Copyright © 2020 by C# Corner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the
prior written permission of C# Corner or the Author.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the
accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained
in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the
author nor C# Corner will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged
to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Page 2
 About the Author

Habibur Rahaman is a SharePoint Project lead and scrum master. He has

been working in Microsoft SharePoint over a decade which includes
development & administration. He has worked in SharePoint 2007, 2010,
2013, 2016, Office 365 and SharePoint Online. Apart from SharePoint, early
in his career he was working in dot net & Microsoft Dynamics Great Plain
(GP).

He is a Microsoft certified professional, has completed the Microsoft Certified

Solutions Associate (MCSA), Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS). He is a C# Corner MVP,
Writer, Author and Blogger. He is an active contributor in C# corner
(https://c-sharpcorner.com) who mostly writes article on the latest updates
from Office 365 and SharePoint Online, and a writer and author in Microsoft
TechNet as well (Gold medalist) and also, active contributor in SharePoint
StackExchange site, top ranker in April 2020.

MICROSOFT CERTIFICATION:

Exam Passed: Certification Achieved:

1. Sharepoint 2010, Application ● Microsoft Certified Solutions
Development (70-573). Associate (MCSA)
2. Sharepoint 2010, Configuration ● Microsoft Certified
(70-667). Professional (MCP)
3. Net Framework 4, Web ● Microsoft Certified
Application (70-515). Technology Specialist
4. SQLServer2008, (MCTS).
Implementation and
Maintenance (70-432). ●
●
●

Page 3
5. Core Solutions of Microsoft ●
SharePoint Server 2013 (70-
331).
6. Managing Office 365 identities
and Requirements (70-346).
7. Enabling Office 365 Services
(70-347).

C# Corner MVP
Project Lead
Scrum Master
MCSA, MCP
MCTS, Author

https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/members/habibur-rahaman6

https://www.linkedin.com/in/habibur-r-a26151176/

https://twitter.com/Habibur_IND

Page 4
What will you learn from this book?

This book is targeted for everyone from beginners to advanced SharePoint

administrators, architects, Office 365 administrators, SharePoint Online
administrators, power users and end users who want to manage SharePoint
online from an Office 365 tenant.

I have tried to author this book in an easy-to-follow way, and it can be used
as a reference book or manual while you are administering SharePoint
Online from Office 365. As you follow along through the end of this book,
you will learn the below:

● Overview of SharePoint
● History of SharePoint
● Why should we use SharePoint?
● Overview of Office 365
● How to set up a trial tenant?
● Administering Office 365
● Various report management possibilities in the Office 365 dashboard
● Overview of SharePoint Online Admin Center
● Administering SharePoint Online Admin Center from Office 365
● Details on understanding hub sites and how to manage them.
● Manage hub sites report from SharePoint Online
● Manage workflow report from SharePoint Online tenant
● Various navigation setups in SharePoint Online

Page 5
 Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction to SharePoint 12

What is SharePoint? 12
Key features of SharePoint 12
History of SharePoint 16
SharePoint generation from the year 2000 to 2020 17
Key take-away: 23
Is SharePoint replaced by Microsoft Teams or is it dying? 26
Chapter 2: Introduction to office 365 28
What is Office 365? 28
Advantages of Office 365 29
Registration to Office 365 E3 trial account 30
How to login to the office 365 admin center? 49
Chapter 3: Manage Microsoft 365 admin center report dashboard 54
Out of the box – a list of cards are available in the admin center: 54
List of cards are available to add in Dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin center:
55
Default Microsoft 365 or Office 365 admin center dashboard: 55
How to add additional card to admin center dashboard page: 57
How to remove a report card from the Microsoft 365 admin center home page
dashboard: 60
Manage users in office 365 61
Mange active users in office 365 61
Manage contacts in Office 365 62
View Guest Users report in Office 365 63
View Deleted users report in Office 365 64

Page 6
Manage groups in office 365 65
Introduction to Office 365 groups 65
How to navigate to Office 365 group dashboard: 65
Types of groups in Office 365 66
Office 365 – group 67
How to create an Office 365 group? 68
Distribution group: 76
Mail-enabled Security group 77
Security group 79
How to edit and delete a group from the Office 365 dashboard: 80
Chapter 5: Billing management in Office 365 82
Purchase Service 82
Products & services 83
Licenses Report 84
Bills & Payments management 85
Billing Accounts 86
Billing Methods 87
Billing Notification 88
Chapter 6: Introduction to SharePoint Online Admin center 90
What is SharePoint Online Admin center? 90
How to navigate to SharePoint from Office 365? 91
Reports available in the SharePoint admin center home page: 94
SharePoint file activity report 94
SharePoint site usage report 95
Message Center 96
Service Health 97
Chapter 7: Administering SharePoint admin center 100
Various sites report in SharePoint admin center: 100
Active Sites 101
How to land into this Active Sites report? 102

Page 7
 How to create a site from SharePoint online admin center? 103
Site creation page – SharePoint Admin Center: 104
Manage the active site owners from admin center: 105
Manage hub site from SharePoint admin center: 106
How to export the active sites report in CSV: 107
Example of downloaded sites csv report: 108
How to search the active sites: 109
Views in Active Sites: 109
Customizing the view columns in active sites report: 110
Bulk Edit in SharePoint admin center (active sites): 112
Deleted Sites 113
Policy in SharePoint admin center 114
Sharing – SharePoint admin center: 115
Access Control – SharePoint admin center: 116
Centrally settings in SharePoint admin center: 120
Consolidated global setting in the Tenant setting page: 125
Show or Hide App Tiles 126
Site Collection Storage Management 126
Admin Center Experience 127
Delve (powered by Office Graph) 127
Enterprise Social Collaboration 128
Streaming Video Service 129
Personal Blogs 130
Site Pages 130
Global Experience Version Settings 131
Information Rights Management (IRM) 132
Details description about IRM in SharePoint: 132
Introduction to IRM: 133
Information Rights Management (IRM) in tenant settings page: 134
IRM settings in Document library: 138

Page 8
 Key take-away – IRM: 143
Permissions in IRM: 144
Site Creation 145
Subsite Creation: 147
Connections from sites to Office 365 groups: 148
Custom Script 148
Preview Features 149
Connected Services 150
Mobile Push Notifications - OneDrive for Business 150
Mobile Push Notifications – SharePoint 151
Comments on Site Pages 151
How to navigate to classic features from modern admin center? 154
Classic features in modern SharePoint admin center: 154
How do we navigate to the classic/old site collection create page? 160
Data migration tool in SharePoint admin center: 161
Manage script editor webpart in SharePoint Online 162
How to enable script editor webpart in SharePoint online? 162
Verify that script editor web part is not available by default: 162
Verify that script editor web part is available after executing the PowerShell
Script: 166
Why does Microsoft not allow us to add the script editor web part by default? 167
If we skip the custom script enable setting and execute the above PowerShell
command – will the script editor be available in the page? 167
Chapter 8: Manage hub sites in SharePoint Online from admin center 169
Introduction to hub site 169
What is a Hub Site in SharePoint online? 169
Hub Site architecture in SharePoint online 170
Why Hub Site in SharePoint online? 170
How to create a Hub Site in SharePoint online? 171
How to add a Team site or communication site to the Hub Site? 173

Page 9
Some key features or use cases of Hub Sites. 176
How to create a new hub site using PowerShell? 176
Register a site as a hub site by using the Register-SPOHubSite cmdlet: 177
Set permissions for specific users: SPOHubSiteRights 177
Associate multiple sites to a hub site: Import-Csv to Add-PnPHubSiteAssociation
177
Manage hub site report in SharePoint Online 177
PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to a hub site: 178
PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to hub site: Test 181
Let’s see the exported hub sites report – how does it look like? 182
View all sites that are connected to a hub site using SharePoint admin center
URL (UI): 183
Chapter 9: Workflow Report from SharePoint Online tenant 188
Export all workflows from SharePoint Online Tenant using PowerShell CSOM: 188
Description about the export workflow report code: 194
Prerequisites to execute the PowerShell CSOM script: 197
How to Install PnP PowerShell: 197
Chapter 10: Site creation template selection in SharePoint Online 199
Introduction 199
What is a modern team site in SharePoint online? 203
What is a communication site in SharePoint online? 203
When should we use a team site or communication site template? 204
Create a modern team site SharePoint online – manually 205
Create a modern team site using PnP PowerShell 212
New-PnPSite – create a modern SharePoint online site: 212
Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell: 213
Other parameters in creating a modern team site – New-PnPSite: 214
How to create a SharePoint communication site? 215
Create a communication site in SharePoint online, using PnP PowerShell: Script
execution 217
Create a communication site in SharePoint online – PnP PowerShell: 218

Page 10
Other parameters in creating a communication site – New-PnPSite: 220
Chapter 11: Navigation in SharePoint Online 222
Introduction to navigation 222
Site Navigation (Local Navigation) 223
Site Collection Navigation (Global Navigation) 224
Hub site navigation 225
Megamenu Navigation 226
Personal Navigation 227
Summary 230
Resources 237
Reference URLs 237

Page 11
Chapter 1: Introduction to SharePoint

What is SharePoint?

As the name implies, we can say sharing is the point of SharePoint, so if we

interpret this point into a technical term it would be something like – in an
organization, there are various departments such as IT, Finance, HR, Sales,
Marketing, etc. If they want to share some documents with other
departments or teams in order to work together, those documents can be
placed in a particular repository and everyone who has access to that
repository can access those documents and work together. And this
repository becomes the central point for all departments or teams – this is
how the point is being shared by all respective departments or teams –
hence the name is SharePoint.

Key features of SharePoint

Sharing a document and working together in SharePoint terminology is

called collaboration. So, collaboration is one of the major features of
SharePoint. SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates
with Microsoft Office. It will be an injustice to SharePoint if we just address
SharePoint as a collaborative platform. From my personal experience in
order to run any corporate business, we can make use of SharePoint in ways
other than collaboration. There are many key features in SharePoint, to
name a few:

● Various out-of-the-box site templates like team site, publishing site,

community site etc., and based on the need we can decide which
template to use.

● It provides end users the ability to customize the site without the need
of a developer. (The end user should know a little Html, CSS & script)

● It provides a search portal for searching in-site.

● It provides add-ins to increase the power of SharePoint – a brief

explanation is given below.

● It provides content management (file sharing, check in, check out,

versioning).

Page 12
 ● It provides advanced collaboration like Wikis, blogs, forums, meetings
etc.

● It provides good security.

● Workflow – it has its own workflow; however, we can develop our

custom workflow, and we can even integrate with third party workflow
products like Nintex.

● Custom form – we can develop and integrate any custom form like
Visual Studio, PowerApps, Nintex form, InfoPath form etc.

● Record management (archiving) – SharePoint can handle the archiving

process in a very efficient way.

● Governance – as it has very good security, governance can be

implemented in a very effective way.

How do SharePoint “Add-ins” increase the power of SharePoint?

Earlier, the “Add-ins” were known as “apps”; as the name implies this is an
additional plugin or “add in” to the existing SharePoint page or functionality.

For example, whether we use SharePoint online or On-Premise (from

SharePoint 2013 onwards), we can add many ready-made apps to the
SharePoint page in the form of a webpart which really enhances the core
power of SharePoint and speed of the development.

If we go to the SharePoint app store page via this link:

https://globalsharepoint2020.sharepoint.com/sites/allcompany/_layouts/15/
storefront.aspx?source=%2Fsites%2Fallcompany&sname=All%20Company#
prc=0

We can see that lots of apps are available – some are free, and some are
paid. We can get the apps from all categories needed to run a business, to
name a few categories:

● Best Apps of the Year

● Business

Page 13
 ● Clocks & Calendars

● Communication

● Content Management

● CRM

● Education

● Financial Management

● IT/Admin

● Productivity

● News & Weather

● Project Management

● Sales Marketing

● Training & Tutorial

● Workflow & Process Management, etc.

So, we can see that apps are available from all categories of business, and
we can plug these into the SharePoint sites based on the needs and fits. This
is how “Add-ins” really increase the power of SharePoint, and as a result it
increases the user adoption and acceptance of SharePoint.

Page 14
Example of SharePoint App Store:

As the scope of this book is administering SharePoint Online and Office 365,
I am not going to go into details about each feature. I will plan for another
book for these features. ☺

Page 15
History of SharePoint

The initial release of SharePoint was March 28, 2001. Since then through
January 2020, it has released many versions – as of now the version history
is as below:

● SharePoint Portal Server 2001

● SharePoint Team Services (2002)

● SharePoint Portal Server 2003

● SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007)

● SharePoint Server 2010 (SharePoint 2010)

● SharePoint Server 2013 (SharePoint 2013)

● SharePoint Server 2016 (SharePoint 2016)

● SharePoint Server 2019 (SharePoint 2019)

● SharePoint Online (Office 365)

Notes:

● Every three years Microsoft continues to release a newer version of

SharePoint with the new features and improvements over the previous
version.

Page 16
SharePoint generation from the year 2000 to 2020

In this section, I will highlight the SharePoint version history/SharePoint

generation from its invention, from 2000 to 2020. In today’s market,
SharePoint by Microsoft is one of the best content management systems. It
has been widely used across the globe. In the USA most of the big
pharmaceutical companies use SharePoint to maintain their content. Every
three years Microsoft releases a newer version of SharePoint (on-premise).
The current SharePoint on-premise version is SharePoint 2019. I will
summarize the various versions of SharePoint from its invention to the
present (2020) with the new and improved features in SharePoint Server as
well as in SharePoint Online – Office 365 over the previous version or year.

2020

● SharePoint Online – Office 365:

● Announcing the general availability of Communication Compliance

● Adding Campaign Views to Office 365 ATP

● Outlook for iOS: S/MIME automated certificate delivery

● Advanced eDiscovery dashboard

● Microsoft Teams – App catalog

2019

SharePoint Online – Office 365:

● Risky IP for Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) extranet

lockout protection.

Page 17
 ● Azure Information Protection Analytics (preview).

● SharePoint sites: updated “Change the look” panel.

● SharePoint Admin Center Experience Updates – default to modern

experience.

● Mobile admin app update, including device management.

● Admin center support updates, including full-page ticket history view

and callback scheduling.

● MyAnalytics add-in coming to more Microsoft 365 and Office 365

suites.

● Signals: Added visual cues about the status of a file, such as check-
outs, sharing, DLP blocks, or missing metadata to modern views.

● Sticky column headers: For large lists and libraries, the column
headers will remain visible as you scroll vertically or horizontally in
larger lists and libraries.

● Easy page and news publishing experience from the site pages library.

● Column totals: Users will be able to display column totals and

subtotals in the footer of a group or a list/library view in the modern
SharePoint experience without needing to change to classic mode.

2018

SharePoint 2019 On-Premise:

● The key improvements of this version are as below:

● Trying to maintain the look and feel of SharePoint online.

● Introduction of the modern interface.

Page 18
 ● Responsive UI.

● Without the hybrid configuration trying to have Power Automate

(formerly known as Microsoft Flow) and Power Apps.

● Team Site Improvements

● Modern User Experience Improvements

● Communication Site Improvements

● Improved Support for Business Processes

2018

SharePoint Online: Office 365

The key improvements from SharePoint online are as below:

● Improved Communication and Hub sites

● Azure AD Conditional Access: Managed browser support for

iOS/Android platforms.

● Customize the title region for each page

● View and apply site designs from within a SharePoint site

● Modern pages support section backgrounds

● News – pinning

● Personalized web parts

Page 19
 Introduction of hub site was a major release
from Microsoft which emphasized the need to
adopt flat architecture rather than nested sub
site-based architecture.

2017

SharePoint Online: Office 365

● Microsoft Teams with SharePoint Online sites

2016

SharePoint Online / SharePoint 2016

● SharePoint 2016 On-Premise

● Microsoft released SharePoint 2016 in May of 2016 and feature pack 2.

● SharePoint 2016 supports modern interface in OneDrive sites only.

● Office 365 Groups with SharePoint Online sites

● Introduction to MinRoles

● Improved patching zero downtime

● Content database size increased from 200 GB to 1TB.

● Maximum file storage from 2GB to 10GB.

● Other than port 25, non-default ports also can be used for connection
encryption.

● Faster site creation using the new PowerShell command and UI

Page 20
 ● Hybrid mode example – search, content type, manage metadata
group, etc.

2012

SharePoint 2013 – Office 365 / SharePoint Online

● SharePoint 2013 On-Premise

● Introduction to Office 365 / SharePoint Online

● Office 365 SharePoint Online came to the market in February 2013.

● Cross-Browser Support

● Drag/drop Uploads

● More social features

● OneDrive integration as a replacement for My Sites

● Addition of the audit center

● Re-engineered search facilities

2010

SharePoint 2010

● Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

● Improvements in InfoPath, workflows, business data services, excel

services, management metadata, etc.

● Introduction of the “Ribbon”

● Early social networking features

Page 21
 ● Overhaul of the Shared Service Providers in favor of Service
Applications and the ability to pool them

● Sandboxed solutions and client access to the API

● PowerShell support

● Two-way BCS

2006

SharePoint 2007

● Fixes many shortcomings of the 2003 product, introduces new features

such as Business Data Catalog and InfoPath Form Services

● Introduction to Windows SharePoint Services – WSS

● Introduction to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – MOSS

● Introduction of Excel Services

● Introduction of Content types

● Introduction of SharePoint Designer (Post FrontPage era begins)

2003

SharePoint 2003

● Microsoft releases version 2.0 products

● Windows SharePoint Services – WSS (SQL and .NET)

● Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (built on top of WSS)

Page 22
2000

SharePoint Portal Server 2000

● Microsoft releases the below two products:

● SharePoint Portal Server 2001 for document management and

enterprise search

● SharePoint Team Services for collaboration

Key take-away:

● SharePoint Portal Server 2000: Released in 2000

● SharePoint 2003: Released in 2000 2003
● SharePoint 2007: Released in 2006
● SharePoint 2010: Released in 2010
● Office 365: Released in 2011 (With SharePoint2010 interface)
● SharePoint 2013: Released in 2012
● Office 365 Upgraded: 2013
● SharePoint 2016: Released in 2016 (14th March)
● SharePoint 2019: Released in 2018 (22nd October)

Page 23
SharePoint journey from 2000 to 2020

Page 24
Microsoft states that SharePoint has 190 million users across 200,000
customer organizations.

Information Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SharePoint

Now the question is, why do companies use SharePoint?

As per my personal experience the reasons are as below:

● Collaboration: Multiple team members can work together

collaboratively with the same document.

● Easy to implement: Many of the business requirements can be

implemented without developers with out-of-the-box features.

● Security: It has very good security. For example, a single document

can be viewed or edited based on the role of the user.

● Availability: It is available both in SharePoint on-premise and online

versions.

● Customer friendly plans: SharePoint online version has a very

customer-friendly, reasonable plan.

● Multiple data centers: Microsoft data centers are available across

the geography – so the data availability is high.

● Better customer support: SharePoint online customer support has a

very good reputation – they are approachable 24/7.

● Easy to integrate with other Microsoft products: It can be

integrated with any other Microsoft product very easily, such as Power
Apps, Power Automate (formerly known as Microsoft Flow), Azure etc.

Page 25
 ● Easy to integrate with other third-party products: Easy to
integrate with third party software like, Nintex, Muhimbi PDF
converter, Bamboo Webpart etc.

● Easily customizable with the scripting: It can be customized with

any modern scripting language like jQuery, Angular JS, React JS,
JavaScript etc. and on-premise SharePoint can be customized with C#
coding, in the usual ways.

● Easily adoptable by UI developers: Any front end developer easily

can adopt SharePoint and customize it, including JavaScript, Jquery,
and React.js developers.

● Less effort is needed for implementation: Implementation time is

less, compared to other technologies. For an example – if someone is
assigned to develop a form for the CRUD operation in .net or java – it
needs at least 8 hours to implement considering all security aspects –
but in SharePoint this can be implemented in half an hour with the
out-of-the-box features.

● Mobility and availability: With the introduction of SharePoint online

– it can be accessible from anywhere in the world, no matter where
you are, so sequentially productivity is improved.

● Continuous improvements: Every three years Microsoft releases the

new version of the SharePoint on-premise version with the
improvements over the previous versions and every month Microsoft
releases new improved additional functionality in the SharePoint online
(Office 365) version based on the customer feedback.

Is SharePoint replaced by Microsoft Teams or is it dying?

In one of the open forums someone asked this question – my reply is below:

My analysis of this question is as below: Teams and SharePoint both are a

small part of the Office 365 family, both have their own needs, values, and
scope to the business. In a short brief, SharePoint is used for document

Page 26
management, on the other hand Teams is used for channelizing your
development teams to bring more collaboration among team members - it’s
recommended to use Microsoft teams for team communication. One of the
major advantages of MS team is documentation, whatever your project,
team member communication with each other will be documented to the
respective channel - so if a team member has left the project or organization
you won't be dependant on his/her email box... as explained both have their
own scope, so SharePoint is not all replaced by teams. And when it comes to
the second part of your question, is SharePoint dying? The answer is
absolutely not. Whether it is the on-premise version or Online, still, 50
percent of enterprises are maintained by SharePoint across the globe,
moreover, in the USA, the majority of the health care industries still use
SharePoint and they will continue … and many people think on-premise
SharePoint will die - this is also incorrect, although the current market
trends are to move to the cloud, however, still many companies do not
prefer to move all content to the cloud due to security reasons, and that is
the reason Microsoft is still releasing the next version of on-premise
SharePoint every three years.

Notes:

● When we create a team in Microsoft Teams, internally a corresponding

SharePoint team site will be created, so we can say that Microsoft
Teams is a tool where the backend is SharePoint – both are tightly
integrated.

Page 27
Chapter 2: Introduction to office 365

What is Office 365?

Office 365 is a line of subscription services offered by Microsoft as part of the

Microsoft Office product line. This is simply a Microsoft cloud service. The
initial release was June 28, 2011.

It has various plans – based on the subscription to the plan, we can use the
below products as software as services:

● Exchange (Outlook)

● OneDrive

● SharePoint

● Teams

● Yammer

● Dynamics 365

● Power Automate

● Power Apps

● Browser-based Office Web Apps suite (Microsoft Office Product) and

many more.

Page 28
Advantages of Office 365

We cannot directly measure the advantages of Office 365, as it has so many

subscriptions plans – and each plan has its own scope and benefits.
However, if we generalize the benefit of having Office 365, we can highlight
the below:

1. Scalability

2. Work from anywhere in the world

3. Easy collaboration

4. You’re always up to date

5. Reduces capital spend

6. Eliminates hardware and reduce electric cost

7. Mix and match plan

8. Needs-based customer support 24/7

9. It does not require resources to maintain the server – as this is

serverless.

10. Subscription is based on the number of users – so if your numbers of

employees are less there is no need to invest in purchasing a server plan,
this way companies can save a lot of money.

As the scope of this book is administering SharePoint online from the Office
365 admin center, I am not going into details on this; rather, I will focus on
the SharePoint admin center.

Page 29
Registration to Office 365 E3 trial account

Registration to office 365 E3 trial account – If you already have a Microsoft

Office 365 tenant and have global admin access you can play around with
the admin center site, but if you don’t have the purchased tenant you can
subscribe in a trial Office 365 tenant.

For the free subscription, go to the below link and complete the registration,
the below sample screen shot is given – the rest is self-explanatory, and
you can complete the registration.

https://signup.microsoft.com/signup?offerid=B07A1127-DE83-4a6d-9F85-
2C104BDAE8B4&dl=ENTERPRISEPACK&ali=1%20%20

At a high level, the steps for setting up a trial account are as below:

1. To sign up for an Office 365 E3 trial subscription, go to the Office

Products site.

2. Select the plan you want to sign up for - select Try free for 1 month
(Office 365 E3 trial).

3. On the next page, follow the steps to set up your account.

4. The signup process may take several minutes to complete. Once it's
complete, you'll get more details on how to start using your
subscription.

Page 30
Click on the below the registration page:

https://signup.microsoft.com/signup?offerid=B07A1127-DE83-4a6d-9F85-
2C104BDAE8B4&dl=ENTERPRISEPACK&ali=1%20%20

Four steps to create an Office 365 trial account – sign up free:

Using just the below 4 steps, we can have a ready-to-use Office 365 trial
account:

1. Let’s set up your account

2. Tell us about yourself

3. Create your business identity

4. You’re all set

Step 1: Let’s set up your account

Click on the below link.

https://signup.microsoft.com/create-account/signup?OfferId=B07A1127-
DE83-4a6d-9F85-
2C104BDAE8B4&dl=ENTERPRISEPACK&ali=1&products=cfq7ttc0k59j:0009

Enter your valid email id in the “Email” textbox.

Page 31
In the next screen, click on the “Set up account” button as like below :

Page 32
Steps 2: Tell us about yourself

In the tell us about yourself section, enter the below information:

● First Name

● Last Name

● Business phone number – your valid mobile number.

● Company Name as some meaningful text.

● Company size as 1 person

Page 33
 ● Country or region – pick your country from the list.

Then, click on the “Next” button.

Click on the “Send Verification Code” button

Once you click on the “Send Verification Code” button, you will receive a
6 digits numeric verification code in your registered mobile number which
you just entered in the previous step.

Page 34
Enter the verification code into the below verification code textbox.

Page 35
Then, click on the “Verify” button.

Steps 3: Create your business identity

● Enter your business name in the “your business” textbox without any
space. Here you can enter any meaningful text.

● Click on the “Check availability” button to check the availability of the

business name that you have entered because this will be a unique
name.

Page 36
Then, click on the “Next” button.

Then, we will get the below screen where we need to create the User ID and
Password.

Enter the below information:

● Name – any meaningful text, try to give an easy name which you can
remember easily.

● Password – alphanumeric with special characters.

Page 37
 ● Confirm password – the same as Password.

Finally, click on the “Sign up” button, then wait for some time, before we
get the “You’re all set” message.

Steps 3: You’re all set

Finally, we will get the below screen “Go to Setup” which will take us to the
“You’re all set” screen.

Page 38
Note down the below login information for future use.

Sign-in page
https://www.office.com/

Your user ID
[email protected]

Page 39
From the above screen, click on the “Go to Setup” button. After a few seconds,
it will land into the “Microsoft 365 admin center” home page
– https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home?ScenarioId=signup#/m365setupwiza
rd

Notes:

● It will ask you to enter the Username and Password – get these details
from the previous steps.

Page 40
Click on the “Continue” button to complete the setup.

Select the domain as “Use default domain ”Your domain you have just
created”

Note:

● By default, the first radio button will be selected – “Add a domain you
already own”.

Page 41
Then, click on the “Use this domain” link, this will take us to the “Add
users and assign licenses” page which you can ignore as this is trial setup.

Click on the “Do this later” link which will take us to the “Activate records”
configuration page.

Page 42
Click on the “Continue” button.

In the “Feedback” page, if you want to share your feedback about the
Office 365 Product, you can type something and click on the “Submit” button
– this is optional.

Page 43
Finally, click on the “Go to admin center” link, now the “Microsoft 365
admin center” page looks like below.

Page 44
With this setup, the trial account for office 365 is completed.

Now let’s look at how to see SharePoint and other products like Teams,
Exchange option from the “Microsoft 365 admin center” after completing
the first setup.

Page 45
Click on the “Show all” link from the above admin left panel, then you need
to scroll down to the middle of the page – as below:

After clicking on the “…Show all” link, if we scroll down to the page, we
can see the Exchange, SharePoint, Teams and All Admin centers link
under the “Admin centers” section.

Page 46
Note:

● We may not see the SharePoint teams or others after just creating the
Office 365 trial set up as this takes some time to complete these
internally (it might take up to 30 minutes or sometimes it will be
available immediately), so be patient with this.

Changes in SharePoint Online Admin Center Active Sites Report:

After creating the new office 365 trial account, if we navigate to the
SharePoint admin center page (https://globalsharepoint2020-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/AdminHome.aspx#/home), then
“Active Sites” report, we’ll see 4 additional team sites have been created;
i.e., allcompany, allcompany230, allcompany454, allcompany489.

Page 47
Earlier, we just had only one communication site, still, we have that like
below:

Page 48
Summary:

● In this way we’ll get our trial tenant in office 365, next we will see how
to login to office 365.

● I personally prefer exploring on the trial tenant over the actual one
because it has no limitation, and I can explore the product without any
restrictions.

How to login to the office 365 admin center?

● Login to this page - https://www.office.com/?auth=2&home=1

● Sign in using your Office 365 Admin login details (just before during
which login you have created).

We can see the below home page report:

Page 49
If we click on the “All apps” arrow button – we can see the below dashboard:

Page 50
Apps available in the Office 365 home page.

Page 51
Note:

● Microsoft has stopped supporting the “Skype for Business”, so it is not

listed in the dashboard.

And click on the “Admin” link as highlighted below:

Then we’ll land on the below admin home page.

Page 52
Page 53
Chapter 3: Manage Microsoft 365 admin center report dashboard

Using Microsoft 365 or Office 365 admin center we can manage the cards in
the admin center’s home. This means we can add and delete cards in the
dashboard, which will help office 365 administrators manage the tenant.

What are these cards actually? They’re a shortcut way to navigate to a

particular report page from the home page, and by looking at the home
page dashboard, the report administrator will be able to know whether any
quick action is needed or not.

Out of the box – a list of cards are available in the admin center:

When we log into the “Microsoft 365 admin center” home page, we will get
the below out of the box report:

● User Management

● Message Center

● Office 365 Software

● Billing

● Training and Guides

Note:

● The above list of reports is not fixed – over a period of time, Microsoft
changes this display report – so while you are referring to this book for
your tenant, it might not be the same but we shouldn’t be worried
about this because it is completely customizable in a few clicks. In the
section, we will see how to manage dashboard reports.

Page 54
List of cards are available to add in Dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin
center:

Below are the cards available in the dashboard gallery, we can add or
remove these in the home page

● Message Center

● Service Health

● Azure Active Directory

● Office 365 Active users report

● Data Loss Prevention Report

● Role-based access for admins

● GDPR Information

● Domains

Default Microsoft 365 or Office 365 admin center dashboard:

Once we login to the “Microsoft 365 admin center” home page, we will get
the below screen:

Page 55
Page 56
How to add additional card to admin center dashboard page:

Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center home page -> click on “+ Add card”

Page 57
Then at the right-side panel the below “Add cards to your page” will be
opened. Here we can see all available cards to add in the home page.

Page 58
Hover the mouse on the card which you want to add, then we will get the
“+” icon, click on that. As an example, we will add “Service health” here.

Then we can see the “Service health” report card is added in the dashboard.

Page 59
How to remove a report card from the Microsoft 365 admin center home
page dashboard:

In order to remove a card from the Microsoft 365 admin center dashboard,
identify the card which you want to remove, click on the ellipses (…)
available on the card header and then click on the remove button from the
menu. After removing, the card will be moved to the “Add Card” section
again in the right-side panel from where we have added it.

Page 60
Chapter 4: Administering office 365

In this chapter, I will explain how we can do administration tasks in Office

365.

Manage users in office 365

In this section, I will explain how we can manage active and deleted users
from Office 365.

Mange active users in office 365

In order to manage the active users in office 365, first we need to locate the
‘active users’ section in the Office 365 home page.

How do I navigate to the ‘active users’ report?

Page 61
If you have already logged in to the “Microsoft 365 admin center” home
page, you need to click on active users link from the left panel – and in the
center panel we can see the ‘active users’ dashboard, using this report we
can manage the active users like:

● Add a user

● User Templates

● Add multiple users

● Multi Factor Authentication

● Search user

● Filter user display view

Manage contacts in Office 365

Page 62
Using the “Contacts” navigation we can manage the contacts like add,
delete, edit. Click on the “Add a contact” icon to add a new contact like
below:

View Guest Users report in Office 365

From the “Guest users” navigation, we can view all guest users available in
the tenant like below:

Page 63
View Deleted users report in Office 365

Using the “Deleted users” navigation, we can view all deleted users in the
tenant like below and also, we can export all deleted users into a csv file.

Page 64
Manage groups in office 365

In this section, I will explain about what the groups in Office 365 are and
how we can manage them.

Introduction to Office 365 groups

Office 365 Groups is the cross-application membership service in Office 365.

At the basic level, an Office 365 Group is an object in Azure Active Directory.
As we know that the purpose of office 365 is to bring all Microsoft products
under an umbrella – where each product can communicate with each other
through its membership, we can say office 365 group is a global membership
object using which people can access one product to another product inside
Office 365. For example, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Planner, PowerBI,
OneNote, Yammer, Exchange etc.

If your AD sync service is enabled and synced with Azure AD – we can see
all local active directory groups in the office 365 dashboard as well.

You can add or remove people to the group just as we do in any other
group-based security object in Active Directory.

How to navigate to Office 365 group dashboard:

Go to the below link

https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/Home?source=applauncher#/grou
ps

Click on the “Groups” from the left panel – then in the center panel we can
see all groups are available. From there we can create, update, delete the
group.

Page 65
Types of groups in Office 365

There are four types of groups in office 365. Please see the below screenshot
where each type of group description is explained.

● Office 365

● Distribution

● Mail-enabled Security

● Security

Page 66
Office 365 – group

This allows teams to collaborate by giving them a group email and a shared
workspace for conversations, files, and calendars. This is a default setting
while creating the group and this is the recommended one.

Page 67
How to create an Office 365 group?

Any type of group in office 365 can be created in four steps:

● Group type

● Basics

● Settings

● Owners

● Finish

Page 68
From the office 365 group dashboard – click on add a group icon like below:

Choose Office 365(recommended).

Click on Next button.

Page 69
Enter the group name and description, then click on the Next button.

Page 70
Enter the “Group email address.”

Select the “Privacy” – we can select privacy as Public or Private, the default
selection is “Public.”

We can select “Create a team for this group” which is optional – this will
create a team in Microsoft Teams.

Page 71
Then, click on the Next button.

Assign group owners:

Group owners can add or remove members and have unique permissions
like the ability to delete conversations from the shared inbox or change
different settings about the group. Group owners can rename the group,
update the description or picture and more.

Page 72
Click on next.

Review the group creation setting.

Note: If you want to change any setting in the group creation, you can
modify that from here.

Page 73
If you are fine with your group creation parameters – click on the “Create
group” button.

New group create status message is shown as successful – the group has
been created successfully.

Click on the “Close” button.

Page 74
Navigate to the below group dashboard page,

https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/Home?source=applauncher#/grou
ps

We can see the new Office 365 type group that we have just created, it
appears here.

Page 75
Distribution group:

The purpose of Office 365 distribution groups (a.k.a., distribution lists) is to

send emails or meetings to all members of the list; an email can be sent to
multiple people (development team, testing team, migration team, etc.)
without having to add all the email addresses each time.

Note:

● The distribution type of group cannot be accessed from SharePoint –

so if your requirement is managing the access in SharePoint, then this
is not the right choice.

Page 76
The creation of a distribution group is the same as an Office 365 group –
only in the choose a group type selection step, we need to select the type as
“Distribution”, the rest of the steps are self-explanatory, so I am skipping
this section.

Mail-enabled Security group

It has all the functionality of a distribution list and additionally can be used
to control access to OneDrive and SharePoint. So, if you want to manage

Page 77
access in SharePoint and OneDrive along with group mailbox functionality –
this is the right choice.

The creation of “Mail-enabled Security group” is the same as Office 365

group – only in the choose a group type selection step, we need to select the
type as “Mail-enabled Security group”, the rest of the steps are self-
explanatory, so I am skipping this section.

Page 78
Security group

This type of group is mainly used to control the access in SharePoint and
OneDrive and can be used for mobile device management in Office 365.

The creation of a “Security” group is the same as an Office 365 group – only
in the choose a group type selection step, we need to select the type as
“Security”, the rest of the steps are self-explanatory, so I am skipping this
section.

Page 79
How to edit and delete a group from the Office 365 dashboard:

From the Office 365 group dashboard panel – select the group you want to
delete or edit.

Select the group radio button as below.

Page 80
Next to the group name, click on three dots – there we can see the
dropdown list to manage the group, like edit name, edit description, delete
group. Or we can do the same operation from the group ribbon toolbar as
highlighted below as well:

Page 81
Chapter 5: Billing management in Office 365

In this section, I will explain how we can manage the following billing related
tasks in Office 365:

● Purchase Service

● Products & Services

● Licenses Report

● Bills & Payments management

● Billing Accounts

● Billing Methods

● Billing Notification

Purchase Service

Using this module, you can manage the purchase service of your tenant.

We need to follow the below steps, to land in the purchase service.

From the left panel “Billing” section -> Purchase services, we view all
available plans from office 365 with their prices for the purchase.

Page 82
Products & services

Using the “Product & services” navigation, we can view current status of the
subscription like type of subscription, maximum and used users, when the
license expires, etc.

Page 83
Licenses Report

Using the “Licenses” navigation, we can see what active licenses are
available as part of your subscription along with their details status. Here, in
my free trial account, I have Office 365 E3 and Microsoft Flow Free license.

Page 84
Bills & Payments management

Using this “Bill & Payments” link we can see all past invoices and also we can
configure the payment methods from the “Payment methods” tab
configuration.

Page 85
Billing Accounts

Billing accounts manage your purchasing relationship with Microsoft. Each

billing account contains defining info about your organization, like addresses,
contact info, and any tax info that applies. Purchases made with your billing
account are covered by the agreement that you signed with Microsoft.

Page 86
Billing Methods

Using the billing methods navigation, we can add a new billing method. To
add a new billing method, follow the below steps:

Click on “Billing methods” from the left side panel.

Then click on the add a payment method and fill up the payment method
details in the form opened the right-side panel and click on the “Add” button.

Page 87
Billing Notification

Using the “Billing Notification” report, we can see all notifications related to
your billing.

Microsoft will be sending billing notifications and renewal reminders to these

administrators. We can select users to update preferences.

Page 88
Page 89
Chapter 6: Introduction to SharePoint Online Admin center

This will be a very interesting chapter where we will see all SharePoint
related administration tasks and how we can manage them from the Office
365 admin center (Microsoft 365 admin center).

What is SharePoint Online Admin center?

Before getting into the modern SharePoint Online Admin Center – we should
recap our knowledge on administration of on-premise SharePoint. In simple
words, the SharePoint Central Administration is an IIS web application,
which gets created automatically during the installation of the SharePoint
product. This web application becomes central, or the hub of all web
applications developed and hosted via SharePoint. Using this, we can create
a new application or site collection and manage them and we can share the
resources across all web applications.

When it comes to SharePoint Online, it runs differently. We cannot create a

new web application. All site collections/sites are created under one web
application, and we cannot create or configure any service applications.
These are maintained by Microsoft but the core concept of administering
SharePoint Online and on-premise are the same. As user adoption has been
changing over modern technology, SharePoint is also rapidly changing in
that race.

There are two types of SharePoint Admin Center.

1) Modern admin center and

2) Classic admin center.

Of course, the classic admin center is an older one. Now, we’ll explore the
modern admin center.

Page 90
How to navigate to SharePoint from Office 365?

Once we land on this Microsoft 365 admin center page – click on “Show all”
from left panel as highlighted below:

Then scroll down the left vertical bar and we’ll see the below SharePoint:

Page 91
Note:

● After creating the new trial tenant – we’ll not see the “SharePoint”
here immediately. This takes time to get it provisioned, so be patient.
It might take 30 – 40 minutes.

Click on “SharePoint” then we’ll land into SharePoint Admin Center home
page:

https://-admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/AdminHome.aspx#/home

Page 92
Before the modern SharePoint Admin center, the landing page was:

Now we’ll explore all options available in the modern SharePoint Admin
center.

Page 93
Reports available in the SharePoint admin center home page:

Once we land into the SharePoint Online admin center page, we can see the
below out of the box report available in the home page. Using this we can
see the overall consolidated summary of SharePoint Online.

● SharePoint file activity report

● SharePoint site usage report

● Message Center

● Service Health

SharePoint file activity report

As the name implies, this gives detailed activity reports graphically of each
file type for the last 30 days, like Viewed or Edited, Synched, Shared
Internally and Shared Externally etc.

Note: If an activity occurs multiple times in one day on the same file, the file
is counted only once for that day.

Page 94
SharePoint site usage report

This gives the detailed graph of total and active sites for the last 30 days.
The “Active” sites are anywhere users view a page or view, modify, upload,
download, share, or sync a file.

Page 95
Message Center

It is an announcement or news which comes automatically from Microsoft

about their new release, product or feature, in this section of the home
page, we can read official announcements about new and changed
SharePoint features to help us manage upcoming changes. Please see the
example below, click on All active messages to sort and filter the list of
messages across all Office 365 services.

Page 96
Service Health

In the Service health section of the home page, we can see whether the
SharePoint Online service is healthy, or if it’s experiencing an active advisory
or incident, click on “View all services” to know more about all services, then
we’ll land into the service health detailed page, this gives the health status
of each type of service.

Page 97
If we put it all together the admin center home page looks like below:

Page 98
Page 99
Chapter 7: Administering SharePoint admin center

Various sites report in SharePoint admin center:

In this section, we will learn about how we can manage the below site
management activities:

Active Sites

• Create Site
• Delete Site
• Mange the site owner
• Manage the Hub site
• Manage the Site Sharing
• Export the site consolidated report as csv
• Search the sites with name, URL etc.
• Filter the sites based on various inbuilt views.
• Customizing the columns.
• Bulk Edit

How to land into this Active Sites report?

How to create a site from SharePoint online admin center?

Site creation page – SharePoint Admin Center:

Manage the active site owners from admin center:

Manage hub site from SharePoint admin center:

How to export the active sites report in CSV:

Example of downloaded sites csv report:

How to search the active sites:

Page 100
Views in Active Sites:

Customizing the view columns in active sites report:

Bulk Edit in SharePoint admin center (active sites):

Deleted Sites

Active Sites

This is the master site report – using this we can manage all sites, all
operational sites from a tenant will be available in this location and we can
do the below things.

● Create Site

● Delete Site

● Mange the site owner

● Manage the Hub site

● Manage the Site Sharing

● Export the site consolidated report as csv

● Search the sites with name, URL etc.

● Filter the sites based on various inbuilt view.

● Customizing the columns.

● Bulk Edit

Page 101
How to land into this Active Sites report?

From the SharePoint admin center home page, go to Sites -> Active Sites.

Then we’ll land into Active sites home page.

Page 102
How to create a site from SharePoint online admin center?

Click on + Create button and we’ll get the site creation UI – by default Team
Site template is selected however, we can select Communication site
template as well, and proceed to the next step of site creation page; it’s self-
explanatory.

Page 103
Site creation page – SharePoint Admin Center:

Here you will learn how to create a site. Once you click on the “+create” site
and select the template (either team site or communication site) then, you
need to enter the below:

● Site name – any valid text entry

● Group owners – you can give your trial tenant username here.

Click on the Next button.

Page 104
Click on the Next button two times – the site will be created.

Manage the active site owners from admin center:

In this section you will learn how to manage the site owner from admin
center, like you can change or add a new site group owner.

Select the site as mentioned below and click on three dots (…) – using this
we can manage the site owners.

Page 105
Manage hub site from SharePoint admin center:

In this section, you will learn about how to manage the hub site from admin
center.

For hub site details, I will explain in a separate section. Here I am focusing
on how to manage the hub site.

To manage the hub site sharing and deletion follow the below steps:

Select a site -> Click on the three dots (“…”), then you can select the below
choices:

• Hub
• Sharing
• Delete

Details are explained in the Hub Site chapter.

Page 106
How to export the active sites report in CSV:

In this section, you will learn about how you can export all active sites into a
CSV file from the admin center.

We can export all the active sites into a csv file – for this we need to click on
Export button as mentioned below:

Navigate through Active Sites -> Export.

Page 107
Example of downloaded sites csv report:

Once we export the actives report into CSV file and then, when we open the
exported CSV file – we can see the file content in the below format.

Page 108
How to search the active sites:

In this section, you will learn about how to find or search an active site from
the active sites dashboard.

Type site name or URL in the search site box as mentioned below and hit the
enter key.

Views in Active Sites:

In this section you will learn how to manage the columns in active sites
dashboard. By default, Site name, URL, Storage used etc. these columns will
be displayed, however, we can show more columns or remove from the
view.

The out of the box views in active sites dashboard are:

• All Sites
• Office 365 Group Sites
• Sites without a group
• Largest sites

Page 109
 • Least active sites
• Most popular sites

To see the above views, follow the below navigation:

Click on the Active sites -> Then, click on the view menu as highlighted
below.

Customizing the view columns in active sites report:

To customize the view column, click on “Customize columns” as mentioned

below.

Page 110
Select the columns as per the need and click on the Apply button.

Notes:

• View in active sites same as view in SharePoint document library or

list.

Page 111
 • In both places, SharePoint document library/list and active sites view –
we can show or hide the columns based on the requirement.

Bulk Edit in SharePoint admin center (active sites):

Using Bulk edit we can manage Sharing and hub sites’ association for
multiple sites at one time. For this we need to follow the below. As
mentioned go to Active Sites -> select multiple sites as per your need ->
Click on three dots(…) button -> click on “Bulk edit” dropdown list -> Go for
Sharing or Hub Association as per your need. For hub association you may
refer to the overview of the Hub Sites Jump article.

Page 112
Deleted Sites

If we delete any site from SharePoint online – it will be deleted from the end
user, but it will be retained in the Recycle Bin for 93 days. For details please
refer to the manage recycle bin chapter.

Using the deleted sites report – we can view all deleted sites from the tenant
in a single place and we can even delete them permanently.

How to navigate to the “Deleted sites” link report?

Click on the “Deleted sites” link as mentioned below then we’ll get all the
deleted sites. Using this report we can restore the deleted sites or can
permanently delete the sites, and also unlike active sites we can search all
deleted sites from the search sites box.

Notes:

● After deleting the site, the deleted site will be retained in this location
for 93 days.

● Deleted Office 365 groups are retained for only 30 days, so we cannot
delete the office 365 group connected site permanently for 30 days.
Because this deleted site is an office 365 group connected one, the
“Permanently delete” site button is disabled.

● If you delete the root site for your organization, all your SharePoint
sites will be inaccessible until you restore the site or create a new root
site.

Page 113
To permanently delete sites (including Office 365 group-connected team
sites) use the below PowerShell command:

Remove-SPODeletedSite -Identity
“https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/sitetoremove”

Policy in SharePoint admin center

Using this section, we can centrally manage the below policies:

● Sharing and

● Access Control

Page 114
Sharing – SharePoint admin center:

Use these settings to control sharing at the organization level in SharePoint

and OneDrive. We can do the following settings activities with respect to
“Sharing”

● External Sharing

● Files and Folder Links

● Other Settings

Page 115
Access Control – SharePoint admin center:

Use these settings to restrict how users can access the content in SharePoint
and OneDrive. To manage the access control, navigate to Policies -> Access
Control

Page 116
We can do the following settings activities with respect to “Access Control”

● Unmanaged devices: Restrict access from devices that aren’t

compliant or joined to a domain.

● Idle session sign-out: Automatically sign out users from inactive

browser sessions.

● Network location: Allow access only from specific IP addresses.

● Apps that don’t use modern authentication: Block access from Office
2010 and other apps that can’t enforce device-based restrictions.

Page 117
Unmanaged
Devices

Page 118
Idle Session
Sign-out

Network
Location

Apps that
don’t use
modern
authentication

Page 119
Centrally settings in SharePoint admin center:

Using this we can control which features are available to your users.
Navigate to this by clicking on “Settings” button as mentioned below:

Using this we can centrally manage the below settings:

● Notifications: Lets users get device notifications about file activity and
news

● Site storage limits: Manage site storage automatically or set specific

storage limits

Page 120
● Default admin experience: Open the new or classic SharePoint admin
center by default

● Site creation: Set default settings for creating new sites

Page 121
Notes:

● Default admin experience: The new SharePoint admin center lets you
manage modern sites and new features like hub sites. You can access

Page 122
 all SharePoint administration features from the new admin center.
Using this flag, we can set whether you need to open the modern
admin center or classic admin center (old) by default.
● Notifications: When this setting is on, and users turn on notifications in
Office mobile apps, they'll receive notifications about SharePoint
content. Based on this setting being disabled or enabled we can get a
notification from Microsoft.

● Site creation: Based on this setting being enabled or disabled users

can create sites from the SharePoint start page on OneDrive. And
team site managed path can be set as “sites” or “teams” and the
default site time zone can be set from here.

● Site storage limits: Easily share storage among all sites, or control
storage limits by site. The site storage limits can be set as automatic
or manual. In the automatic setting, the storage will be managed
automatically whereas in the manual setting we can set the specific
limit.

Page 123
The above settings can also be managed from the below page directly:

Syntax:

https://tenant-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/TenantSettings.aspx

Example:

https://globalsharepoint2019-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/TenantSettings.aspx

Page 124
Consolidated global setting in the Tenant setting page:

● Show or Hide App Tiles

● Site Collection Storage Management

● OneDrive for Business experience

● Admin Center Experience

● Delve (powered by Office Graph)

● Enterprise Social Collaboration

● Streaming Video Service

● Personal Blogs

● Site Pages

● Global Experience Version Settings

● Information Rights Management (IRM)

● Site Creation

● Subsite Creation

● Connections from sites to Office 365 groups

● Custom Script

● Preview Features

● Connected Services

● Mobile Push Notifications - OneDrive for Business

● Mobile Push Notifications – SharePoint

● Comments on Site Pages

Page 125
Show or Hide App Tiles

This configuration is used to show or hide app tiles in the app launcher and
on the Office 365 portal.

Site Collection Storage Management

This configuration is used to manage the storage either automatically or

manually.

What are these actually?

Automatic storage management provides worry-free operation by removing

the overhead of having to manage individual storage limits. Manual override
allows the tenant admin to set usage limits on a per site collection level.

OneDrive for Business experience

Using this option, we can set either a classic or modern experience for users.

Page 126
The new experience gives people improved performance, additional phone
and tablet features, and a simplified UI. If you select the new experience,
users can still switch to the classic experience if they want. Select the classic
experience if you’re not ready for your users to switch to the new
experience.

Note that eventually, the classic experience will no longer be available.

Admin Center Experience

Use this setting to switch between simple or advanced admin center user
experiences. The simple experience displays only the essential options. The
advanced experience shows everything.

Delve (powered by Office Graph)

Page 127
This setting is a switch to enable Delve and related features, or disable it.

Delve helps users discover relevant content based on who they work with
and what they're working on. By default, users in your organization can
access Delve (and related features within other apps). If you disable Delve,
users will no longer see:

● The Delve app tile in the app launcher

● The "Suggested" list on the SharePoint start page

● The "Discover" list in OneDrive, in the Outlook mobile app, and on the
Microsoft Office Home page

● Documents on other users' profile cards and pages

Enterprise Social Collaboration

Microsoft explanation about enterprise social collaboration are as below:

“This setting talks about whether to use Yammer or SharePoint News Feed,
which is a default setting, when it comes to enterprise social collaboration.

Page 128
Make Yammer the primary social experience for everyone in your
organization. Switching services will replace Newsfeed and change the Office
365 global navigation. This update might take up to 30 minutes for us to
complete.

Yammer is not a covered service under the O365 Trust Center currently.
Please review Yammer's privacy statement. Enabling this feature will allow
Yammer to have read and copy access to your company's user and group
information.”

Streaming Video Service

This setting is used to control whether videos are stored and streamed from
Azure Media Services, the default setting is disabled.

● Enable streaming video through Azure Media Services and enable the
Video Portal.

● Disable streaming video through Azure Media Services and disable the
Video Portal.

Page 129
Personal Blogs

This is to configure whether to give everyone in your organization the ability

to create personal blogs or not, the default setting is enabled.

● Enable Personal Blogs

● Disable Personal Blogs

Site Pages

This is to configure whether to allow users to create responsive site pages or

not, the default setting is not allowed.

Let your users create responsive Site Pages using the Authoring Canvas.

● Allow users to create Site Pages

● Prevent users from creating Site Pages

Page 130
 ●

Global Experience Version Settings

This is used to control which version of site collections can be created by end
users, and whether users can upgrade them. We can have any of the below
configurations. The default setting is preventing the creation of old version
site collections.

● Allow creation of old version site collections but prevent creation of

new version site collections. Prevent opt-in upgrade to the new version
site collections.

● Allow creation of old version site collections, and creation of new

version site collections. Allow opt-in upgrade to the new version site
collections.

● Prevent creation of old version site collections but allow creation of

new version site collections. Allow opt-in upgrade to the new version
site collections.

Page 131
Information Rights Management (IRM)

It is a flag for whether to use IRM service or not in the tenant, the default
setting is to not use it.

It sets IRM capabilities to SharePoint for your organization (requires Office

365 IRM service)

● Use the IRM service specified in your configuration

● Do not use IRM for this tenant

Note:

● IRM is an information rights management service - before your

organization can IRM-protect SharePoint lists and libraries, you must
first activate the Rights Management service for your organization. To
learn how, see Activating Azure Rights Management. You must use a
work or school account that has Office 365 global administrator
privileges to enable the Rights Management service. Otherwise, you
won't be able to use IRM features with SharePoint Online.

Details description about IRM in SharePoint:

Page 132
Introduction to IRM:

From a document security perspective, the information rights management

(IRM) in SharePoint Online (Office 365) is a very vital concept, using that we
can control the rights /access of the documents after even downloading from
SharePoint online library or oneDrive – I mean in another way we can say
it’s how we can protect the business document from the unauthorized access
after downloading from SharePoint or oneDrive. So, in this chapter, we’ll
learn about how we can enable and configure the information rights
management (IRM) in SharePoint Online – Office 365.

The information rights management works on the document library level, so

first we will see whether we can see the information rights management in
the document library settings page.

The information rights management setting should be available under the

permissions and management section, and just beneath manage files, which
have no check in version setting. However, we don’t see this because the
“Information Rights Management (IRM)” service is not yet enabled in the
SharePoint online Tenant settings.

Page 133
 Information Rights Management (IRM) in tenant settings page:

To navigate to the “Information Rights Management (IRM)” in the tenant

settings page, follow the below steps:

Login to the SharePoint admin center using the below URL.

https://globalsharepoint2020-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/AdminHome.aspx#/settings

Click on the “Settings” link from the left side panel, then click on the “Classic
settings page” link from the bottom of the settings page as below.

Page 134
This will take us to the below tenant settings page.

Page 135
Scroll down to the middle of the above page. Then, we can see the
“Information Rights Management (IRM) section. There, we can see the below
two options:

Page 136
 ● Use the IRM service specified in your configuration

● Do not use IRM for this tenant

Select the “Use the IRM service specified in your configuration” radio button. By
default, “Do not use IRM for this tenant” will be selected. Finally, click on the
“Refresh IRM Settings” button.

Note:

● Once you click on the IRM Settings button, this will enable IRM service to
document libraries in the tenant.

● We cannot see the Information Rights Management setting in the document

library after just enabling it from the tenant settings page, this might take up
to 30 minutes, sometimes, it will be activated within just 5 to 10 minutes.

Page 137
IRM settings in Document library:

Now, let’s navigate to the same document library settings page that we have seen
in the previous step.

We can see the link of “Information Rights Management” under the “Permissions
and Management” section which was not available just sometimes back.

Once we click on the “Information Rights Management” link, this will take us
to the below “Information Rights Management Settings” page.

Page 138
Click on the “SHOW OPTIONS” link to see the see configuration which has
mainly three sections:

● Set additional IRM library settings

● Configure document access rights

● Set group protection and credentials interval

Page 139
I will elaborate on the above configuration one by one.

Page 140
Set additional IRM library settings

The additional IRM library settings section provides additional settings that
control the library behavior.

● Do not allow users to upload documents that do not support IRM: If

we select this checkbox user cannot upload a document to a library
that does not support IRM policy.

● Stop restricting access to the library at the specific date: Using this
option we can stop restricting access to the library on the given date.

● Prevent opening documents in the browser for this Document Library:

If we select this checkbox, the user cannot open the document in the
browser.

Configure document access rights

Configure document access rights section; control the document access

rights (for viewers) after the document is downloaded from the library; read-
only viewing right is the default. Granting the rights below is reducing the
bar for accessing the content by unauthorized users.

Page 141
 ● Allow viewers to print: If we enable this checkbox, the user can take
the printout of the document.

● Allow viewers to run script and screen reader to function on

downloaded documents: If we enable this checkbox, users can run the
custom script or code on the downloaded document.

● Allow viewers to write on a copy of the downloaded document: If we

enable this checkbox, users can write or edit on a copy of the
downloaded document.

● After download, document access rights will expire after these number
of days (1-365): Using this option we can set the document access
rights expiry day – meaning, after how many days the document
access rights management will expire after downloading the document.
It could be any day from 1 to 365. Example – 90 days.

Set group protection and credentials interval

Set group protection, and credentials interval section controls the caching
policy of the license the application that opens the document we will use and
allows sharing the downloaded document with users that belong to a
specified group.

Page 142
 ● Users must verify their credentials using this interval (days): If this
option is configured, users must verify their credentials at the interval
of the configured days. Example: 30, in every 30 days users must
verify their credentials.

● Allow group protection. Default group: This is additional security –

after downloading the document if we restrict the document that this
should be shared only with the configured groups.
Enter a name or email address… Global SharePoint Diary Members

Key take-away – IRM:

● Set document access rights, including rights to print, run scripts to

enable screen readers or enable writing on a copy of the document
after downloading.

Page 143
 ● Set expiration date – the date after which the document cannot be
used after downloading.

● Control whether documents that do not support IRM protection can be

uploaded to the library.

● Control whether Office Web Apps can render the documents in the
browser from the library.

● Set group protection and credentials intervals which allow you to share
only specific groups.

Permissions in IRM:

Below are the allowed permission in the information rights management

(IRM).

Permissions IRM Permissions

Full control (as defined by the

client program): This permission
Manage Permissions, Manage Web generally allows a user to read,
Site edit, copy, save, and modify
permissions of rights-managed
content.

Edit, Copy, and Save, A user can

print a file only if the Allow users
Edit Items, Manage Lists, Add and to print documents checkbox is
Customize Pages selected on the Information Rights
Management Settings page for the
list or library.

Read: A user can read the

View Items document but cannot copy or
modify its content. A user can

Page 144
 print only if the Allow users to
print documents checkbox is
selected on the Information Rights
Management Settings page for the
library.

Site Creation

This is one of the important settings of the global setting section. This
setting is used for deciding whether to hide or show create site command for
the end user, the default setting is show.

Display the Create site command on the SharePoint home page and in the
sites list in OneDrive so users can create new sites.

● Hide the Create site command

● Show the Create site command

The first option lets users create an Office 365 group-connected team site or
a communication site. Users who don't have permission to create Office 365
groups can still create new team sites without the Office 365 group.

Page 145
The second option lets users create a classic team subsite. Using this setting
we can enable whether to allow user to

● Create team site or communication site (modern site) or

● Classic team subsite

The default setting is a modern team or communication site.

For both options, you can let users create sites from a custom form by
entering the form URL. If you selected the first option, users could access
the form by clicking "See other options" when they're creating the site.

When a team or communication site is selected, we can decide how the site
manage path should be, either “/sites/” or “/teams/”, and whether
secondary contact is required or not during site creation.

When classic team subsite is selected:

Page 146
 ● We can set our own managed path

● Site classification can be set

● S=Whether swecondary contact is required or not can be set

Subsite Creation:

It controls whether site owners (and others who have permission to create
sites) can create subsites. This controls whether the Subsite command
appears on the New menu on the Site contents page. Below settings are
available – it can be set to any of them.

● Hide the Subsite command

● Show the Subsite command only for classic sites

● Show the Subsite command for all sites

Page 147
We recommend using hub sites to connect related sites instead of creating
subsites.

The default setting is “Show the Subsite command for all sites”

Connections from sites to Office 365 groups:

It is used to control whether site collection administrators can use the

"Connect to a new Office 365 Group" command on the Settings menu to
connect classic team sites to new Office 365 groups. The default setting is
allowed site collection administrators to connect sites to new Office 365
groups.

● Prevent site collection administrators from connecting sites to new

Office 365 groups

● Allow site collection administrators to connect sites to new Office 365

groups

Custom Script

Control whether users can run custom script on personal sites and self-
service created sites.

Page 148
 ● Prevent users from running custom script on personal sites

● Allow users to run custom script on personal sites

● Prevent users from running custom script on self-service created sites

● Allow users to run custom script on self-service created sites

Note:

● Changes to this setting might take up to 24 hours to take effect.

Preview Features

Turning off this setting will disable Preview features making them
inaccessible to your users. Preview features have limited support in
SharePoint Online and do not yet meet all service requirements. A full list of
the Preview features and support details can be found at the O365 website.

● Enable preview features

● Disable preview features

Page 149
Connected Services

Limit SharePoint features that attempt to connect to other services.

● Block SharePoint 2013 workflows

Mobile Push Notifications - OneDrive for Business

This feature allows users to get mobile push notifications for changes to their
ODB content.

● Allow notifications

● Don't allow notifications

Page 150
Mobile Push Notifications – SharePoint

This feature allows users to get mobile push notifications for changes to their
SharePoint content.

● Allow notifications

● Don't allow notifications

Comments on Site Pages

Enabling this feature adds a comment section to all site pages. Users who
have access to the pages can leave comments.

● Enable comments on Site Pages

● Disable comments on Site Pages

Page 151
Page 152
Page 153
How to navigate to classic features from modern admin center?

As I mentioned earlier this is a new link in modern SharePoint administration

– earlier in classic UI this was not available. In fact, when we used to type
the https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com URL in the browser, we
used to directly land in this SharePoint administration but in modern
administration we need to navigate this way, need to click on as mentioned
“Classic features” link

Classic features in modern SharePoint admin center:

In classic SharePoint admin center, we had the below SharePoint objects

under a single page but for each configuration we have a separate page.

● Term store: Create and manage term sets to help users enter data
consistently.

Page 154
● User profiles: Add and remove admins for a user’s OneDrive, disable
OneDrive creation for some users, and more.

● Search: Help users find what they’re looking for.

● Apps: Configure SharePoint Store settings, monitor app usage,

manage app licenses, and more.

● BCS: Manage connections to data sources like Azure SQL databases or

WCF web services.

● Secure store: Create and set the credentials for Target Applications
used for BCS connections.

● Records management: Manage records in a Records Center site that

serves as an archive.

● InfoPath: Enable browser-based InfoPath forms.

● Hybrid picker: Use this wizard to automate some of the steps in

setting up a hybrid environment.

● Sharing: This is a separate section in modern SharePoint online admin

center, already we have discussed this above.

● Setting: This is a separate section in modern SharePoint online admin

center, already we have discussed this above.

● Access Control: This is a separate section in modern SharePoint online

admin center, already we have discussed this above.

● Data Migration: We’ll see below.

Page 155
Term Store

User Profiles

Page 156
Search

Apps

Page 157
BCS

Secure
Store

Records
Management

Page 158
InfoPath

Hybrid
Picker

Notes:

● Hybrid Picker: Using Hybrid picker tool we can configure the search,
Manage Metadata group, content type etc. in hybrid mode. Example:
We can search the on-premise content from SharePoint online search
center.

Page 159
How do we navigate to the classic/old site collection create page?

Click on the “Classic features ->More classic features-> go to classic site

collection page section -> click on open button.

Once we click on the “Open” button, we’ll land into the classic site collection
creation page but one thing we can notice that the left side panel is empty –
this is in the modern SharePoint administration, earlier in classic
administration page we had all the above mentioned Term store, User
profiles, Search, Apps, BCS, etc.

Page 160
Data migration tool in SharePoint admin center:

This is a Microsoft data migration tool, using this we can migrate the data to
SharePoint sites. This is a free migration tool provided by Microsoft. We can
learn more about the data migration tool and download it from the below
URL:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/introducing-the-
sharepoint-migration-tool

Page 161
Manage script editor webpart in SharePoint Online

As we know, due to security reasons Microsoft does not recommend to use

any custom scripting in the SharePoint online page, because of this reason
we cannot add script editor web part in SharePoint online page, by default
this is disabled.

Having said this, it does not mean that we cannot add script editor web part
in SharePoint online page, we still can. Now, we will see how we can enable
this option.

How to enable script editor webpart in SharePoint online?

The background of when I realized this issue is – one day one of my friends
called me and discussed that he is not finding the script editor web part in
SharePoint online site. After some analysis we learned that in SharePoint
online site, script editor web part is not available by default. In order to
make it available we need to enable the custom script from SharePoint
Tenant admin center. Now, we will learn how to enable this.

Verify that script editor web part is not available by default:

So, what we are saying is that script editor web part is not available by
default – let’s justify this practically.

Navigate to the edit your web part page – > Insert -> Web Part ->
Categories ->Media and Content

Page 162
Here we can see that “Script Editor” web part is missing. Not only that, but
we cannot see the “Content Editor” web part and many more. Please see
the below screenshot, this is because of by default adding custom script in
the page is disabled.

Now, we will enable the custom scripting and see whether we can see the
script editor web part back to the page.

Now go to your tenant setting page through this URL:

https://sprnd-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/TenantSettings.aspx

Page 163
Note: Here “sprnd” is my tenant name, you need to pass your tenant name.

Now see the “Custom Script” section by default both the radio button is
selected as prevent – this is the default behavior and due to this script editor
and content editor web part is missing from SharePoint online page.

● Prevent users from running custom scripts on personal sites.

● Prevent users from running custom scripts on self-service

created sites

Now select to allow users to run custom script for both the radio button as
below:

1. Allow users to run custom scripts on personal sites.

2. Allow users to run custom scripts on self-service created sites

Page 164
Now click on ok and once you save it, this may take 24 hours to reflect the
changes – this is what the message says from Microsoft, but this was not
correct at least for us. We had waited for around 3 days but still didn’t see
the script editor web part in the page.

Then what to do?

To overcome this issue run the below PowerShell script – this will
immediately add the script editor and content editor web part in the web
part category. This exploration is from my personal experience.

$adminUserID=”youradminaccount@< sprnd.onmicrosoft.com >”

$userCredential = Get-Credential -UserName $adminUserID -Message “Enter

password”

Connect-SPOService -Url https://sprnd-admin.sharepoint.com/ -Credential

$userCredential

Page 165
Set-SPOsite “https://sprnd.sharepoint.com/sites/TestSite001″ -
DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0

Notes:

● It should be your tenant domain account and your actual site.

● Here I have used my test trial tenant site.

● In Connect-SPOService pass your tenant admin URL

● In Set-SPOsite pass the site URL where you want to add the script
editor web part.

● If your tenant admin account has MFA (multi factor authentication)

enabled, you cannot execute this – to execute this script use the
account which does not have MFA enabled.

Verify that script editor web part is available after executing the PowerShell
Script:

After executing the above script – immediately we come to the same page –
now we can see the script editor, content editor and many other web parts
that were not there before the script execution under “Categories”:

Page 166
Why does Microsoft not allow us to add the script editor web part by default?

Considering the utmost security – Microsoft does not recommend adding the
custom script into the page. If we want to add any custom scripting into our
SharePoint online page – we need to add these out through the SPFx
framework.

If we skip the custom script enable setting and execute the above
PowerShell command – will the script editor be available in the page?

Until a few days back I had the understanding that if we skip the custom
script enable setting from admin center and just directly execute the above
PowerShell command it will bring script editor immediately to the page,
however, this is not true from my experiment – we must first enable the
custom scripting from the admin center then we need to execute the above

Page 167
PowerShell script, in order to bring the script editor stuff to be available in
the page.

Page 168
Chapter 8: Manage hub sites in SharePoint Online from admin center

The introduction of hub sites is one of the major innovations of Microsoft in

the area of modern SharePoint. Here in this chapter – we will learn in detail
what exactly a hub site is and how to work with this efficiently.

Introduction to hub site

These days hub sites, modern sites, and megamenu are buzzwords in the
modern SharePoint world and hub sites are at the heart of all these – rather
I would say hub site is a subset of SharePoint site administration or mini
modern admin center with respect to site administration.

What is a Hub Site in SharePoint online?

In simple words, we can say that the Hub Site is a collection of sites
connected to a master site from where all connected sites can be navigated
and managed. It has the following key attributes.

● Discover related content such as news and other site activities,

● Apply common navigation, branding and site structure across

associated sites

● Search across all associated sites.

Example – let’s say you are a project manager and managing multiple
projects in SharePoint, .NET, and Java etc. And for these different types of
projects, you have different site collections. Now, we want to maintain the

Page 169
same look and feel for all the project sites and want to navigate through
from one project site to another project site seamlessly and want to share
the common news across all departments/project sites. Here, Hub Site is a
way to go. We need to connect these site collections to a Hub site. In the
coming section, we’ll see how a site can be connected to a Hub Site.

Hub Site architecture in SharePoint online

Image Source:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/sharepoint/sharepointonline/media/e1ac50b4-076b-4a3b-bc9e-
cebcc2f0b20d.gif

Why Hub Site in SharePoint online?

For our above project sites scenario – if we want to achieve the same, we
need to have a root site called Projects and under this, various subsites
(SharePoint, .NET, Java etc.) which will form the nested architecture and this

Page 170
will lead to a bad user adoption experience when it comes to navigation. One
other really big challenge – let’s say we have 10 subsites and out of 10, in
one subsite, we need to activate a feature (let’s consider a publishing
feature) which has a dependency with a site collection level feature, so first,
we need to activate in the site collection level even though it’s irrelevant for
the other 9 subsites. As a result, for a site administrator, it is very difficult to
manage. So, Microsoft has recommended using flat architecture, i.e., no
subsites. We should adapt to create a new site collection for each
requirement. Whether we like it or not, we are bound to adopt this fashion –
let’s say we have created an Office 365 group and immediately if we come to
active sites pages in the modern admin center, we can see one modern new
site has been created automatically with the Office 365 group name.

Note:

● Having said this, it does not mean that we cannot create a subsite –
still, we can, but Microsoft does not recommend it.

How to create a Hub Site in SharePoint online?

Any active site can be designated as a Hub Site through the modern
SharePoint Office 365 admin center or PnP command. Go to the modern
SharePoint admin page and under site, click on Active Sites.

Page 171
Now, we can see all available active sites out here – now planning to make
“TestSite001” as a Hub Site. To do this, let’s follow the below steps.

1. Select the “TestSite001” radio button

2. Click on “Hub” drop-down list

3. Click on “Register as hub site”

4. Give the display name of the hub site and owner

5. Then, click the Save button

This will take some time to complete all the required settings.

Page 172
Now, a site has been configured as a “Hub Site”.

Note

● In a tenant, we can have multiple Hub Sites (maximum 2000 sites)

How to add a Team site or communication site to the Hub Site?

Adding a site to a Hub Site is like adding a brother and sister to an elder
brother (i.e. Hub Site). Now, we’ll see how a new and existing site can be

Page 173
connected to a Hub Site. This is the homepage of the newly created Hub
Site.

Click on +Create site button, then give the site name; For example,
“TestTeamSite_Brother” (we can give any name). Then, click the “Save”
button.

Page 174
Now, we can see the wonder – come to the SharePoint modern admin
homepage and go to the Active Sites screen. We can see the newly created
Team site listed out here which is connected to the Hub – Project “Hub Site”.

Another way is, we can connect any existing site to a hub site. Let’s do that
– select the particular existing site, radio button and from the Hub menu,
click on “Associate with a Hub” link.

Select the Hub Site from the dropdown list and click on the Save button.
This will take some time to do the all required configuration.

Page 175
Some key features or use cases of Hub Sites.

Below are some key features of Hub sites:

● Shared navigation

● Search across the hub

● News roll-up

● Associated sites

● Highlighted content

● Events

How to create a new hub site using PowerShell?

Connect-PnPOnline -SPOManagementShell
New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite
-title "Contoso marketing division"
-alias "marketing"

Page 176
-Description "Main site for collaboration for marketing teams at Contoso"

Register a site as a hub site by using the Register-SPOHubSite cmdlet:

Register-SPOHubSite -Site https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing

Set permissions for specific users: SPOHubSiteRights

Grant-SPOHubSiteRights -Identity
https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing -Principals
"nestorw@contoso" -Rights Join

Associate multiple sites to a hub site: Import-Csv to Add-

PnPHubSiteAssociation

Using the below PnP PowerShell, we can add or register multiple sites to a
hub site by importing the sites CSV file.

$mySitesCSV = Import-Csv -Path "C:\temp\MySitesToAssociate.csv"

$myHubsite = "https://"<tenantname>".sharepoint.com/sites/TestHubSite"

foreach ($oneSite in $mySitesCSV)

{
Add-PnPHubSiteAssociation -Site $oneSite.SiteUrl -HubSite $myHubsite
}

Manage hub site report in SharePoint Online

Many times, SharePoint Online administrator needs to export all hub sites
along with all associated sites from tenants.

So, in this section, we will learn about how to retrieve hub sites and
associated sites using PnP PowerShell and Office 365 admin center URL.

Page 177
First, we will see how we can export hub site reports using PnP PowerShell,
then we will see the traditional way; i.e., from office 365 admin center UI we
can export hub site reports.

PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to a hub site:

Using the below PnP PowerShell, we will generate the following reports:

● Using PnP PowerShell gets all associated or connected sites to a

particular hub site.

● Get master report for all sites and their hub sites from the SharePoint
online tenant.

Script to get hub sites report from SharePoint Online Tenant:

CLS
$userName = "Global-
[email protected]"
$passWord = "YourPassWord"
$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

#Getting the hub site id for which we want to generate the report - those
are connected to this hub site.
$hubSiteURL="https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/SPHubSit
e"
$hubSite = Get-PnPTenantSite $hubSiteURL
$hubSiteId = $hubSite.HubSiteId

Page 178
write-host " #####Generating sites connected a single hub site
report######: " -BackgroundColor DarkGreen
write-host "Hub Site URL: " $hubSiteURL

$associatedSites = @()

#Get all sites associated to the hub site(in the above hub site)
$sitesTenant = Get-PnPTenantSite -Detailed
$sitesTenant | select url | % {$oneSite = Get-PnPTenantSite $_.url

if($oneSite.hubsiteid -eq $hubSiteId)

{

write-host "Associated Site URL: " $oneSite.url

$assocatedSiteObject = New-Object PSObject

$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name
"Hub Site URL" -value $hubSiteURL
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name
"Hub Site ID" -value $hubSiteId
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name
"Associated Site URL" -value $oneSite.Url
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name
"Associated Site Status" -value $oneSite.Status

#Add the object with property to an Array

$associatedSites += $assocatedSiteObject

}
}

#Export the site array collection to a CSV file

$associatedSites | Export-CSV
"C:\Temp\GetAllSitesAssociatedInHubSites\SitesConnectedToSingleHubSiteR
eprot.csv" -NoTypeInformation
write-host " #####Generating sites connected a single hub site report-
ends here######: " -BackgroundColor DarkYellow

Page 179
######The below script will list down all hub sites and their associated
connected sites in the tenant.##################
write-host "------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------"

write-host " #####Generating master hub sites along with connected sites
report for the tenant. ######:" -BackgroundColor DarkGreen

$hubSites=Get-PnPHubSite
$associatedSites = @()
foreach($oneHubSite in $hubSites)
{

$test=$oneHubSite;
write-host "Hub Site URL: " $oneHubSite.SiteUrl

$hubSite = Get-PnPTenantSite $oneHubSite.SiteUrl;

$hubSiteId = $hubSite.HubSiteId

#Get all sites associated to the hub site(in the above hub site)
$sitesTenant = Get-PnPTenantSite -Detailed
$sitesTenant | select url | % {$oneSite = Get-PnPTenantSite $_.url

if($oneSite.hubsiteid -eq $hubSiteId)

{
write-host "Associated Site URL: " $oneSite.url
$assocatedSiteObject = New-Object PSObject

$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name

"Hub Site URL" -value $oneHubSite.SiteUrl
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name
"Hub Site ID" -value $oneHubSite.ID
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name
"Associated Site URL" -value $oneSite.Url
$assocatedSiteObject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -name
"Associated Site Status" -value $oneSite.Status

Page 180
 #Add the object with property to an Array
$associatedSites += $assocatedSiteObject

}
}

}
#Export the site array collection to a CSV file
$associatedSites | Export-CSV
"C:\Temp\GetAllSitesAssociatedInHubSites\SitesConnectedToHubSiteReprotF
orTenant.csv" -NoTypeInformation
write-host "##### Generating master hub sites along with connected sites
report for the tenant ends here ######:" -BackgroundColor DarkYellow

######The below script will list down all hub sites and their associated
connected sites in the tenant - ends here##################

PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to hub site: Test

Description about the above script:

Using the above script, we can generate the report like what sites are
connected to a particular hub site – meaning, sometimes the SharePoint
online administrator needs to get the details about all associated sites for
the given hub site, in this case the above script will help us. For example, if
we want to know about which are the sites connected or associated to the
below hub site, we can get to know it using the above script.

https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/SPHubSite"

Page 181
Another scenario is, many times the SharePoint online administrator needs
to get the details of associated sites that are connected to hub sites –
meaning, from tenant level we need to get the detail about all hub sites and
their connected or associated sites – then the above script will help us.

To be more concise, in a tenant there will be many hub sites and normal
sites – as a rule of thumb of hub site architecture, normal sites will be
connected to the hub sites, so – if we want to get the details about the hub
site and associated site relationship table, we can use this script.

Let’s see the exported hub sites report – how does it look like?

Master report for all hub sites in the SharePoint online tenant:

Page 182
All associated sites connected to a single hub site report.

View all sites that are connected to a hub site using SharePoint admin center
URL (UI):

We need to generate a view to list down the hub site report using the hub
site association.

Login to SharePoint admin center URL.

Syntax: https://tenant-admin.sharepoint.com

Example: https://globalsharepoint2019-admin.sharepoint.com/

Page 183
If we navigate to SharePoint online admin center URL, we will get the below
SharePoint admin center page. Then we need to click on the “Active Sites”
link from the left-side panel.

Then from the “Active sites” dashboard click on “Hub” -> Filter by Hub ->
then select your hub site – this will list down all sites that are connected to
that particular hub site.

For an example – I have selected my hub site “SP Hub Site”

Page 184
Now – we can see all sites that are connected to the hub site “SP Hub Site”

Page 185
Similarly, we can export this report in a csv file, and we can filter that site
report file from the local excel to have a list of all the sites that are part of
the same Hub.

To do this we need to follow the below steps:

From the “Active sites” dashboard click on the “Export” button. This will
export all SharePoint online sites in a csv file to your local download folder.

We will get the active sites report as below – from there we can filter as per
our need.

Page 186
Page 187
Chapter 9: Workflow Report from SharePoint Online tenant

Many times, SharePoint online administrators will have a need to extract all
workflows from all the sites in tenant. It is very difficult to get those reports
manually.

So, using the below PowerShell CSOM and PnP script we can get the
workflow report from the SharePoint Online tenant.

This script will scan through all the sites in a tenant and will export all
workflows associated with the lists into a CSV file.

Export all workflows from SharePoint Online Tenant using PowerShell CSOM:

Using the below PowerShell CSOM code, we can export or get all workflows
from the SharePoint Online tenant:

Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -
DisableNameChecking
#Load SharePoint CSOM Assemblies
#Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web
Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
#Add-Type -Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web
Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll"
cls
$fileName = "Tenant_workflow_Report" #'yyyyMMddhhmm yyyyMMdd
$enddate = (Get-Date).tostring("yyyyMMddhhmmss")
#$filename = $enddate + '_VMReport.doc'
$logFileName = $fileName +"_"+ $enddate+"_Log.txt"
$invocation = (Get-Variable MyInvocation).Value
$directoryPath = Split-Path $invocation.MyCommand.Path

Page 188
 $directoryPathForLog=$directoryPath+"\"+"LogFiles"
if(!(Test-Path -path $directoryPathForLog))
{
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path $directoryPathForLog
#Write-Host "Please Provide Proper Log Path" -ForegroundColor Red
}

#$logPath = $directoryPath + "\" + $logFileName

$logPath = $directoryPathForLog + "\" + $logFileName
$isLogFileCreated = $False

#DLL location

$directoryPathForDLL=$directoryPath+"\"+"Dependency Files"
if(!(Test-Path -path $directoryPathForDLL))
{
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path $directoryPathForDLL
#Write-Host "Please Provide Proper Log Path" -ForegroundColor Red
}

#DLL location

$clientDLL=$directoryPathForDLL+"\"+"Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll"
$clientDLLRuntime=$directoryPathForDLL+"\"+"Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.
dll"

Add-Type -Path $clientDLL

Add-Type -Path $clientDLLRuntime

#File Download location

$directoryPathForFileDownloadLocation=$directoryPath+"\"+"Download
Workflow Details"
if(!(Test-Path -path $directoryPathForFileDownloadLocation))
{

Page 189
 New-Item -ItemType directory -Path
$directoryPathForFileDownloadLocation
#Write-Host "Please Provide Proper Log Path" -ForegroundColor Red
}

#File Download location

function Write-Log([string]$logMsg)
{
if(!$isLogFileCreated){
Write-Host "Creating Log File..."
if(!(Test-Path -path $directoryPath))
{
Write-Host "Please Provide Proper Log Path" -ForegroundColor Red
}
else
{
$script:isLogFileCreated = $True
Write-Host "Log File ($logFileName) Created..."
[string]$logMessage = [System.String]::Format("[$(Get-Date)] -
{0}", $logMsg)
Add-Content -Path $logPath -Value $logMessage
}
}
else
{
[string]$logMessage = [System.String]::Format("[$(Get-Date)] -
{0}", $logMsg)
Add-Content -Path $logPath -Value $logMessage
}
}

#Object array to hold workflow details.

$WorkflowDetailsForSPOSite=@()

#The below function will read all workflows from a site and return the array
output.

Page 190
Function Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant()
{

param
(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $SPOSiteURL,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $UserName,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)] [string] $Password
)
Try
{
$securePassword= $Password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -
Force
#Setup the Context
$context = New-Object
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($SPOSiteURL)
$context.Credentials = New-Object
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($UserName,
$securePassword)

$web = $context.Web
$context.Load($web)
$context.Load($web.Webs)

$context.executeQuery()

#Check if any sub site is available in the site.

if ($web.Webs.Count -ne 0)
{
foreach ($subweb in $web.Webs)
{

Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant -
SPOSiteURL $subweb.url -UserName $userName -Password $password
}
}

#Loading all lists for the particular site.

$context.Load($web.Lists)

Page 191
 $context.ExecuteQuery()

foreach($list in $web.Lists)
{
$context.Load($list.WorkflowAssociations)
$context.ExecuteQuery()

foreach($wfAssociation in $list.WorkflowAssociations)
{
if($wfAssociation.name -notlike "*Previous Version*")
{
$row=new-object PSObject
add-Member -inputObject $row -memberType NoteProperty -
name "Site Title" -Value $web.Title
add-Member -inputObject $row -memberType NoteProperty -
name "Site URL" -Value $web.Url
add-Member -inputObject $row -memberType NoteProperty -
name "List Title" -Value $list.Title
add-Member -inputObject $row -memberType NoteProperty -
name "Workflow Name" -Value $wfAssociation.Name
add-Member -inputObject $row -memberType NoteProperty -
name "Workflow Type" -Value "SharePoint List"
$WorkflowDetailsForSPOSite+=$row
}
}
}
return $WorkflowDetailsForSPOSite

}
catch
{
write-host "Error: $($_.Exception.Message)" -foregroundcolor Red
$ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message +"in exporting workflow
details!:"
Write-Host $ErrorMessage -BackgroundColor Red
Write-Log $ErrorMessage

Page 192
#Parameters
#$siteURL="https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/ModernTea
mSiteTestByPnP"
$adminUrl = "https://globalsharepoint2019-admin.sharepoint.com/"
$downloadLocation=$directoryPathForFileDownloadLocation +"\"+
"SPOTenantWorkflowReport.csv"
$userName = "YourSPOUserName"
$password = "YourSPOPassWord"
$securePassword= $password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force

#Parameters ends here.

$SecurePassword = $Password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -

Force
$Credentials = New-Object -TypeName
System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $userName,
$SecurePassword

#Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -
DisableNameChecking
#Retrieve all site collection infos
#Connect-SPOService -Url $AdminUrl -Credential $Credentials
#$sites = Get-SPOSite

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $adminUrl -Credentials $Credentials

$allTenantSites=Get-PnPTenantSite

#Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant -SPOSiteURL
$siteURL -UserName $userName -Password $password | Export-Csv
$downloadLocation

if($allTenantSites.Count -gt 0)
{

$finalWorkflowReport =foreach($oneSite in $allTenantSites)

{

Page 193
Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant -SPOSiteURL
$oneSite.URL -UserName $userName -Password $password

}
$finalWorkflowReport | Export-Csv $downloadLocation -NoTypeInformation

Write-host "All workflows have been exported Successfully from the

SharePoint Online Tenant." -BackgroundColor Green

Description about the export workflow report code:

● We must use the “Get-PnPTenantSite” to get all sites from the

tenant, the other command “Get-PnPSite“, if we use this, it will give
only the tenant admin site URL, like below:

● Similarly, in order to get all sites from the tenant, we can use the
“Get-SPOSite” command as well. However, if you have .net
framework mismatch version installed in your PowerShell – this
command will not work, we will get an error like “Connect-SPOService
: Method not found: ‘!!0[] System.Array.Empty()‘”

Page 194
 ● If we use the above code as is this will export all workflows from the
tenant. However, if we want to export all workflows from a particular
site, we can comment the foreach loop and just need to call the
function” Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant”
as below:

Get-WorkflowAssociationsDeatilsForEachSiteInTenant -SPOSiteURL $siteURL

-UserName $userName -Password $password | Export-Csv
$downloadLocation

Now, let’s execute the above script.

After the successful execution of the script, a CSV file with the name of
“SPOTenantWorkflowReport.csv” will be created in the script location

Page 195
directory – however, you can change the download location to your desired
location.

Now, let’s look at all workflows exported from the CSV report.

Page 196
We can see in the CSV report, all workflows from the SharePoint Online
tenant have been exported.

Prerequisites to execute the PowerShell CSOM script:

We need to place the below two DLLs in your script directory “Dependency
Files” folder as like below:

How to Install PnP PowerShell:

To install the “SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline” we need to run the

below PowerShell command which will install PowerShell Package
Management and then install the PowerShell Modules from the PowerShell
Gallery.

(New-Object
Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sharepo
int/PnP-PowerShell/master/Samples/Modules.Install/Install-
SharePointPnPPowerShell.ps1')

Page 197
Change the value of the variables in the parameters section like
below:

#Parameters
#$siteURL="https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/sites/ModernTea
mSiteTestByPnP"
$adminUrl = "Your SPO Admin URL Like - https://globalsharepoint2019-
admin.sharepoint.com/"
$downloadLocation=$directoryPathForFileDownloadLocation +"\"+
"SPOTenantWorkflowReport.csv"
$userName = "YourSPOUserName"
$password = "YourSPOPassWord"
$securePassword= $password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
#Parameters ends here.

Page 198
Chapter 10: Site creation template selection in SharePoint Online

Introduction

In the SharePoint On-premise or in the classic SharePoint, there are multiple

templates to create sites like Team Site, Wiki Site, Publishing Site, Blog Site,
Communication Site, Document Center and eDiscovery Site, etc.

Having had these many templates in the classic SharePoint, during the days
of Classic SharePoint, users blindly used to create team sites according to
whatever the requirement is – and using that team site users used to
manage all their requirements. Here is one thing I must say – even though
we have multiple templates in classic SharePoint – if we just choose the
team site and create a site using that still we can bring in all other site
functionality by enabling the certain features. The advantage of creating the
requirement-based site using the specific site template – the site will be
loaded or created with the many preconfigured stuffs.

And when it comes modern SharePoint online, we just have only two
templates:

1. Team Site and

2. Communication Site

So, it is very important to know what these two templates are, otherwise
when a user or administrator creates a site, it will be very confusing for
them which template to select.

Here, we will learn about team and communication sites and when to use
which one.

Microsoft has integrated SharePoint Team Sites with Office 365 Groups in
August 2016. This modern team site with pages, lists, libraries, and team

Page 199
news, with the help of Office 365 groups can collaborate, communicate and
coordinate with each other.

Other than the Team Site and Communication Site template recently in the
February 2020 release, Microsoft has provided a way to create other types
(without office 365 group connected) of sites as well from the same site
creation screen.

Page 200
If we click on the team site template, under that we can see “Other options”
– once we click on this this it takes us to the below page:

Templates are available in the “Other options”:

● Team Site

● Document Center

● Enterprise Wiki

● Publishing Portal

● More Templates

Page 201
Again, if we click on the “More Templates” link – it will take us to the classic
“Create Site Collection” page.

https://globalsharepoint2020-
admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/CreateSiteFull.aspx?source=Tena
ntAdmin

Notes:

● The “Other options” template selection was not available in the

modern team site creation screen until February 2020.

Page 202
 ● Using this new navigation (“Other options” template selection), users
can create office 365 group that is connected or not connected from
the same screen.

What is a modern team site in SharePoint online?

A SharePoint team site is a great place to share content, information and

apps between you and team members. It is very well designed out of the
box so that a user can easily navigate to their respective area of work from
the home page.

Web parts available in the modern team site home page:

● News

● Quick Links

● Activity

● Documents

What is a 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 in the communication site home page:

Page 203
 ● News

● Events

● Documents

When should we use a team site or communication site template?

As we know the modern SharePoint online provides only two templates:

1. Team Site and

2. Communication Site

Then, in which scenarios, should we choose which one? There is no

straightforward answer for this – as both have their own needs and scope in
the business. But as a 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, we can also design the company’s
main website using the communication site template. Because in this kind of
site, we don’t need a frequent update, once in a while, some dedicated
people will update the contents of the site. The bottom line is we can think
of communication sites as public-facing sites and that is the reason we don’t
see quick launch navigation as it needs more content area 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 communication site – mainly it is used for the internal team of

Page 204
the company where multiple people collaboratively work with each other but
are exposed only to a set of people. Actually, the meaning of collaboration
in SharePoint comes to fruition through the team site.

Create a modern team site SharePoint online – manually

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:

Syntax:

“https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/”

Example:

“https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/”

Click on the app launcher button from the left panel, then click on
“SharePoint”.

Page 205
Then, we’ll land on this page –
“https://globalsharepoint2019.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx”

Click on the “+ Create site” button.

Page 206
Then, we’ll be presented with two templates:

● Team site

● Communication site

Click on the “Team site” template.

Page 207
Enter the below:

● Site Name (mandatory) – any meaningful text.

● Site descriptio n(optional) – any meaningful text.

Keep other settings as is and click on the “Next” button.

Page 208
We’ll be landing to 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.

Page 209
Page 210
Finally, we can see that a new modern team site has been created as the
below landing page with so many out of the box webparts.

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.

Page 211
Prerequisites – Install PnP PowerShell 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 chapter Office 365: Getting started with SharePoint PnP
PowerShell – installation

Create a modern team site using PnP PowerShell

New-PnPSite – create a modern SharePoint online site:

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

Page 212
Communication Site and the Modern Team Sites are supported. If you want
to create a classic site, use New-PnPTenantSite.

Create a modern team site in SharePoint Online using PnP PowerShell:

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-
[email protected]"
$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."

Page 213
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:

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&#8217; based on the
managed path configuration in the SharePoint Online Admin portal and sets
the site to public.

New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title 'Team Contoso' -Alias contoso -Lcid 1040

Page 214
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&#8217; 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?

In this step, we will learn about how to create communication site in

SharePoint online, the steps are same as modern team site creation which
we have seen in the previous step; we just need to select the
“Communication site” template instead of “Team site” in the “Create a site”
template selection page as like below:

Page 215
In the next screen provide the “Site name” and “Site description (optional)”,
then click on the “Finish” button.

In the next screen, we can see that a new communication site has just been
created.

Page 216
Create a communication site in SharePoint online, using PnP PowerShell:
Script execution

Using the below PnP PowerShell script, we can create a communication site
in SharePoint online.

Page 217
Create a communication site in SharePoint online – PnP PowerShell:

Design templates are available for the communication site:

● Topic

● Showcase

● Blank

Page 218
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-
[email protected]"
$passWord = "YourSPOPassword"
$encPassWord = convertto-securestring -String $passWord -AsPlainText -
Force

Page 219
$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/Communicationtestsitec
reatedbypnp" -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:

New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title Contoso -Url

https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso -SiteDesignId ae2349d5-97d6-
4440-94d1-6516b72449ac

Page 220
This will create a new Communications Site collection with the title ‘Contoso’
and the URL ‘https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contoso&#8217;. 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&#8217;. 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&#8217;. 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&#8217; and sets
the default language to Italian.

Page 221
Chapter 11: Navigation in SharePoint Online

Introduction to navigation

Building proper navigation to a site attracts more users, as they like the new
navigation. The main purpose of navigation is to allow the users to land on
their intended page in a quick manner and they should be able to navigate
through to wherever they want. And at any given point, the user should be
able to go back to the home page of the site. So, while SharePoint architects
design the navigation, they must adhere to the rules of navigation and know
the end user's current way of navigating before introducing a new one.

While we talk about Hub Site navigation, we must know about other types of
navigation as well. The types of navigation in SharePoint Online are as
below.

● Site Navigation (Local Navigation)

● Site Collection Navigation (Global Navigation)

● Hub Site Navigation

● Megamenu Navigation

● Personal Navigation

Now, we’ll talk about each type of navigation with a proper example.

Page 222
Site Navigation (Local Navigation)

This is simple navigation without which no SharePoint user/developer could

go in the classic SharePoint experience at least – the very popular term of
this type of navigation is called “Quick Launch”. If you are at the site level
and need to create navigation related to that particular site, then Quick
Launch navigation is your best friend!!!

Example of Site Navigation (Local Navigation).

In contrast, if we have a communication site, Quick Launch is on the top of

the page. The communication site is a special template that is introduced in
SharePoint modern framework. In a Team site, we have quick launch (on the
left) and top navigation (on the top), with the communication site we only
have one navigation on the top.

Page 223
Note

● The communication site does not have top navigation. Instead, Quick
Launch has been moved from the left to the top.

Site Collection Navigation (Global Navigation)

Let's say we have ten subsites and we want common navigation to all the
subsites – then global navigation is the right choice. The navigation should
be configured in the top-level root site collection and this navigation should
be inherited from all sub sites below it.

Page 224
Note

● The Site Collection Navigation option only exists on sites not connected
to Office 365 Groups (classic sites or modern team sites without a
Group).

Hub site navigation

In modern site architecture, we will never have all the stuff in a single site
collection. Sometimes, we may have a department site such as a
communication and team site connected with an office 365 group. Those are
independent site collections, in this case, global navigation will fail. This is
where the hub site comes into the picture. Hub sites allow us to combine all
those different types of sites and site collections and bring them all under
one umbrella.

Here is an example of hub site navigation, note here the link Sales and IT
are from different site collections (classic team site).

Page 225
Megamenu Navigation

The much-awaited megamenu navigation was recently launched by Microsoft

(February & March 2019). It addresses many issues which users have been
facing over the last several years in the traditional dropdown navigation
approach. One of the major issues of dropdown-based navigation is, if the
navigation item lists are more, most of the actual content of the site will be
hidden or shadowed by the dropdown menu. This is how the user gets
frustrated and it leads to poor user adoption to the site. And also, in the
dropdown-based approach, we cannot have multi-levels of nested items.

Example of megamenu:

This is a white rectangular box menu – using this we can implement multi-
level nested item navigation, but in flat architecture. At any given point of

Page 226
time users will not lose their content. While working on megamenu we must
know this – if we configure the mega menu in the hub sites, this will not be
inherited automatically in the subsequent associated site, we need to
configure these in associated sites as well.

Note

● We can achieve all four (Quick Launch, Global, Hub Site and
Megamenu) on the same site if we use a team site not connected to an
Office 365 Group. The site which is connected to an Office 365 Group
loses site collection (Top) navigation option.

Personal Navigation

All the above types of navigations are man made – I mean these need to be
manually configured. Apart from these, we have one more navigation we
may name as personal navigation – these are not manually configured,
based on the sites we may visit frequently these will be listed out over here.

Page 227
Go to the below URL and click on “SharePoint”.

We’ll get the below page - Example of personal navigation – these

navigation items will vary from person to person because it depends on the
specific user’s site visits.

Page 228
Page 229
Summary

I hope you have enjoyed reading this book. The purpose of this book is how
a SharePoint administrator, Power User, architect and developer (with the
appropriate access) can manage the SharePoint Online admin center from
Office 365. This book is composed of eleven chapters, each chapter has its
own scope and meaning; to summarize each chapter see the below bullets:

Chapter 1: Introduction to SharePoint

The chapter 1 was focused on basic understanding of SharePoint like what is

SharePoint, history of SharePoint and why we should use SharePoint.

Chapter 2: Introduction to Office 365

Chapter 2 was focused on basic understanding of Office 365, such as what is

Office 365, advantages of Office 365, how to create a trial office 365 tenant
and login to it.

Chapter 3: Manage Microsoft 365 admin center report dashboard

In Chapter 3, we have seen that when we logged into Microsoft 365 admin
center home page – what are the default report cards are available in the
home page and how to manage these report cards like adding a new report
card, removing a report card from the home page and list of cards are
available to add in Dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Chapter 4: Administering Office 365

In the administering office 365 we have seen how to manage tenant users
like adding a new user, removing a user etc., how to manage guest users,
how to manage groups in Office 365, various types of groups (below
mentioned) in Office 365 and how to work with them.

● Office 365

● Distribution

Page 230
 ● Mail-enabled Security

● Security

Chapter 5: Billing management in Office 365

In the billing management section, we have seen the below bullets and how
to manage them sophisticatedly.

● Purchase Service

● Products & services

● Licenses Report

● Bills & Payments management

● Billing Accounts

● Billing Methods

● Billing Notification

Chapter 6: Introduction to SharePoint Online Admin center

The introduction to SharePoint Online Admin center chapter was focused on

the below:

● What is SharePoint Online Admin center?

● How to navigate to SharePoint from Office 365?

● Reports available (below mentioned) in the SharePoint admin center

home page and how to manage each report.

1. SharePoint file activity report

2. SharePoint site usage report

3. Message Center

4. Service Health

Page 231
Chapter 7: Administering SharePoint admin center

This chapter is the most interesting and biggest – here are most of the tasks
a SharePoint administrator works on. To summarize the SharePoint Online
administration section, we can have the below notes:

How to manage the below activities from active sites report:

● How to create site

● How to delete Site

● How to manage the site owner

● How to manage the Hub site

● How to manage the Site Sharing

● How to export the site consolidated report as csv

● How to search the sites with name, URL etc.

● How to filter the sites based on various inbuilt view.

● How to customize the columns.

● How to do the bulk edit

● How to land into this Active Sites report.

● How to create a site from SharePoint online admin center?

● How to manage the active site owners from admin center:

● How to manage hub site from SharePoint admin center:

● How to export the active sites report in CSV:

● Example of downloaded sites csv report:

● How to search the active sites:

Page 232
 ● Views in Active Sites:

● Customizing the view columns in active sites report:

● Bulk Edit in SharePoint admin center (active sites):

How to manage deleted sites report:

How does the below policy work in SharePoint admin center?

1. Sharing and

2. Access Control

How to manage the global settings page in SharePoint admin center like
below:

● How to handle the default admin experience page

● How to handle the SharePoint notification globally.

● Site creation - what is the default setting that should be

configured while creating a new site.

● How to manage the site storage limits and so on.

How to manage the below global settings from the Tenant setting page:

● Show or Hide App Tiles

● Site Collection Storage Management

● OneDrive for Business experience

● Admin Center Experience

● Delve (powered by Office Graph)

● Enterprise Social Collaboration

● Streaming Video Service

● Site Pages

● Global Experience Version Settings

Page 233
 ● Information Rights Management (IRM)

● Site Creation

● Subsite Creation:

● Connections from sites to Office 365 groups:

● Custom Script

● Preview Features

● Connected Services

● Mobile Push Notifications - OneDrive for Business

● Mobile Push Notifications – SharePoint

● Comments on Site Pages

● How to navigate to classic features from modern admin center?

● Classic features in modern SharePoint admin center:

● How do we navigate to the classic/old site collection create page?

● Data migration tool in SharePoint admin center:

● How to manage script editor webpart in SharePoint Online?

Chapter 8: Manage hub sites in SharePoint Online from admin center

In the modern SharePoint Online, the hub site is very important concept, so
with respect to hub site, we have seen the below:

● Introduction to hub site

● What is a Hub Site in SharePoint online?

● Hub Site architecture in SharePoint online

● Why Hub Site in SharePoint online?

● How to create a Hub Site in SharePoint online?

Page 234
 ● How to add a Team site or communication site to the Hub Site?

● Some key features or use cases of Hub Sites.

● How to create a new hub site using PowerShell?

● Register a site as a hub site by using the Register-SPOHubSite cmdlet:

● Set permissions for specific users: SPOHubSiteRights

● Associate multiple sites to a hub site: Import-Csv to Add-

PnPHubSiteAssociation

● Manage hub site report in SharePoint Online

● PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to a hub site:

● PnP PowerShell script to get all sites connected to hub site: Test

● Let’s see the exported hub sites report – how does it look like?

● View all sites those are connected to a hub site using SharePoint
admin center URL (UI):

Chapter 9: Workflow Report from SharePoint Online tenant

In the workflow report chapter, we have seen how to export all workflows
from SharePoint Online Tenant using PowerShell CSOM and PnP PowerShell
and also, we have seen how to Install PnP PowerShell:

Chapter 10: Site creation template selection in SharePoint Online

In this chapter, we have learned what is a team site and communication site
template and when to use which one. And, we have learned using PnP
PowerShell how we can create a team and communication site.

Chapter 11: Navigation in SharePoint Online

In the navigation chapter, we cover navigation in SharePoint online and

what various navigations are available (below mentioned) in the SharePoint
online and how to work with each type of navigation.

1. Site Navigation (Local Navigation)

Page 235
 2. Site Collection Navigation (Global Navigation)

3. Hub Site Navigation

4. Megamenu Navigation

5. Personal Navigation

Thanks so much for reading this book. If this book really helps you – please
share this book with your colleagues and friends. In the future, I have a lot
of plans to write this type of book for the SharePoint administrator, Power
User, developer and architect, so until then stay tuned!!! Once again thanks
for being with me on this journey, and hopefully together we will cross

paths again in the future.

Page 236
Resources

Reference URLs:

● https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites

● https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-
pnp/new-pnpsite?view=sharepoint-ps

● https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/sharepoint/sharepoint-
pnp/sharepoint-pnp-cmdlets?view=sharepoint-ps

Page 237
Download more ebooks

Page 238