Over the past 12 months, Microsoft have been steadily increasing the scope of the Modern UI for SharePoint. The reach and maturity of the Modern UI and it’s accompanying Development Framework has extended to the point whereby we are making the switch from “classic” to “modern” SharePoint. I know that Microsoft state that:

We’re not deprecating the “classic” experience, both “classic” and “modern” will coexist.

but it is hard to really believe that “classic” SharePoint will remain in the long-term. A key driver for us is that modern sites are the only type available to Groups and Teams and we believe that Teams is the future of collaboration in Office 365. Therefore as part of our drive to Groups and Teams we need to modernize our existing templates. As part of this drive I have been working on a definition of modernity for sites.

Determining ‘modernity’

We consider new sites to be Modern when:

• Automated provisioning creates the site using the “GROUP” modern team site template
• The welcome (home) page uses a modern page
• Customizations are applied using the SharePoint Framework and Office PnP
• Associated sub-sites are modern
• List and libraries use the “New experience” by default

We consider pages to be Modern when:

• Pages can be created using the “modern” page functionality through the “Site Pages” feature
• Pages cannot be not creating using Publishing or Wiki features
• The SharePoint Framework and Office PnP is used for customization

We consider our own apps to be Modern when:

• They are created using and compatible with the SharePoint Framework and Office PnP

We consider sub-sites to be Modern when:

• They are successfully transformed from a classic sub site to a modern team site
• The welcome (home) page uses a modern page

We consider existing sites to be Modern when:

• List and libraries use the “New experience” by default
• Pages can be created using “modern” page functionality through the “Site Pages” feature
• Pages cannot be not creating using Publishing or Wiki features
• The welcome (home) page uses a modern page
• Customizations are applied using the SharePoint Framework and Office PnP
• Our own included apps are modern

We consider the Tenant to be Modern when:

• User initiated site creation results in the creation of Modern sites
• List and libraries use the “New experience” by default
• Comments are disabled in Site Pages as Yammer is our preferred solution for comments