+If you are using [sensitivity labels](/microsoft-365/compliance/sensitivity-labels) to classify and protect your SharePoint sites, you can also configure the default sharing link type and sharing link permissions for a site and also individual documents by using a sensitivity label.

+For more information about this scenario, see [Use sensitivity labels to configure the default sharing link type for sites and documents in SharePoint and OneDrive](/microsoft-365/compliance/sensitivity-labels-default-sharing-link).

+To make a site like the one shown here, you'll create a [Communication site](https://support.microsoft.com/office/use-the-sharepoint-topic-showcase-and-blank-communication-site-templates-94a33429-e580-45c3-a090-5512a8070732). To do this, click **Create site** from the SharePoint start page (or, if you're going to associate this site with a Hub site, navigate to the hub site and click **Create site** there so that the communication site is automatically associated with that hub site).

+

+Options for adding a heading and a linked call to action allow each layer to be a starting point for a deeper message.

+|**Primary business objective** <br/> |**Collaborate** <br/> When you want to create a place where the members of a work group or project team can work together on project deliverables, plan an event, track status, or exchange ideas, you want a team site. Team sites are connected by default to a Microsoft 365 group to deliver a full range of communication and collaboration tools, including Microsoft Teams and Planner. <br/> |**Communicate** <br/> When you want to broadcast a message, tell a story, share content for viewing (but not editing), or showcase services or people, you want a communication site. Communication site owners often want to include an engagement component - for example an "Ask Business Development" area on a site communicating information about business development. This is a great place to connect a Yammer community. <br/> |**Connect** <br/> When you want to create a shared experience for a family of related sitesΓÇöto discover related content by rolling up site activity and news, organize related sites so that they share a common navigation, and apply a common look and feel. <br/> |

+|**Permissions** <br/> |Microsoft 365 group, plus SharePoint groups and permission levels <br/> |SharePoint group <br/> |Same as original site type. Hub sites do not alter an associated site's permissions - but you may add a "reader" group to the hub to make it easier to provide read access to associated sites. For more information, see: [Hub permissions](https://support.microsoft.com/office/set-up-your-sharepoint-hub-site-e2daed64-658c-4462-aeaf-7d1a92eba098#bkmk_managesiteassociationapprovals). <br/> |

+|**Examples** <br/> | - Project team working together to complete deliverables and manage tasks. <br/> - Holiday party planning committee planning the annual get-together. <br/> - HR performance management team. <br/> - Executive committeeΓÇödifferent leadership groups within the organization. <br/> - Extranet site to work with Partner A. <br/> | - Travel team publishing guidelines about corporate travel. <br/> - Policies and procedures. <br/> - Micro-site for a new corporate initiative. <br/> - Resources for the sales team for a product or service. <br/> | - HR hub that provides a connection and roll-up for all HR functions, such as benefits, compensation, performance management, talent acquisition, and a manager portal. <br/> - Sales hub providing enterprise resources for the Sales organization and connecting regional sales team and communication sites. <br/> - Location-specific hub that groups the communication and team sites for a specific location (for example, the New York office). <br/> |

+Using the guiding principle of creating a site for each unit of work, you can think about an HR family of sites that could include six functional sites for each of these functions plus an HR hub that connects the related sites to provide an overall HR experience. This is another way to think about the value of hub sites: they allow you to create an experience that improves information discovery for a specific context (in our example, for employees looking for HR information).

+In the classic intranet model, you might have created an HR site and used subsites to support each HR function. In the flat world of modern SharePoint, the HR family is connected using the HR hub to provide the connective tissue for navigation within the family and to provide an opportunity to serendipitously discover content on a related member of the family when users navigate to the HR home. For example, if you're on the HR hub reading a news announcement about open enrollment because you're in the process of onboarding a new employee, you might be happy to know that a new version of the "Welcome to the Company" onboarding toolkit was just released on the Talent Acquisition site. Likewise, if you're trying to find the HR team's office sharing policy, you'll appreciate being able to limit your search to only the HR-affiliated sites, rather than the entire organization.

+Some organizational functions have an enterprise-wide scope but a regional or product execution. For example, think about a Sales department that may have sites for sales regions and sites for location-based offices. This type of function has always presented a challenge to hierarchical intranet content organization using subsites. Do we make the Southeast Sales site a subsite of the Southeast Region site or the Global Sales site? And, what happens when a state within the southeast region is allocated to a new region; for example, from the southeast region to the northeast region? This type of dynamic organizational movement creates a nightmare for intranet organization if you use subsites, but not with hub sites. Picking a hub may create some angst because an individual site can be associated with only one hub, but keep in mind that content from a site can appear on multiple hubs. You can customize sources for the following web parts on a hub:

+> A site can only associate with a hub family. However, hub families can be connected to one another using links either on the page or in hub navigation. In addition, hubs can also be associated to other hubs to create an extended search scope for your hub families. For example, you may have a hub called Northeast Region Sales that you want to "connect" to a Global Sales hub. You can now [associate a hub to another hub](/sharepoint/hub-to-hub-association) to expand search results across multiple hubs in your organization.

+A site becomes part of a hub family by [Associating a SharePoint site with a hub site](https://support.office.com/article/ae0009fd-af04-4d3d-917d-88edb43efc05). When creating a hub site, SharePoint admins can [allow only certain site owners to associate sites with the hub](create-hub-site.md).

+After a SharePoint admin gives a site owner permission to associate their sites with a hub site, the site owner can then choose to associate the sites with the hub. When they do, the site inherits the hub site theme and shared navigation. Content from their site will roll up to the hub site in web parts where the source is "all sites in the hub," and the site will be included in the hub site search scope.

+Associating with the hub does not automatically add the site to the hub navigation. Hub site owners determine which sites are included in the navigation. They can also configure the News, Sites, Events, and Highlighted content to roll up activity from all associated sites or only selected sites.

+> Association with a hub does not change the permissions on a site. If you associate a site that has restricted access with a hub, only users who have access to the restricted site will see content rolled up on the hub. Information surfaced on the hub site is security trimmed: if you don't have access to the content, you won't see it. Something you may want to consider is adjusting permissions on the associated sites after you have assembled your hub family or [adding a hub "read" permission gorup to the hub](https://support.microsoft.com/office/set-up-your-sharepoint-hub-site-e2daed64-658c-4462-aeaf-7d1a92eba098#bkmk_managesiteassociationapprovals) and adding that permission group to associated sites.

+The hub site owner determines which sites are reflected in the shared navigation and can also include links to other resources. This navigation appears at the top, below the suite bar. Most of the time, you will want to add associated sites to your hub navigation. That's one of the benefits of the experiences that you can enable with a hub. Your hub navigation can have up to three levels, which lets you organize your hub family in a way that helps users discover and find relevant content.

+- **Do you want to add private or restricted access sites to the navigation?** Maybe. For example, HR may want to associate their private team site with the HR hub to make it more convenient for HR team members. But, the HR hub owner may not want to display a link to the HR team site in the shared navigation for the HR hub because this would make the private HR site more discoverable by everyone in the organization, who will get an access challenge when they click the link to the HR team site. If you add private sites to hub navigation, consider using [audience targeting](https://support.microsoft.com/office/target-navigation-news-files-links-and-web-parts-to-specific-audiences-33d84cb6-14ed-4e53-a426-74c38ea32293) so that the link only appears for members of the private site. In another scenario, there may be a site that is "semi-private" that you want interested people to discover. For example, you might have a community that wants to restrict membership to people with a specific expertise, but also wants to discover experts across the organization. In this scenario, users might get an access denied/request access message, but the site owner is prepared and wants to grant access to interested people.

+ > If you add links to private sites in your hub navigation and don't plan to use audience targeting, consider adding (restricted) or (private) or (external) to the link name to help users understand that they may not have access to the navigation link.

+There is no requirement to have more than one hub for your organization, but you should think about what this means for information organization and discovery. An advantage to having just one hub is that every site in the intranet will share a consistent top navigation. However, since every site can also share consistent global navigation in the App Bar, you may want to consider taking advantage of more than one hub.

+If you have only one hub, you'll miss the ability to easily surface related information in context and the ability to easily define a search scope for related content. For example, if you have a single enterprise hub, it will be harder to surface just HR-related news on the HR site. Even small organizations may find that restricting the context in which users find information is helpful in managing information overload. We now have the ability to create a hierarchy of hubs to create [hub to hub associations](/sharepoint/hub-to-hub-association). This allows you to create a network of hubs that roll-up to each other to create connections and additional search scopes. When hubs are associated with each other, content can be searched for and displayed on hubs up to three levels of association.

+- **Finding hubs if you have more than one**. Hubs are an important building block for your intranet. Here are some ways you can make your hub sites discoverable:

+ - **Add hubs to global navigation**. Add your hubs to the global navigation for your tenant in the [SharePoint app bar](/viva/connections/sharepoint-app-bar).

+ - **Add key hubs to the SharePoint start page**. Pin your hub sites to the Featured links area of the SharePoint start page. Encourage all users to "follow" hub sites.

+- **Subsites**. Hub sites solve many or most of the use cases for which you previously used subsites. We recommend using hub sites going forward to organize the sites in your intranet. However, subsites will continue to be supported as a classic feature, and we'll add the new team site template as a subsite option.

+- **Should your home site be a hub?** It depends. Consider making your home site a hub if you have a unique set of sites that represent your "official" intranet where you want a distinct brand and search scope that you want to distinguish from other sites in the tenant. Consider leaving your home site as a "regular" site if you plan to have multiple hubs and you want your users to leverage the SharePoint app bar for global navigation. Every site in the internet does not have to be connected to a hub if your home site is not a hub. Some sites may be part of a hub and have both local and hub navigation but other sites may only have local navigation. In this scenario, your intranet global navigation is provided by the app bar, not a hub.

+Use hub sites when they align with your business outcomes and solve a need for your users.

+> - If a userΓÇÖs role is changed so they gain or lose access to the SharePoint admin center, it takes about an hour for the change to take effect.