News Web Part in SharePoint Online

In this SharePoint tutorial, I will show you how to use a news web part in SharePoint Online. We will also see, how to customize a SharePoint Online news web part.

Moreover, I will discuss how to filter a SharePoint news web part and also show you how to enable audience targeting in the SharePoint news web part.

SharePoint Online news web part

Before working on the SharePoint Online News web part, we should know what it is.

• News web part nothing but to share eye-catching points like Announcements, Status updates, and people’s news on a modern SharePoint site.
• By using the news web part, users get more interest in seeing our site pages. And we can keep them in the loop.
• News web parts can engage people’s attention towards our site page. And we can also include graphics & rich formatting in a news web part.
• Mainly, we can use the news web part in Modern SharePoint Sites (Team Sites and Communication Sites). But it is not available on the Classic SharePoint Site.

Add a news web part to the SharePoint Online site page

Let’s find out how to add a news web part to the SharePoint Online site page. To achieve it, follow the below steps.

• Open a SharePoint Online site page and click on the Edit icon. Inside the edit tab click on the + icon to Add a new web part in column one as shown below.

• Then, you can see a dialog box scroll down, and select the News under News, people, and events as shown below.

• Now, the SharePoint Online News web part is added to the SharePoint site page as shown below.

This is how to add a News web part to the SharePoint Online site page.

Customize SharePoint Online News Web Part

In this section, I will show you how to customize the SharePoint news web part with options such as news sources, layouts, filters, organize, duplicate news web part, and delete a news web part.

1. News source

When working on the News web part, firstly we can select news from different sources like This site, Selected sites, and Recommended for current users. For example, we can select different sites by using the search box and select from the frequent sites or recent sites as shown below:

See the below picture of how we get a news source from the different SharePoint modern sites.

This is how to select a News source in the SharePoint news web part.

2. Layouts

We can choose different types of layouts for the News web part like Top story, List, Side-by-side, Hub news, etc… The default layout depends on whether our site is a Team site, Communication site, or part of the hub site.

To change the layout options in a news web part, just follow the below steps such as :

• In the edit section, we get different types of layout options (Top story, List, Side-by-side, Hub news, etc… ), or else we can use the layout options drop-down and enable the show title and commands option like below.

Now we will see how to change the various layout options as per the requirement.

• Top story: This layout can appear by default in the SharePoint Online Team Site. It includes a large image space and three additional stories as shown below:

• List: We can choose a list layout to get news information in a single column like below:

• Side-by-side: By default, this layout can appear on the SharePoint Online Communication Site. We get a two column list of stories as shown below:

• Hub News: This layout can appear by default in the SharePoint Online Hub Site. And it can include columns of stories with thumbnails and information like the below:

• Carousel: This layout can display large visuals and users can select stories by using the back and next buttons or pagination icons as shown below:

• Tiles: We can select tiles layout to get up to five news items with thumbnails & headings like below:

Similarly, we get other options to enable or disable the information like Show compact view, Show number of views, Show author, Show first published date, and Hide this web part under the layout section.

This is how to select various web parts in the SharePoint News web part.

3. Filter

In a News web part, we can filter the posts by using different options such as Title includes the words, Recently added, Recently changed, Created by, etc… As per the requirement.

Similarly, we can select a keyword by using the search box and add a new filter by using the +Add filter button. Also, we can get an audience-targeting option as shown below:

This is how to filter a News web part in the SharePoint modern site.

4. Organize

We can also organize an order of the News posts that we want to display on a site page. And we can organize the news from the different sites. For this follow the steps are:

• Select Organize drop-down option where we get 2 options such as:
  • 1. Select news to organize: Choose the news from different sites to organize
  • 2. Change the News order: Use Ctrl+Up/Down arrow or Ctrl+Left/Right arrow to change the news order.

• Now, see the below picture of how we can search all news and change news order in the Select and Order window:

This is how to organize the News web part from the SharePoint modern site page.

5. Duplicate News web part

Let’s see how to make a duplicate News web part in the SharePoint modern site page. Firstly, click on the news web part (SharePoint Online Teams) -> Select the Duplicate web part option then see how it will appear on the site page like below:

6. Delete a News web part

Now, we will see how to delete a News web part from the SharePoint modern site page. Click on the news web part -> Select the Delete icon to remove a news web part like the below:

Enable audience targeting in a SharePoint news web part

Here, I will show you how to enable audience targeting in a SharePoint Online news web part.

• In a SharePoint Online audience targeting is nothing but selecting a particular group of people and giving the target access.
• By using audience targeting, we can share specific content that is relevant to specific people.

To use audience targeting in the news web part, enable the audience targeting for the site pages.

• Open a SharePoint Online site page then click on Settings and select Site contents. Inside this tab click on Show Actions of Site Pages and then click on Settings.
• In this Settings tab select Audience targeting settings under General Settings

First, we should enable the audience targeting from the page library. To get this follow the below steps such as:

• Open the SharePoint Online Site contents -> Click on the Site pages -> Select Ellipses (…) then select Settings as shown below:

• Now, select the Audience targeting settings under the settings list like below:

• Here, select the check box to Enable the audience targeting then click on the Ok button.

• Now, go back to the Site pages where we get a default Audience column. Select the specific page then open the Details pane as shown below:

• Open the properties pane, select Edit All then enter the name or email address of the group (Enter up to 50 audiences) under the Audience section and click on the Save button as shown below:

• Now, see the below image for how we can get an audience-targeting group in the Audience column.

This is how to enable audience targeting from SharePoint Online.

Enable audience targeting in the News web part

Similarly, we can also set the audience targeting for the particular group of people in the news web part. For this, turn on Enable audience targeting option under the Filter section as shown below:

This is how to enable audience targeting in the SharePoint News web part.

Conclusion

From this SharePoint Online tutorial, we learned the News web part of a SharePoint modern site page. And also covered the topics below such as:

• Add a News web part in a SharePoint modern site page
• Edit a News web part from the SharePoint modern site page
• How to enable the audience targeting in the News web part

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