SharePoint site templates
A SharePoint site template gives a new or existing site a ready-made home page, web parts and content. To apply one, open the site, select Settings, select Apply a site template, pick a template and select Use template. Microsoft provides templates for both site types: communication sites, which share information with a broad audience, and team sites, which are for collaboration. You need site owner permissions or higher to apply one.
This page lists every built-in template with Microsoft's description, explains what happens when you apply one to a site that already has content, and covers how an administrator builds custom templates for the organization.
Communication site templates
Communication sites are the type Microsoft recommends for an intranet or portal. These are the templates for them.
| Template | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Standard communication | Engaging viewers with informative content such as news, announcements and events. It is the default |
| Organization home | The online home for your organization, with news, resources and personalized content. A good start for an intranet home page or home site |
| Department | Departmental news and upcoming events, with quick access to commonly used files |
| Human resources | Giving employees information about their benefits, career, compensation and organization policies |
| Leadership connection | Building culture by connecting leadership and team members through conversation, news and events |
| Learning central | An internal landing experience, a single hub for events, news and extracurricular resources |
| New employee onboarding | Guiding new employees through your onboarding process |
| Brand central | A central location for brand assets and guidelines |
| Crisis management | Sharing news, providing support and connecting people to resources during a crisis |
| Event | Giving attendees information such as speakers, the session schedule, registration and answers to common questions |
| Showcase | Spotlighting a product, event or team with visual content such as images and video |
| Volunteer center | A central hub for volunteers in a nonprofit, with training, onboarding and event details |
| Blank | A custom site that starts with a blank home page |
Team site templates
| Template | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Standard team | Managing projects, sharing content and staying connected with your team. It is the default |
| Project management | A collaboration space with frequent tools, updates, meeting notes and documents |
| IT help desk | Managing technical requests, tracking devices and sharing training materials |
| Event planning | Coordinating event details, with ready-made recap and status news post templates |
| Employee onboarding team | Guiding new employees through your team's onboarding process |
| Crisis communication team | Centralizing crisis communication, resources and best practices |
| Retail management team | Uniting retail managers, keeping them informed and giving them access to popular resources |
| Store collaboration | Coordinating and preparing retail teams by sharing store news, resources and training |
| Training course | Preparing course participants and students by sharing course resources, news and events |
| Training design team | Brainstorming and planning ways to help others learn and grow |
Two more templates are powered by Microsoft Syntex: Accounts Payable, for managing, processing and tracking purchase orders and invoices, and Contracts Management, a preformatted template for contracts teams. Microsoft states you must be a licensed Syntex user to view and apply them.
Which template should I choose?
| If you are building | Start with |
|---|---|
| A company home page or intranet | Organization home, or Standard communication |
| A department page | Department, or Human resources for HR |
| A place for leaders to talk to staff | Leadership connection |
| A learning or training hub | Learning central, or Training course for a single course |
| A new-hire experience | New employee onboarding for a company-wide site, Employee onboarding team for a team |
| A page for a product launch, team or event | Showcase or Event |
| A project workspace | Project management |
| An internal IT service desk | IT help desk |
| A site for a crisis or incident | Crisis management to inform the whole organization, Crisis communication team for the team running it |
Not sure whether you need a team site or a communication site? How to create a SharePoint site compares them.
How to apply a site template
Templates are applied from a site's settings, and they work on a new site or one that already exists.
- Create a communication site or a team site, or open the site you want to change. You can edit its name, description, logo, privacy level, site classification and permissions.
- Select Settings and then Apply a site template.
- Select a template to see more details. If it fits, select Use template.
- Browse the new site, review its content in Site contents and customize it.
- Select Republish so the new content is available to viewers.
When you create a new communication or team site from the SharePoint start page, you can also browse and preview the templates in the creation flow: choose the site type, browse the templates, review a template's details and Site capabilities, then select Use template.
What happens when you apply a template to a site with content
Microsoft documents these rules:
- Existing content is not merged. A new default home page is created along with other new content. Existing pages, libraries and lists are saved and can be reached in Site contents.
- There is no automatic undo. Microsoft states there is no automatic method to undo the application of a site template. Try a template on a new site first.
- Hub sites win on theme. On a site associated with a hub, the template's theme applies first and the hub's theme takes over shortly after you republish. SharePoint hub sites explains the hub theme.
- Republish is for SharePoint in Microsoft 365. The button is not available in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition or SharePoint Server 2019.
- Microsoft-provided templates can be applied to subsites. Custom templates require the site type to be allowed in the SharePoint admin center.
Custom site templates for your organization
An administrator can create site templates that carry the organization's own configuration, so every new site starts consistent. Microsoft's developer documentation describes them as a pair:
- A site script is a JSON file that lists an ordered set of actions to run, such as creating a list or library, adding site columns and content types, setting branding properties, applying a theme, setting a site logo, adding links to navigation, triggering a Power Automate flow, installing an app from the app catalog, setting regional settings, adding users and groups to roles and setting external sharing for the site.
- A site template (called a site design in older cmdlets and labels) points at one or more scripts and appears in the template gallery.
This example script applies a theme and creates a list:
{
"$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/site-design-script-actions.schema.json",
"actions": [
{ "verb": "applyTheme", "themeName": "Contoso Explorers" },
{ "verb": "createSPList", "listName": "Customer Tracking", "templateType": 100 }
]
}
An administrator registers the script and the template with PowerShell:
Get-Content 'c:\scripts\site-script.json' -Raw | Add-SPOSiteScript -Title "Contoso theme and list"
Add-SPOSiteDesign -Title "Contoso customer tracking" -WebTemplate "64" -SiteScripts "<script ID>" -Description "Creates customer list and applies standard theme"
The WebTemplate value is 64 for a team site, 1 for a team site with group creation disabled, 68 for a communication site and 69 for a channel site.
Facts to know about custom templates:
- Where they appear. Templates made with custom site scripts show on the From your organization tab of the gallery, filtered by the site type the user chose, communication or team.
- Default templates. An organization template set as the default is applied automatically when new sites are created. A site owner can change it afterward from Settings and Apply a site template.
- Limits. 100 site scripts and 100 site templates per tenant. A script can have up to 300 actions or 100,000 characters when applied asynchronously through the UI or
Add-SPOSiteDesignTask, and 30 actions when applied synchronously withInvoke-SPOSiteDesign. - Scripts can be run again. They are non-destructive, so running one again makes the site match the script and adds only missing items.
- Scoping. A template is visible to everyone by default.
Grant-SPOSiteDesignRightslimits it to specific people or mail-enabled security groups. - Existing sites. Templates can be applied to existing modern sites (group-connected team sites and communication sites), through the REST API or PowerShell as well as the UI.
- Advanced provisioning. A site script can trigger a Power Automate flow, which lets you run PnP provisioning for anything the built-in actions do not cover.
Microsoft's SharePoint Look Book shows the same designs and adds scenario-based PnP templates in a GitHub repository, which are applied with PowerShell.
Templates and storage
A new site starts small, but sites made from a template grow with use: a Project management site collects documents, an Event site collects files, a Training course site collects decks and recordings. All of them draw on the same tenant pool, and when a project finishes, the site and its files stay. The free SharePoint Storage Explorer shows which sites hold the most data, and Squirrel archives the inactive files in them into Azure Blob Storage in your own subscription while a stub stays in the library.
Frequently asked questions
What SharePoint site templates are available?
Thirteen communication site templates (Standard communication, Organization home, Department, Human resources, Leadership connection, Learning central, New employee onboarding, Brand central, Crisis management, Event, Showcase, Volunteer center and Blank), ten team site templates (Standard team, Project management, IT help desk, Event planning, Employee onboarding team, Crisis communication team, Retail management team, Store collaboration, Training course and Training design team) and two Microsoft Syntex templates.
How do I apply a site template?
Open the site, select Settings, select Apply a site template, pick a template, select Use template and then Republish.
Who can apply a SharePoint site template?
You need site owner permissions or higher.
Can I apply a template to an existing site?
Yes. The content is not merged. A new home page and new content are created, and existing pages, libraries and lists remain available in Site contents.
Can I undo a site template?
Microsoft states there is no automatic method to undo applying a site template, so test it on a new site.
Which template is best for an intranet?
Organization home is Microsoft's template for the online home of an organization with news, resources and personalized content. Standard communication is the default alternative. See SharePoint intranet.
Are SharePoint site templates free?
The Microsoft-provided templates are available from the Apply a site template menu. The two Microsoft Syntex templates, Accounts Payable and Contracts Management, need a licensed Syntex user.
How do I create my own SharePoint site template?
An administrator writes a site script in JSON, then registers it and a site template with Add-SPOSiteScript and Add-SPOSiteDesign. It then appears under From your organization in the gallery.
How many custom site templates can I have?
Up to 100 site templates and 100 site scripts per tenant.
Related reading
- SharePoint intranet - build a company portal with a home site, hubs and news.
- How to create a SharePoint site - team site or communication site.
- SharePoint hub sites - shared navigation and branding for related sites.
- How to create and edit a SharePoint page - web parts and publishing.
- SharePoint permission levels - what site owners can do.
- SharePoint Online PowerShell - the module behind the cmdlets above.
Mark Smith co-founded SmiKar Software in 2015 and has spent the past decade helping organisations solve Microsoft 365 data management challenges. He works with the SmiKar team to build solutions for SharePoint archiving, storage optimisation, governance and compliance, supporting customers from growing businesses through to Fortune 500 enterprises.
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