Sites
1. What it is
Sites lets your organisation build internal web pages — department homepages, onboarding guides, knowledge centres, executive portals — without leaving the platform. Each page is assembled from section types (page banners, questions and answers, team members, policy links, and dozens more). Several of those sections pull live data from other apps, so the page stays current.
- Enablement: Sites requires a licence. An admin enables the app from Admin → Apps → All Apps, and it appears in the sidebar once enabled.
- What it is not: Sites is not a public website builder. Pages are for signed-in people in your organisation, scoped by the audience rules you set. Public share links exist, but they are off until an admin turns on Public share links.
2. Standing it up
- Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps, find Sites, and enable it.
- Open Sites → Admin → Settings and review the defaults. Most features are on by default, including Ask AI for readers and “In short” summaries. Turn off anything you are not ready for.
- Decide who may create sites. Who can create a site? (under Permissions) defaults to Managers and above. Admins and Sites app admins can always create sites, whatever it is set to.
- Create the first site: click New site, give it a name, and pick a Category. Then add at least one page from the site’s Manage › Pages.
- Add members. The creator is automatically the owner. Add editors (create, edit and publish pages, and change the site’s settings) or viewers (read the site while it’s a draft or limited to an audience) from the site’s Manage › Members.
- Publish the site. Until you publish, only members can see it. After publishing, everyone in the organisation can read it — unless you narrow the site’s Audience under Manage › Members, or restrict individual pages.
Publishing the site does not publish its pages. Each page is published on its own, or in bulk from the page list. A site with no published pages shows nothing to people who are not members.
3. How it fits together
Sites and pages. A site is the container. It has a name, a category, a navigation bar and members. Pages live inside a site, and each page is an ordered list of sections. A site holds up to 100 pages by default, and your organisation can have up to 50 sites.
The Pages panel. In the page editor, Pages on the left lists every page of the site: its menu as a tree, then the pages that are not in the menu. Open a page by clicking it. Drag a page, or use its ⋮ menu, to move it up or down, put it under another menu item, or add it to or take it out of the menu. The menu’s order is the site’s page order. A new page stays out of the menu until you place it, except the first page of a site, which starts the menu. Labels, links and the menu’s look are set in Navigation.
Example: a “Facilities” site (category: Department) might contain three pages — “Welcome” (Page Banner + Quick Links + Team Members), “Office Policies” (Policy Links + Questions and Answers), and “Floor Map” (Text + Image Gallery).
Section types. There are over 50 section types. Most are static: the author fills in the content (Text, Numbered Steps, Data Table, Image Gallery, Questions and Answers, Timeline, File Downloads). Others are live and read platform data each time the page is opened. Policy Links pulls published policies from Policy Hub. Team Members shows people from the org chart. Form shows a platform form. My Upcoming Events lists each reader’s own upcoming calendar events. Job Listings pulls from Job Board. Org Chart draws a department hierarchy. Wiki Page shows one published Wikis page in place.
Files from Drive. A row of File Downloads or Document Links can be a file in Drive instead of an upload or a link: use File from Drive in the section’s panel and search by file name. The row reads the file each time the page is opened, so a new version or a new name shows on the page with nothing to change there. Drive’s access still decides who gets it. A reader who can’t open the file doesn’t see the row, and a section with no rows left for them doesn’t show at all. The panel and the publish sheet warn you when some of the page’s readers can’t open a file, so you can share it in Drive first. Public share links don’t show these two sections.
Categories. A category (Team, Department, Location or site, Company-wide, Project or initiative, Knowledge base) groups sites on All sites. It does not affect who can read anything. Admins can rename, add or remove categories in Sites → Admin → Settings → Categories.
All sites. Every site you can open, grouped, each as a tile with its icon, its description and how many pages it has, how many sites are inside it and when it was last updated. A site’s icon takes the site’s own color, or its category’s color when it has none. Member and Following chips mark your sites. The search above the tiles matches every word you type in a site’s name or description, so “store handbook” finds “Store Operations Handbook”.
Page types and presentation. Each page has a Type — Content, News, Wiki, Announcement or Landing — that classifies it in search and filtering. Its Presentation sets width and spacing: Utility (full width, compact), Balanced (standard width and spacing), Editorial (generous spacing), Executive (narrow, generous spacing) or Campaign (full-bleed hero). A page uses the site default unless its author picks one in Page settings.
Member roles. Each site member has one of three roles:
- Owner — everything an editor can, plus members, the site’s audience, public sharing, and moving the site to Trash. A site must keep at least one owner.
- Editor — create, edit and publish pages, manage page settings, and change the site’s settings and navigation.
- Viewer — can read the site while it’s a draft or limited to an audience. Viewers see published pages only — not drafts — and cannot edit.
Admins and Sites app admins can do everything an owner can, across all sites.
Audience rules. By default a published site and its pages are visible to everyone. When Audience restrictions is on, an owner can narrow the whole site, and an editor can restrict a page to specific departments, locations, roles, job titles, job families, groups or people. A restricted page with no rules is visible to admins only. With Per-segment sections on, rules can also be set per section, so different readers see different parts of one page. Site members and admins always pass the site’s audience.
Page approvals — available versus required. These are two different switches, and admins often confuse them.
- Page approvals makes approval available. An editor can send a page to a named approver, who approves it, asks for changes or rejects it. A page still waiting for approval cannot be published. A page never sent for approval can still be published.
- Require approval before publishing makes approval mandatory. No page goes live — by hand, in bulk, on a schedule or through the AI assistant — until it is approved. Admins and Sites app admins can still publish without approval.
Nobody approves a request they sent, admins included. Whoever asked — or the page’s author — can Withdraw request while it is waiting.
Who can approve a page? (under Permissions) sets who may act as an approver. It defaults to Anyone with access to Sites. The Approvals tab in the sidebar shows the pending queue, badged with how many pages are waiting on you: requests you can decide (for admins and Sites app admins every request someone else sent, otherwise the pages sent to you, under Assigned to me), your own requests an approver sent back to you, and your approved pages that are ready for you to publish. The Waiting on you filter on the Approvals page lists exactly those pages. Site owners and editors also see their sites’ other pending pages under All pending, marked with who they are waiting for, but those are not counted. Your own requests that are still waiting for a decision are not counted either; they are under Sent by me.
Self-maintaining content. Policy Links, Team Members, Contact Cards, Org Chart, Form, My Upcoming Events, News Feed and Wiki Page sections are bound to live platform data. A bound section always shows the current record: a policy that is unpublished, or a person who leaves, drops out of it at once. While Self-maintaining content is on, a nightly scan compares each bound section with what it held at publish time and flags the page for its owner when a linked record changed or was removed, so they can check the words around it. Where links point at removed policies or people, an update that clears them is prepared for the page’s draft; the owner applies it and publishes, or dismisses the flag (or marks the page Still accurate).
“In short” summaries. While “In short” summaries is on, AI writes a one- or two-sentence summary and topic tags for each page when it is published. Readers see the summary above the page, marked “Written by AI”. It appears only on the published page, and only while it describes the current published version. A page where any section has its own audience never shows one, because one summary cannot match what each reader sees. Authors control it per page from the “In short” card in Page settings (see §4).
Content expiry. A page with an expiry date stops being shown to readers on that date. When Content expiry is on, it is also archived automatically. Either way, seven days before the date the page’s owner, its author if they can still edit it, the editors of the team that owns it and any extra group an admin picked are told; if none of them can be reached, the site’s owners are told instead.
Saved pages and follows. People save pages for quick access from the Saved & following tab. When Site follows and page watches is on, people can follow a site to hear about newly published pages, or choose Get page updates on a page to hear when it is updated.
Translations. When Multi-language translations is on, editors can have AI translate a page into other languages, and readers get a language switcher. A translation can be verified by a person, and is marked Needs Update when the source page changes. A translation carries its own “In short” summary, which an editor can type or correct in the translation editor. Readers of a translated page see that language’s summary or none — never the original’s. A summary a person typed is not marked “Written by AI”.
4. Running it
Choosing a starter
Open Site resources → Starter sites to browse ready-made layouts. Each card identifies a Single page or a Multi-page site with its page count. Preview a site to try its navigation in desktop or phone view. All pages also includes pages outside its menu.
Creating a page
- Open a site and click New page on its home (or choose Manage › Pages and click New page there).
- Optionally pick a page starter, then give the page a title and a Type (Content, News, Wiki, Announcement or Landing). Click Create draft page.
- Add sections. The Sites AI agent can draft a page from a plain-language description, or you can add sections yourself from the section gallery.
- Preview the page in the split-screen editor, then publish.
Importing content
From the page list’s ⋮ menu (Manage › Pages, then ⋮), choose Import a document or web page. Then pick what to build it from: upload a file (.md, .txt, .html, .pdf or .docx, up to 2 MB), give the address of a public web page (or of a PDF or Word document online), or paste text or markdown. The source is a guide to content and style, not a layout to copy. AI rebuilds it from the site’s own sections in your company theme, keeps its facts exact, and brings its key images into Site resources › Assets. The result is saved as a draft for you to review. Leave the title blank to name the page from its content.
Choose A page per topic for a long source such as a handbook: each topic becomes its own draft. On a site that has no menu yet, the first starts it and the rest go beneath it; otherwise they wait under Not in the menu in the editor’s Pages panel until you place them. A page that needs a sign-in, or one on your company’s own network, can’t be read from its address. Paste its text instead, or use the Chrome extension from the open page. You can also ask the Sites AI to “make a page from” a link, a document in Assets, or text you paste into the chat.
A page imported from a web address remembers its source. Refresh from source in the page’s ⋮ menu re-reads it. If something needs to change, it prepares an update: a banner on the page says an update is waiting, its review screen lists what changed, and you apply it to the page draft or dismiss it. While Self-maintaining content and Import a document or web page (AI) are both on, the sources of published pages are also checked weekly. An update is never applied on its own. A page captured with the Chrome extension is a snapshot of what your browser showed, so it is not refreshed.
Controlling a page’s “In short” summary
Open the page, choose Page settings from its ⋮ menu, and find the “In short” card. It shows the summary readers currently see.
- Show “In short” on this page hides or shows the summary on this page only. The summary is still written while it is hidden, because it also fills a missing link preview and search snippet.
- Write it again asks AI for a fresh summary (the button reads Write it now when the page has none). The current summary stays until the new one arrives, usually in a minute or two. The button is disabled, with the reason shown, while the page is unpublished or “In short” is turned off for your organisation.
Site owners, editors, admins and Sites app admins can use this card. To edit a translation’s summary, open that translation and change its In short field.
Approving pages
Open Approvals from the sidebar. All pending and Assigned to me show pages waiting for a decision — choose Approve, Request changes or Reject on the row, or open the page to read it first. Sent by me lists the pages you sent that are still waiting, came back, or were approved and are not published yet, with the approver’s note. Approving doesn’t publish a page: an approved page stays there until someone publishes it — Approved — ready to publish with a Publish button when you can publish it, otherwise when it’s scheduled to publish or who will publish it. Pages that came back also show on your Dashboard under Sent back to you, and approved pages you can publish under Ready to publish.
Asking readers to confirm they’ve read a page
When you publish, turn on Ask readers to confirm they’ve read it in the publish sheet, and optionally set a Confirm by date. The same switch is on the Read confirmation card in Page settings; on a live page it asks readers about the live version straight away. Everyone the page is for is asked, including people who join its audience later (a new hire, someone moving into the department): they are asked the first time they open the page, or at the next morning’s reminder, with their own Confirm by date when the page has one. A page whose audience includes a group that changes by the hour (who is on shift, who is within a distance) asks only the people it was published to. Readers see “Please confirm you’ve read this version.” with an I’ve read and understood this button, and pages still waiting on them are under Saved & following → To confirm.
Reminders arrive in the app as “Please confirm you’ve read: …”. With a Confirm by date they start two days before it; without one, the morning after publishing. They repeat every three days and stop 21 days after the date (or after publishing when there is none). Editors open Read confirmations from the page’s ⋮ menu to see who has Confirmed and who has Not yet. Remind the rest sends a reminder now to the people who haven’t confirmed and can still open the page, skipping anyone reminded in the last 12 hours. While the switch is on, each publish asks readers about the version it publishes.
Page owners and keeping pages current
In Page settings, the owner card names a Page owner — one of the site’s owners or editors — or an owning team, which must be a group whose members can all open the page. Readers see Owned by … at the foot of the published page, with the date it was last checked, or published if nobody has checked it since.
A published page that goes longer than Review pages every (days) without being published again or checked is going stale. Its owner sees a notice on the page, and it is listed under Pages that need care on the Dashboard. Mark as still accurate in the page’s ⋮ menu — or Still accurate on the notice — records the check without changing the page. The page’s owner and anyone who can edit the page can mark it.
Page purpose
Page settings → Page guidance → Purpose says what the page is for: introduce a topic, find a service, follow a procedure, find an answer, read a story, or take part. It guides the Sites AI assistant’s suggestions for the page and the update proposed when an imported page’s source changes. Infer from content works the purpose out from the page’s sections. Choosing a purpose does not rewrite the page.
Download PDF, Print and QR posters
On a published page, the ⋮ menu offers Download PDF, a PDF of the page as you read it — in your language, with the sections your audience shows you — and Print, which opens the reading layout in a new tab and your browser’s print dialog. Editors also get Print QR poster on a published page of a published site: a printable sheet with a code that opens the page after sign-in, and keeps working if the page moves to another site. A published site’s Manage menu has Print QR poster for the whole site.
Duplicating a site
Manage → Duplicate site makes a new draft site from an existing one, for editors who may also create sites. Choose the copy’s name, category and audience, and optionally Also copy members (they keep their roles and aren’t notified). Every page that isn’t archived is copied with its status, sections, audiences, menu and links between its pages. Followers, bookmarks, comments, views, version history, translations and scheduled publish dates are not copied, and read confirmations start again when a copied page is next published. The copy runs in the background: it appears in All sites when it finishes, and Background Tasks in your account menu shows its progress. The item is disabled, with the reason, at the site limit or when the site has more pages than one site may hold.
Bulk publishing or archiving
From the page list, select pages with the checkboxes, then choose Publish or Archive from the bulk action bar. Pages that still need approval are skipped during a bulk publish (unless you are an admin or Sites app admin), and the confirmation message says how many.
Viewing analytics and exporting
Go to Sites → Admin → Analytics. It shows views over time, the most-read pages, pages nobody is reading, and Content health (pages going stale or flagged for review). The AI reach card shows how often Ask AI retrieved a Sites page, how many people that reached, and which pages were retrieved most.
From the sites list, admins can choose Export CSV to download all sites, or the current filtered set.
5. Settings
All settings are at Sites → Admin → Settings, grouped into cards.
| Setting | Where | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable Sites AI agent | AI agent card | On | The AI agent that drafts and manages pages from conversation |
| Allow the AI assistant to make changes | AI agent card | On | When off, the assistant can still answer and search but cannot create, edit, publish, move or delete |
| Analytics | Features | On | View tracking and the Analytics page |
| Name individual viewers in analytics | Features | Off | Adds a Top viewers list naming who read each page |
| Page comments | Features | On | Threaded comments on pages |
| Multi-language translations | Features | On | AI page translations and the reader’s language switcher |
| Version history | Features | On | Version snapshots of each page |
| Scheduled publishing | Features | On | Set a future publish time on a draft page |
| Saved sections | Features | On | Save and reuse section designs across pages |
| SEO & sitemap | Features | On | Link-preview tags and a per-site sitemap for signed-in users |
| Public share links | Features | Off | Lets site owners create a link that opens a site’s everyone-visible pages without a login |
| Page approvals | Features | On | Makes approval available; does not make it mandatory |
| Require approval before publishing | Features | Off | No page goes live until it is approved; admins and Sites app admins can still publish |
| Audience restrictions | Features | On | Restrict sites and pages to specific people or groups |
| Per-segment sections | Features | On | Show or hide individual sections by audience |
| Ask AI for readers | Features | On | Readers ask a page or site a question, answered only from content they may see |
| “In short” summaries | Features | On | AI writes a summary and tags on each publish; readers see it as “In short” above the page. Authors can hide it or write it again for each page from the “In short” card in Page settings |
| Related pages | Features | On | A “Related pages” section at the foot of each page |
| Site follows and page watches | Features | On | Following sites and watching pages |
| Stock image search / AI image generation | AI & images | On | Image sources when editing sections |
| Import a document or web page (AI) | AI & images | On | The import screen and the weekly source check |
| Default page presentation | Site defaults | Balanced | Presentation for sites and pages that use the default |
| Content governance | Content management | On | Flags pages due for review and shows Content health on Analytics |
| Knowledge gap report | Content management | Off | Records, without names, searches and questions that found nothing |
| Self-maintaining content | Content management | On for new organisations | Flags pages when linked data changes (linked sections always show the current record) or an imported source changes, and prepares the update. Organisations set up before 4 September 2026 start with it off until an admin turns it on |
| Content expiry | Content management | Off | Archives published pages once their expiry date passes |
| Default expiry period (days) | Content management | 365 | Expiry for a page published without its own date, while Content expiry is on |
| Review pages every (days) | Content management | 180 | When an unrepublished page counts as going stale |
| Max sites / Max pages per site | Limits | 50 / 100 | Caps on sites and on pages per site |
| Max upload size (MB) | Limits | 25 | Largest file an editor can upload |
| Who can create a site? | Permissions | Managers and above | Which people may create sites |
| Who can approve a page? | Permissions | Anyone with access to Sites | Which people may act as approvers |
| Page published, New comment and @mention, Page updated, Content expiry, Site member added, Approvals and refresh requests | Notifications | On | Each notification type Sites sends |
Export and import between domains
Company admins and Sites app admins can use Sites → Admin → Settings → Export & Import to copy one, selected, or all sites as a ZIP. Browse, search, filter and sort the export table to choose sites, or explicitly choose All sites. Selections are retained across pages and filters, and the form shows how many sites and pages will be included. The destination review shows the package totals and updates the selected totals as you choose sites, then creates new drafts with copied files and remapped page links. The completed import reports the sites and pages actually created. Existing destination content and app settings stay unchanged. Source-specific connections and restricted audiences are reviewed in Finish setup; saved templates and translations remain private until explicitly released. Public sites receive a new share link after publication. See the Sites FAQ for limits, privacy and recovery.
6. More help
- Sites FAQ — specific setup and operating questions, limits and troubleshooting
- Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Sites from these articles.