news gets its own site to create news and announcements, and then those news posts are rolled up on a main Home Site/Intranet Site thanks to the Hub news roll-up feature.

Pros:

• Allows each department/category own space to create news posts – separated with own security/permissions. For example, you could create a separate site called “CEO Corner” and have the CEO publish the posts on that site, which will be rolled up and presented in the specific News Web Part on a SharePoint page which will only filter for news posts from that CEO Corner site.

Cons:

• No way to pick and choose the specific news posts to publish from rolled-up sites – it is all or nothing
• In case certain news are to be expired on a Hub site after a certain period of time – the setup would require the use of managed properties (since each and every site will have its own Expiry date column)
• Less control for the overall aggregation of the news posts

The post 2 ways to organize department news on your SharePoint Hub appeared first on SharePoint Maven.

SharePoint Hub site are used to meet the need of organization by organizing sites based on departm/ent, region or project to make it easier for them discover related content like news and announcements and can search across all associated sites. The sites associated to hub also have common Navigation, branding and site structure which make it easier for users to navigate.

There are requirements to hide navigation from Hub site in associated sites as each site could have their own navigation or there is only one site associated in Hub and more will be added in future. And for now business owners want to hide the navigation links shown on the Hub site.

Hiding Navigation from Hub

Follow below steps to disable/hide navigation from Hub site:

• Go to the Hub site collection
• Click on the gear icon on top right and select Hub Site Settings
• On Hub site settings page, disable the Shown in Navigation option, this will stop the Hub site navigation on all associated sites.

• Hit the save button and refresh the any of the associated site, Hub site navigation are gone.

The post Hide Hub Navigation on SharePoint online sites appeared first on MS Technology Talk.

This isn’t rocket science, but it’s something I do often enough that I want to lodge the PowerShell in a post instead of continuing to rewrite it.

When we are building an Intranet, we often want to grant permissions for all the Communication Sites to a small set of people during the testing process. This script will do that for one user.

Here is a quick overview of what is happening:

• Everything before line 12 is just set up. I define a few variables pointing to the Admin Site and Hub Site. I connect to the Admin Site in line 9, and then I have a token which is reusable for all the other connections.
• In line 12, I get all the sites which are associated with the Hub Site. In this case, it is the root site in the tenant and also a Home Site. This is the most common setup for an Intranet.
• Next I loop through all the associated sites. The first step is to connect to each site.
• I’m finding both the Owners and Members groups in lines 16-17. We may want to make some people Owners and other People Members, and we can use the appropriate group in line 18.
• Communication Sites don’t have backing Microsoft 365 Groups, so I can use the Add-PnPGroupMember cmdlet, which just adds the user(s) to the correct SharePoint group.
• You could duplicate line 18 to grant permissions to more than one person.

# Import modules
Import-Module PnP.PowerShell

# Base variables
$adminUrl = "https://tenant-admin.sharepoint.com/"
$HubSiteURL = "https://tenant.sharepoint.com/"

# Connect to the tenant
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $adminUrl -Interactive

# Get the sites associated with the Intranet Hub Site
$associatedSites = Get-PnPHubSiteChild -Identity $HubSiteURL | Sort-Object 

foreach ($site in $associatedSites) {
    Connect-PnPOnline -Url $site -Interactive
    $ownerGroup = (Get-PnPSiteGroup | Where-Object { $_.LoginName -like "*Owner*" })[0]
    $memberGroup = (Get-PnPSiteGroup | Where-Object { $_.LoginName -like "*Member*" })[0]
    Add-PnPGroupMember -LoginName "lester.frogbottom@tenant.com" -Group $ownerGroup.LoginName

}

I know the best way to do this is by using a Microsoft 365 Group, but this down and dirty approach makes sense in a limited way. When we launch the Intranet, we’ll clean out all the Members and Visitors to start fresh, so it doesn’t matter that much if we are a bit messy for now. Plus, we may be granting temporary Member permissions to someone just during the build phase.

Eagle-eyed reader Brian McCullough (@bpmccullough) pointed out I was working too hard to get the Member and Owner groups.

Rather than these two lines:

$ownerGroup = (Get-PnPSiteGroup | Where-Object { $_.LoginName -like "*Owner*" })[0]
$memberGroup = (Get-PnPSiteGroup | Where-Object { $_.LoginName -like "*Member*" })[0]

We can do this:

$ownerGroup = Get-PnPGroup -AssociatedOwnerGroup
$memberGroup = Get-PnPGroup -AssociatedMemberGroup

Here’s a quick tip to improve your Global Navigation for the new SharePoint App Bar.

From what I’ve seen, most organizations will use the Hub or global navigation for the App Bar’s home link – which is the Global Nav. The root site of the tenant should be a Home Site and also a Hub Site. Then the Hub Site nav makes good sense to show as the Global Nav in the App Bar.

Here’s my demo site’s Home Site navigation, which is the Hub Site navigation. It looks lovely, doesn’t it?

Problem is, the Intranet link doesn’t show up in the App Bar’s Global Nav. It doesn’t matter as long as I’m hanging out in the Hub Site or its associated sites, but if I’m off in a Team Site somewhere, I’ll get lost.

By default, the Hub name is shown in the Hub Site navigation. That makes total sense, at least it did in the slightly older world. But it doesn’t show up in the App Bar’s Global Nav.

The trick is to go into the Hub site settings and not show the Hub name in the navigation.

But wait, now I can’t even navigate back to the Home Site from the Home Site! The trick is to add the Hub Site’s link to the navigation manually.

The result looks exactly the same in the Home Site and its Hub Site navigation. (No, you don’t see a difference, even if you think you do. Maybe a pixel of spacing or something, but really no difference.)

BUT, now that Intranet link is visible in the App Gar’s Global Nav as well. Easy, peasy. All the planning for the App Bar in the world may have missed that!