Microsoft has recently introduced a new SharePoint page template experience as an evolution of the previous page template options in SharePoint. The new page template experience provides a centralized way for content creators to access modern page templates, including out-of-the-box templates from Microsoft and the templates saved directly on a site.

Unfortunately, the initial launch faced significant customer backlash, resulting in Microsoft rolling back the new functionality.

In this blog post, we will explore the new modern SharePoint page templates, how they align (or not) with communication teams’ expectations, and look at planned enhancements.

What’s the modern SharePoint page templates

The new modern page templates experience was designed to streamline content creation in SharePoint. It does an excellent job of inspiring and showing content creators the art of the possible with the 50+ new out-of-the-box (OOTB) templates. Content creators can preview selected templates before applying them to new pages, allowing them to discover new ways to structure content and unlock creativity in SharePoint.

Why did Microsoft roll back the new experience

You might now wonder: If the new modern SharePoint page templates experience is so great, why did Microsoft roll them back? Microsoft customers across different forums and social media platforms have raised complaints such as:

  • Misalignment with corporate branding
  • No option to hide the OOTB templates
  • Saved templates not appearing on the new experience
  • Poor user experience when returning from the new experience back to a SharePoint page

For organizations that value their brand, the new experience introduced a lot of headaches. Microsoft has recently introduced great design options for SharePoint pages, and those new OOTB templates showcase how the many design variations can be applied; however, they don’t necessarily reflect the identity, culture, and character of an organization.

What’s Microsoft official statement

At the time of this writing, neither the official Microsoft marketing release page nor the message center in the Microsoft 365 admin center provides any information about the rollback or issues related to this functionality.

Within the past few weeks, I noticed that Microsoft fixed the issue where “templates saved on this site” were missing, now showing them at the top of the new modern page templates experience; however, the entire new experience has since disappeared, likely while the team addresses the many reported issues.

Julie Turner, a Microsoft MVP and Partner/CTO at Sympraxis Consulting, maintains a LinkedIn thread with ongoing updates that she has apparently been receiving from Microsoft. You can follow the latest updates here.

What’s exciting about the modern SharePoint page templates

Despite the initial challenges, it's great to see evolution in this space and the roadmap looks very promising. According to Microsoft, tenant-wide custom templates and Copilot-powered templates are on their list of possible improvements for this feature. Tenant-wide custom templates are a common feature request for many brand-aware organizations that want to ensure a consistent look and feel across their content on the intranets. Currently, intranet managers can create page templates and make them available at site level; however, no option exists to distribute these saved page templates from a central place across multiple sites.

Copilot-powered (I prefer the name Copilot-enabled) templates shall allow intranet managers to create page templates that can be used in Copilot, which also helps ensure consistency and alignment when content creators opt for content generation with Copilot.

Also, Copilot-powered (or Copilot-enabled, as I prefer) templates could allow intranet managers to create page templates accessible through the new Copilot page creation experience. This would help content creators stay aligned with corporate branding while generating content with Copilot.

Closing thoughts

The initial rollout of the modern SharePoint page templates experience didn’t have a great start, but Microsoft received a lot of feedback and is apparently working to improve the feature to better address customer concerns and needs. I hope it will be fixed soon and made available again, with the control options organizations need for brand alignment and an improved user experience.

From a product management perspective, rolling back features is sometimes necessary; however, it's important to bring customers along on that journey, and clear communication is highly appreciated.

I'm particularly interested in the upcoming improvements, as I believe they will add significant value and much-needed functionality for organizations that want to provide approved page templates to content creators through a simple and easy-to-manage experience.

Thanks for reading,
Jarbas