If you want to put together news articles from site pages within your site collection, the Site News connection type has got you covered. Let us walk you through the steps on how this can be done using ShortPoint.

Note: If you want to connect to news posts and news links from within your site collection or a specific site collection within your organization’s tenancy, please read the article on Site News connection type. And if you want to present news articles from site pages associated with a hub site, please check out the article on Hub News connection type.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Prerequisites:
• Step 1: Insert or edit a ShortPoint Design Element
• Step 2: Choose Site News connection type
• Step 3: Complete connection type fields
• Step 4: Hit Connect and map items

Prerequisites

• You need to have ShortPoint installed or upgraded to ShortPoint SPFx version 7.3.x.xx or later on Microsoft Office 365 (SharePoint Online) or SharePoint 2019 environment.
• You need to be a ShortPoint User with an active license.
• You also need to have at least Read permissions to connect to your organization’s site collections. For more information, check our FAQ article: What permissions are required to be able to view news posts and links that are dynamically inserted using any of the ShortPoint News connection types?

Step 1: Insert or edit a ShortPoint Design Element

Begin by going into edit mode. Insert the Design Element you want to use from ShortPoint Page Builder or click the cogwheel settings icon on a Design Element you want to edit.

Here we are editing an existing Slideshows Design Element on the page:

Step 2: Choose Site News connection type

Once the Design Element settings window is opened, go to the Connect tab and press the Site News connection type.

Step 3: Complete connection type fields

For Site News connection, you will be asked to identify the news source and specific sites you want your news to come from. Other fields are also provided to enable the formatting of your news items and how you want them displayed.

Source

A dropdown with the 3 following choices will be available:

1. News from Current Site Collection

Allows you to search for news from the site pages library of the site collection where your SharePoint page currently resides.

When you select this option, an additional field will appear asking you if you wish to connect to the News from entire Site Collection including all subsites or select sites listed in the dropdown.

2. News from Other Sites

This option allows you to connect to a different site collection within your SharePoint tenancy.

You will have to select from the available list the Site Collection where you want your news to be taken from. You will then be able to choose if you want to pull News from entire Site Collection including all subsites or any of the sites listed in the dropdown.

3. News from SharePoint Site URL

You can also directly insert the URL of the site collection you wish to get your news information from.

Enter a URL in the Site URL field and click the Fetch Sites button. Once you have connected successfully, you can choose from the Site field dropdown if you want to get News from entire Site Collection including all subsites or any of the sites that are listed.

Note: Connecting with the News from entire Site Collection (All subsites) option will use SharePoint Search and bring all news pages from the site. News results may not always be updated as it is subject to SharePoint Search crawl.

Item Limit

Enter a number in the Item Limit field to specify the number of news items you want to be displayed on your intranet page.

Select column to sort

Quickly sort news Title, Date Created, Last Modified, and Author by picking from the options available in the Select column to sort field. You can choose to sort them in ascending or descending order.

Default Image

Assign an image that will be displayed on your page when the news post or link you are pulling does not have an associated image. You can select from your image library or enter a URL.

Date/Time Format

Customize how the date and time of your news posts or links will be displayed by entering your preferred format tokens. We have a support article you can refer to on How to Use Custom Date and Time Formats with ShortPoint Design Elements.

Use Cases

A Use Case is an automatic filter functionality that produces the most common outputs required by ShortPoint users. Press the Use Case button that fits what you want to achieve on your page.

Check out more information from our support article on Getting Started with Use Cases.

Some Use Cases may require additional Use Case Parameters such as the Latest Date field in our example below. Default values will appear for the Use Case and the parameters will automatically be applied. You can modify this and enter your preferred parameters. Hit the Parameters Not Applied button to apply them.

Note: You can use Placeholders as your Use Case Parameters. Check out our support article on How To Use Placeholders In Connections.

Step 4: Hit Connect and map items

When you have configured where you are connecting to pull your news items and configured settings, you can proceed to establish the connection by pressing the Connect button.

Next, go to the Items tab and map the items you want to display on your page.

Note: You can check out our ShortPoint Connect: Basic Tutorial article to learn more about items mapping.

Here, we have an example of how we mapped the news items properties to display on our Slideshows. Notice that for news images, you now have the option to choose between thumbnail, medium, large image sizes.

Lastly, hit the Preview button if you want to check how your news items will be presented on your page.

Step 5: Insert and Save

We have reached the last step. When you are ready and satisfied with how your news items display on your page, you can click the Insert or Update button. Proceed to hit Save to ensure your changes are stored.

Your Design Element is now set up to show news articles from your designated site. What a wonderful new feature to have at your fingertips with ShortPoint.

Related articles:

• Connection Type: Hub News
• Connection Type: Organization News
• Getting Started with Use Cases
• How To Use Placeholders In ShortPoint Connections
• ShortPoint Connect: Basic Tutorial
• What permissions are required to be able to view news posts and links that are dynamically inserted using any of the ShortPoint News connection types?