Chris Hoard, a seasoned Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, offers an in-depth look into the new home feature of Viva Connections, which just launched. He also shares detailed instructions on the transition process from SharePoint Home Site.
The blog also categorically provides information about how to go back to the Home Site if the new Home Experience in the digital ecosystem does not meet your expectations.
Hoard has been preparing and tracking the feature for approximately two weeks before its official launch and has been excitedly waiting for its arrival and transition process.
The Microsoft 365 Admin Portal, he noted, could not allow a change in the home site that already exists in the professional digital environment. However, transition is possible using PowerShell in both directions, meaning users can move to the new Home Experience and, if they don't like it, they can switch back to the Home Site.
Hoard claims that SharePoint Home Site configurations for the digital ecosystem could pose complicated structures as these configurations have been around for roughly 1.5 to 2 years. He suggests that organizations must first test the transition in a dev environment before venturing into the live system.
The author then guides users through the following steps:
By and large, this blog is a perfect guide for those planning to transition to the latest Home Experience or return to the original SharePoint Home Site.
The digital platform is a part of the Microsoft ecosystem that's designed to help organizations adapt to a new way of working. It's focused on creating an integrated employee experience that brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights, all in one place.
The platform's Connections, a key feature, helps to unite the working environment, allowing for more seamless collaboration and productivity. The Connections Home Experience is the latest addition, with user-friendly interfaces and the availability of transition options as per user preference.
In essence, Microsoft Viva, with its innovative solutions like Connections, is poised to create a better, more integrated digital workplace sparking increased productivity.
Read the full article The new Viva Connections Home Experience and how to transition from your SharePoint Home Site
Learning about the latest Viva Connections Home Experience and understanding the transition from your SharePoint Home Site is key in staying current. Unearthing the wealth of functionalities that the latest technology provides can give you a competitive edge. Thus, it's crucial to have a clear understanding of these topics.
Microsoft provides many training programs and resources that can aid in learning more about these topics. Online learning platforms such as edX, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning offer professional Microsoft courses, including those focused specifically on SharePoint and Viva Connections. Take a course in understanding Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Teams, or PowerShell scripting to master the intricacies of these tools.
For those preferring hands-on learning, undertaking relevant projects in a development environment can also significantly improve your understanding. Always make sure to test new features or procedures in a dev environment before carrying them out on a production environment.
Understandably, not everyone may feel the need to change to the new Home interface. If you're one of them, rest easy knowing you can reverse your decision and switch back to the Home Site using PowerShell scripts.
If you're implementing SharePoint PowerShell, remember that the SharePoint Administrator or Global Administrator permissions are necessary. Also, certain prerequisites must be met, such as a tenant set on Targeted Release and a configured SPO Home Site.
To transition to the latest Home Experience, first, ensure the SPO Home Site URL and SharePoint PowerShell are correctly set up. Transitioning to the Home Experience requires the PowerShell command ‘Set-SPOHomeSite -HomeSiteUrl [homesiteURL] -VivaConnectionsDefaultStart [$true/$false]’. This command signals if the existing SPO Home Site should no longer be the default and if the new Home interface should be the landing page. Remember to set quotation marks around the URL.
After transitioning, verify the new Home interface using the ‘Get-SPOHomeSite’ command. If you decide to revert to the original Home Site, use the same command, but set the VivaConnectionsDefaultStart parameter to ‘$True’.
Familiarize yourself with these instructions to smoothly transition between different SharePoint Home Sites within the Viva application. Stay updated, happy transitioning, and remember - always keep a dev environment handy for testing!
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