Ever since hub sites released, the SharePoint community divided into two. One that supported the conventional community site, while the other supported hub sites. But, here’s the deal. Just because Microsoft launched a new function doesn’t necessarily mean the existing process is bad.
Why is there an argument?
There is a dilemma among users that created the whole divide. It revolves around the simple fact that whether users should create entirely separate site collections or different subsites for different departments and projects. Separate site collections provide more control to the user. However, there is a drawback in this system.
Whenever the user creates new site collections, it provides entirely new characteristics, such as security, navigation, metadata, and branding. So, if the user has already set their navigation and security in one of the previous collections, he/she needs to repeat the same process manually all over again. This is not a practical way to work, especially when there are lots of pending projects that users need to complete. That is why users don’t usually use community sites unless they have to.
Importance of hub sites
Hub sites have come up with a unique way to solve the above problem. The objective here is not to confuse users with tons of community sites. Accounting analysts have to deal with a lot of reports every day. If they keep using community sites, they will spend most of the time changing the details of the collections. So, instead of creating these hierarchies of community sites, hub sites allow the users to create separate site collections and organize them into different hubs.
This function provides a flattened structure. Users start with a community collection and end in a hub. That means, everything they do inside the community site remains inside the hub. They can later copy or edit that hub according to the accounting reports. Users could create collections before also, but they couldn’t bring these collections together into one group. This made them change the settings of every site manually over and over again.
Hub sites are particularly helpful when there is a department restructuring or company reorganization in a specific year. The user won’t have to move sites or rebuild their navigation from scratch. All they have to do is change the existing hub and make the necessary edits.
The issue with community sites
The most significant reason why people don’t prefer using community sites is it allows them to create different levels. They are similar to complicated folder hierarchies where users could create two or three subsites. But, community sites don’t have that restriction. Users can go on to create fifty or hundreds of sites, and every time they do, they will have to change the settings manually. That’s one good way to kill time!
So, when it comes to community site and hub site, the latter wins the race by a fair distance. Users want simplified functions, and hub sites offer that facility. Moreover, it saves a lot of time that allows users to focus on other work.