New site template updates: new templates and the template history panel

Microsoft

Jun 21, 2022

It’s been exciting to see how all of you are using SharePoint site templates since we released the feature last year. These templates are intended to make it easier to get started creating a SharePoint site quickly and demonstrate the art of what’s possible with our design-focused layouts and content. Have you applied a site template yet?

Since our last blog post, we’ve released a few new templates to address even more scenarios where you might be building a site:

Communication site templates

Volunteer center

Provide a central hub for volunteers in your nonprofit organization to engage with and access key information and resources for training, onboarding, upcoming events, and more.

Team site templates

Retail management

Unite retail managers, keep them informed, and provide access to popular resources.

Store collaboration

Coordinate and prepare retail teams by sharing store news, resources, and training.

Applying site templates

As with all of our other Microsoft-provided site templates, these are automatically available in SharePoint tenants and can be applied by users with site owner permissions or higher. When you create a new site, you will be asked if you’d like to use a template. Select Browse templates to see Microsoft templates and templates from your organization.

Or apply a template to an existing site by navigating to Settings and then select Apply a site template.

Site template history panel

Additionally, we’ve released the site template history panel. Site owners will be able to access the Site information panel from within Settings, and then select View template history. A history of all site templates previously applied to the site will then be displayed. Selecting an entry will display all site script actions and if they ran successfully or encountered errors.

Looking forward

As we continue to enhance our site templates experience, get excited for connected templates (bringing together SharePoint and Teams templates for a cohesive templating experience from either entry point), an improved site creation experience with templates top-of-mind, and even more new template scenarios! Are there any templates that you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments!