Sharepoint “News” Web Part – Delivering Management Message at the Right Time

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One of many company management’s challenges is delivering key messages down to the middle managers and staff in the most efficient and effective manner. Many companies still go through the pains of printing out memos and distributing them to each person in the company. The memo, either ending in the trash, the shredder, or the scratch paper bin, gets disregarded and ignored.

For companies using Sharepoint or for those with existing Sharepoint IT Company partners, the good news is teams can be kept in the loop through a simple additional page to a site by customizing the web parts. Remember that web parts are like little building blocks of the page. In websites, they are like plug-ins. Adding the “News” web part to the company site is one approach the sharepoint developer can take to answer the challenge of management as stated earlier. One can easily create eye-catching and sticky posts like articles about a new department or a newly hired director, announcements of new company benefits, announcements for top performers and other combinations of graphics and rich text formats which can be highly customized, depending on the audience and the type of messaging to be delivered.

If you’re already managing or administering the Sharepoint instance of your company, simply follow the quick steps below:

  1. Click Edit at the top right corner of the page you wish to add the “News” section in.
  2. Hover your mouse to the area where you’d like to add the News section (should be on top of or below an existing web part) and click the plus (+) symbol.
  3. A search box will appear so you can find the web part you want to add. Easily search for “News” and you will find the icon which appears like a Newspaper. Simply add it.

You can change the News Layout to look like a professional News site with a preview of the first story. This layout is called “Top Story”. Another layout is the “List” layout which is a simpler view with all the news stacked one on top of another. It’s best to add images to each news story to it appears more enticing and upbeat.  There are several other layouts which can be customized depending on the objective and goals of the news section. There’s a Communication Site layout, or a Hub News layout.

If you’re not yet familiar with this web part, best to consult a Sharepoint IT Company or your current Sharepoint developer to help you implement this important and exciting function to help your management deliver the right messages at the right time.