How to Create Hub Sites in SharePoint Online: Step by Step (2024)

Hub sites in SharePoint Online are a new way to organize related sites together into centralized portals based on organizational attributes such as projects, concepts, teams, departments, divisions, regions, etc. A SharePoint Hub site can have both modern team sites and communication sites associated with it. Hub sites provide a common navigation structure, look and feel, logo, and search across associated sites. This article will guide you through the process of creating a Hub Site in SharePoint Online, including the steps for setting up a hub, and connecting existing sites to the hub.

Hub site brings consistency across sites from the top to down. When a team site or communication site is associated with a hub site, it inherits common characteristics, such as:

• Consistent look and feel – For all sites associated, get the branding from the hub site. The logo and theme of the hub site are pushed to all underlying sites. This allows you to maintain a consistent look and feel across your sites.
• Common Global Navigation across all associated sites.
• Scoped Search – If you search within the hub site, It searches for content on the current hub site and all the connected sites and displays the search results page.
• Site Activities – All user activities done on the associated sites.
• Content Roll-up – Automated aggregation and display of content from multiple sites: Consider the scenario that you are rolling out department intranet sites and want a single landing page where the entire organization can see a roll-up of the announcements from each department all at once. The News web part, sites web part, and highlighted content web part can be utilized in hub sites to get aggregate content from all the associated sites and display the roll-up on the hub site’s home page.

You can designate an existing site collection as a hub site or create a new site collection and convert it as a hub site. But there are no ways to create a hub site directly using the create site option because there is no specific template. A SharePoint Communication or Team Site can be promoted to Hub Site. Make sure you have SharePoint Online Administrator permissions (or above) in Microsoft 365 to create SharePoint hub sites. There are two steps involved in configuring Hub sites in SharePoint Online:

• Step 1: Create or convert an existing site to a Hub site
• Step 2: Associate site collections to the hub site

How to create a Hub Site in SharePoint Online Admin Center?

To enable the hub site in SharePoint Online, do the following:

1. Login to New SharePoint Admin Center >> Click on “Sites” >> Active Sites from the left navigation.
2. Click on the “Create” button.
3. Pick Communication Site Template and choose “Topic” Site Design.

4. Click Finish to create the site.

You can also create a new hub site with PowerShell, as:

#Connect to SharePoint OnlineConnect-SPOService -url "https://Crescent-admin.sharepoint.com" -Credential (Get-credential) #Create a modern team siteNew-SPOSite -Url "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/ITHub" -Owner "Salaudeen@CrescentIntranet.Onmicrosoft.com" -StorageQuota 2048 -Title "Crescent IT Hub" -Template "STS#3"

Register Hub Site in SharePoint Online

To register a Hub Site through SharePoint Online Admin Center, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the new SharePoint Online Admin Center.
2. Click on Active Sites to see a list of all the site collections.
3. Click on the check box next to the site that will become a hub >> Click on “Register as Hub Site” from the Hub Site menu.

4. Fill in the name of the Hub and click on Save.

Create Hub Site in SharePoint Online using PowerShell

You can convert existing Sites to Hub Sites, but sites that are already associated with another hub can’t be converted to a hub site. To make the site a Hub Site using PowerShell script, make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell first. If you already have a previous version of the shell installed, uninstall it first and then install the latest version.

Connect the SharePoint Online Management Shell

Connect-SPOService -Url https://Crescent-admin.sharepoint.com

It will prompt user credentials, give the credentials and connect to the SharePoint admin site.

Register the Site as Hub Site

Register-SPOHubSite -Site https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Departments -Principals $null

If you need the Hub Site to be unregistered, the following PowerShell command can be used:

UnRegister-SPOHubSite "https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Departments"

You can also revert the hub site to the team site or communication site from the SharePoint Online Admin center. How many hub sites can be created in SharePoint Online? Well, You can create up to 100 hub sites for an organization. There is no limit on the number of sites associated with a hub site, and this enables a hub site in SharePoint Online.

Customize Hub Site Logo, Theme, and Navigation:
Now we have the Hub Site Ready! Change the Logo, Theme for the Hub Site based on your organization’s requirements.

• Go to the Hub Site >> click Gear Icon > Hub Site Settings

Furthermore, edit the hub site navigation that appears on all associated sites (the hub navigation will appear only on modern pages, however!). All sites associated with the hub site will inherit these elements. Please note, when you customize the hub site after associating with any SharePoint Online sites, it could take up to two hours for the changes to propagate to associated sites.

We have the flexibility to move from one hub site to another if your organization changes the way you are structured. Let’s say we have a “Sales” site associated with the “Departments” Hub site and want to restructure it to “Operations” Hub. We can simply detach the site from the department’s hub and reattach the site to the Operations Hub without having to migrate our sites anywhere. To associate a site with a hub site, you can follow any of these three approaches:

Option 1: Associate Site to Hub from Office 365 Admin Center
In SharePoint Online Admin Center, click on the checkbox next to the site collection you want to associate with the hub, then from the Hub site drop-down menu, choose “Associate with a hub site” from the list of all the hubs you have in your tenant, choose one you would like to connect to and click “Save”.

Can I associate a hub site with another hub site? Yes, You can!

Option 2: Associate to Hub site using PowerShell
To add a site to the hub, use this PowerShell script:

Add-SPOHubSiteAssociation https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Sales `-HubSite https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Departments

This sets the hub site association for the given site collection. To set the hub site association for a SharePoint Online site collection using PnP PowerShell, use: SharePoint Online: Set Hub Site Association using PowerShell

Option 3: Connect to Hub Site from the Site Collection
To associate the hub site with the Site, do the following:

1. Navigate to the root site collection that you want to associate with the hub.
2. Click on Settings gear Icon >> Select Site Information.
3. Choose the Hub Site Association and click on Save.

It is worth noting that this technique only works for site collections that have been modernized!

Once you connect the site with a hub, Navigation, Theme, and logo will be applied to the newly joined site. You won’t be able to associate a SharePoint Online hub site with another hub site. Moreover, You can’t associate a site with more than one Hub Site.

Any site owner can join the site to the Hub. To control who can associate their site with hub sites, use the following PowerShell command:

Grant-SPOHubSiteRights -Identity https://Crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Departments -Principals John@TheCrescentTech.com -Rights Joins

That’s All!

SharePoint Online: Hub Site Navigation
Associating a site collection to the hub does not automatically add links to the Top navigation of the hub site! By default, only the link of the Hub Site appears on top. We need to build the rest of the Top Navigation manually in the hub sites. Here is how to do this:

1. Navigate to the Hub Site
2. Hover over to the Top Navigation area >> Click on Edit
3. Click the “+” sign to add a new link.
4. Click OK and Save.

Associated Sites will automatically contain a link back to the SharePoint Online hub site. You’ll also notice that you cannot change the theme of an associated site, since it will inherit the theme from the hub site.

SharePoint Online: Hub Site Permissions
When users associate their sites with a hub, it doesn’t impact the permissions of either the hub site or the associated sites. It’s important to make sure all users you allow associating sites with the hub have permission to access the hub.

Disassociate a SharePoint site from a hub site
You can disassociate your site from a SharePoint hub site when the association is no longer needed. Doing so will remove the hub site navigation bar from the top of your site. The look that your site inherited from the hub site will stay the same, and features such as additional navigation links, applications, or custom lists with specific columns that were added as part of the inherited hub site design will remain.

To remove the existing hub site association, select “None” in the Hub Site association drop-down list and Save. It will remove the navigation and logo, but it will not restore the original theme. We need to change the Theme/look and feel manually.

To get all hub-site associations in SharePoint Online, use this PowerShell script: PowerShell to Get All Sites Associated with the Hub Sites in SharePoint Online

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Hub Sites in SharePoint Online are a powerful tool for bringing together related sites and content into a centralized location. With Hub Sites, organizations can create a unified look and feel for their intranet and make it easier for users to find the information they need. Creating a Hub Site in SharePoint Online is a straightforward process that can greatly improve the organization and accessibility of your intranet. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can quickly and easily create a Hub Site in SharePoint Online, providing a more cohesive and user-friendly intranet experience for your organization.

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