How To Enable Page Properties Only For SharePoint News

Introduction

 

SharePoint modern site pages are converted to News when they are promoted. Only the Promoted site pages will be displayed as News in SharePoint Out of the Box webparts. It clearly states that both the Site Pages and the News will be maintained in same page library.

 

Please take a look at my previous article to create modern pages using PnP JS in SharePoint Online. Here we are going to see how to add the custom field properties only to Site News and hide it for Site Pages. Let’s see the step by step implementation for this.

 

Step 1

 

Go to the below URL for your site to create a content type.

 

{siteURl}/_layouts/15/ctypenew.aspx

 

Step 2

 

Let’s give a name to our new content type as “Site News” which is more meaningful. Set the parent content types as below “Document Content Types” and “Site Page”.

 

 

Even though we are creating news, site page is the base, so we are selecting the parent content type like this. So, it will inherit all the site page related fields.

 

Click OK button at the bottom.

 

Step 3

 

Now add the columns you required only for News from Site Columns or create a new column using the below options.

 

 

Here for example, I have created a column called “News Category”.

 

Step 4

 

Now go to the Site Pages using the below URL and go to the “Library settings” using the Gear Icon at the top right in the O365 banner.

 

{YourSiteUrl}/SitePages

 

Step 5

 

By default adding content types will be enabled in the Site Pages so look for the link “Add from existing site content types” and click that,

 

 

Step 6

 

In the next screen add the “Site News” content type that we created in Step 2 and click OK button at the bottom. Now you can see your content type and the column added in it should have been added to Site Pages,

 

Step 7

 

Now go to Site Pages again and click the New Button at the top in the command bar, you can find the new content type is listed.

 

 

Step 8

 

Create site page using this new option -- now you will get the custom property enabled only for News, not for site page.

 

Below is the screen shot for Site Page published as News with only News related properties,

 

 

Below is the screen shot for Site Page without any News related properties,

 

 

Creating Modern Page templates in SharePoint Online

 

We have controlled the properties when it is directly created from SitePages, but how do we achieve that when pages are created using Out of the Box options? News can be created using News Webpart or it can be created from any existing site pages using “+ New” button at the command bar.

 

Here is a solution for that as well, we can use the Page template feature.

 

Step 1

 

Go to the news page that you created by using the new content type. Click “Edit” button in the top right of command bar.

 

Step 2

 

In the top left of the command bar click the arrow near “Save as template” like below,

 

 

Step 3

 

Now your page will be converted to a template mode, give the title of the template and save the template.

 

 

Note

You can use this template option to predefine the page design like author, webparts. So, you can also maintain even sitepages across your site with same template.

 

Step 4

 

You can find the created templates in SitePages under templates folder, you can go to that templates folder using below url also.

 

{YourSiteUrl}/SitePages/templates

 

Step 5

 

Now create news from any of the out of the box option. You can see the template created in Step 3. Choose that template and create news, it will be configured by default with the news related properties.

 

 

We are done with the modern page template with the field properties only applied for that template.

 

Conclusion

 

I hope this article helps you to get understand how to enable the custom page property fields only for SharePoint News and not for normal Site Pages. If you have any questions/issues about this article, please let me know in the comments.