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In today’s Ask the Admin, I’ll show you how to copy a SharePoint Online site.
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Configuring and customizing sites in SharePoint Online can be a time-consuming business, and when you need to create a new site, rather than starting from scratch, it might be easier to copy an existing one. While there is no ”copy’ feature, it is possible to create templates based on existing sites to create a new site using a custom template.
Sites in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Before we get started, it’s important to understand the difference between sites and site collections. When you access the Sites app in Office 365, you are accessing a top-level site collection, which contains unique site columns, security groups, administration settings, site templates, and more. Office 365 supports multiple site collections in some Office 365 business plans. Each site collection contains one or more sites, sometimes referred to as subsites. But unless you have specific needs, most of the time you’ll be creating new sites and not site collections.
Understanding the difference between sites and site collections is important because it’s not possible to create a template from a site collection. To copy a site collection, you need to perform a backup and restore operation. But sites are easy to copy using templates. At least it’s easy to do once you learn how to do this, because the process isn’t as intuitive as it should be.
Let’s start by creating a template based on an existing site. To follow the instructions below, you’ll need an Office 365 subscription and at least one SharePoint site already configured.
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Accessing site settings in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Site settings in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Save a site as a template in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Now we’ll create a site based on the template created in the previous steps. The process is slightly different from adding a new site.
Solution Gallery in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
Create a new site based on a template in SharePoint Online (Image Credit: Russell Smith)
In this article, I explained the difference between sites (subsites) and site collections in SharePoint Online, showed you how to create a template based on an existing site, and how to use that template to create new sites.
More from Russell Smith
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