Microsoft has officially announced Hub Sites via the Office 365 Message Centre, the first real news since Ignite in 2017. Hub Sites are designed to dynamically connect closely release sites, bring together similar projects, manage related assets and present activities in a single place.

Hub Sites address one of the big pieces of the puzzle when it comes to building a modern SharePoint environment. Modern Communication and Team sites can be associated with a Hub Site, providing a way to present content from these sites in a single place.

• Roll up news from Communication sites
• Consolidated view of site activities from associated sites
• Search scoped to the sites associated with the Hub Site
• Display ‘site cards’ similar to the SharePoint home page (click SharePoint from the Office 365 App Launcher)

Sites that are associated with a Hub Site can inherit configuration including:

• Navigation
• Theme
• Logo

Some additional details of Hub Sites is included in the FAQ’s and Hub Sites blog comments:

• Hub Sites can’t be associated with other Hub Sites
• Hub Sites are create by a SharePoint Admin
• Site Owners can join a Modern Team or Communication site to a Hub Site
• You can unjoin from one Hub Site and join another easily
• Permissions do not flow down from Hub Sites
• News cannot be filtered. All News rolls up at this stage
• The SharePoint Mobile App will be updated to support Hub Sites

There isn’t much documentation on Hub Sites available yet, but Microsoft are set to release new resources over the next few weeks including general documentation for setup and configuration, along with intranet strategy and planning resources. This documentation is general released at the same time the feature starts rolling out.

The new capabilities Hub Sites bring to SharePoint Online will encourage more organisations to consider Modern SharePoint over Classic.

This Webinar by Mark Kashman, is a great overview of Hub Sites

Hub Sites are due to start rolling out at the end of March 2018 with all organisations having this feature by the end of May 2018.