SharePoint Page Properties Arriving in Targeted Release

employee

You must be aware by now that I am a huge fan of the Modern SharePoint Experience. Is it perfect? Definitely not but the new experience offers many advantages.

 

 

For example:

  • Responsive design
  • Improved user experience
  • Integration with Microsoft SharePoint Mobile App

These advantages improve the overall user adoption and efficiency for our customers on a daily basis, while working with Modern SharePoint. That said, a key feature in Classic SharePoint, was the ability to work with page layouts. A page layout allowed us to manage the location of web parts (and other components) but also displaying metadata. The location of web parts is currently facilitated by sections. Metadata is finally supported by page properties! Let’s take a look, shall we?

Today, I actually discovered the new page properties while working on a SharePoint Portal for one of our Enterprise customers. While editing a SharePoint page, I discovered the page details button. After clicking the button, the following menu appeared:

PageProperties1

 

This is fantastic because, before the arrival of the page properties, we had to create a custom app providing a similar user experience. We can now deprecate our app and use the out-of-the-box SharePoint feature provided by Microsoft. That’s the way it should be, using the features Microsoft provides us instead of spending a lot of time and money on custom development. The new page properties feature comes with its own app:

PageProperties2

After saving the page, the following happens:

PageProperties3

Awesome! This is the same experience we had in Classic SharePoint. Finally!

I would like to have another layout option in the near future to structure the order of the properties. Currently, it’s from top to bottom. I would like to apply the same setup as page sections. For example, properties could be next to each other in rows. Apart from the new app, the following apps received an update:

  • Highlighted Content
  • News

The Highlighted Content app allows us to display pages related to a metadata field:

PageProperties4

This is a great extension for the only search app in Modern SharePoint. The above options are also applicable to the News app. I really hope we get a similar update for audiences in the near feature.

I am very happy with this new release because we have been waiting for a very long time. You can read more by clicking here. Onward to the next awesome feature!