SharePoint News Aggregation
Within Microsoft SharePoint Online, one of the uses of SharePoint communication sites, and Viva Connections sites, is the ability to view organizational news. News is created as posts within SharePoint sites, and can be aggregated into a single view using some of the out-of-the-box News aggregation web parts. Aggregating news to a central view provides a convenient and efficient option to view company news and updates.
Using the Lightning Conductor, not only can you aggregate SharePoint lists & libraries, Microsoft 365 Apps such as Planner and OneDrive, or External Data such as Salesforce, you can aggregate news as well. Using the Lightning Conductor, organizations can aggregate news not only from specific SharePoint Hubs and Associated Sites but also across multiple hubs or even the entire tenant. This broader scope of aggregation can be powered by SharePoint Search, which allows for greater performance even with large scopes. This capability ensures that all personnel, regardless of their position or the complexity of their information architecture, have access to relevant and timely organizational news.
This month, we are releasing two new views that allow you to view news in a carousel or list view.
Introducing New Views: Carousel and List
To enhance how news is presented, The Lightning Conductor has two new views: the News Carousel View and the News List View. These views cater to different user preferences and needs, enhancing the overall user experience and engagement with content.
Carousel View
The Carousel View offers a dynamic way to display news articles. It allows users to scroll through news items visually, with each article presented in a slide format. This view is particularly effective for engaging users with visually appealing content, featured stories, and highlights. It’s designed to grab attention quickly, making it ideal for showcasing top news or updates that require broad visibility across the organization.
List View
Contrasting the Carousel, the List View provides a more traditional, presentation of news articles. It lists news items vertically, offering a concise title and summary for each article, along with the publication date and possibly an accompanying image. This view is suitable for users who prefer scanning through multiple articles quickly or when the volume of news content is high.
Creating the views is straight forward using the Quick Configuration or Advanced Configuration. The Quick Configuration allows for the scope to be selected, along with either JSON view which can then be configured further if needed.
Enhanced Configuration Settings
Further enhancements can be made using the Advanced Mode for each view:, including:
- News Change Seconds – for a dynamic news feed
- News Count – Number of posts to be displayed
- Comments Count Column – number of comments
Give it a Go
Try out the Lightning Conductor’s news aggregation below:
Join our Webinar
On Thursday 18th April, we’ll be demonstrating the capabilities of the Lightning Conductor web part in our webinar. Register here: WEBINAR
