Microsoft Teams and SharePoint offer great ways for departments and project teams to work together. A team site can be based on a template, and thus each project team site can have the same layout. That is usually reasonable easy when creating the team sites. However, if along the way, we decide to update the template, the existing sites do not automatically receive these changes. Also, specific elements like roles and permissions on the site and the lists and libraries will not be part of a Microsoft template.

This became very clear when we developed a larger solution for a company that wanted to have a team site for each of his customers. Over 2,000 team sites had to be created and maintained. All sites should have the same structure.

For that reason, we created our SiteCare tool. This tool enables a company to manage all sites based on a template site. Changes in the template can be replicated to all the connected sites easily. New document types will be synchronized from the content hub site and, using SiteCare, can be added to the proper lists or document libraries, including their views.

SiteCare is a great tool to keep all your project sites in sync. Employees that work in more than one project, will find their way more easily because every team site has the same set up. Ideas for improvement can be communicated to the template owner and, after proper discussions and decision, can be added to the template site and replicated to all the project sites.