The SharePoint News Filmstrip layout is the visual upgrade that intranet editors have been waiting on for at least three years, and it is arriving with a second, quieter capability that may matter even more: multi-site news aggregation. Together they reset what the SharePoint News web part can do on a modern landing page.
If you have ever published a brilliant piece of internal news and watched it sink into a row of identical thumbnails, this update is for you. Microsoft is rolling out a redesigned News web part experience that gives editors a large, visually prominent format and lets them pull posts from multiple SharePoint sites into a single view. This message is associated with the SharePoint News web part roadmap.
What Is New with the SharePoint News Filmstrip Layout
The headline is simple. SharePoint News Filmstrip is a brand new layout option inside the existing News web part, sitting alongside the layouts you already know (Top story, Side by side, Carousel, List, Tiles, Hub news). What changes:
- A new visually prominent format. The SharePoint News Filmstrip layout displays news posts in a large, scrolling row built for editorial impact, not density.
- Multi-site news aggregation expanded. Editors can select multiple SharePoint sites as news sources for the same News web part. Posts from those sites are aggregated and displayed in one view.
- Permission trimming preserved. Users see only the posts they have permission to access. The aggregation respects existing SharePoint permissions, no new sharing surface is introduced.
- Optional and on by default. Both Filmstrip and multi-site aggregation are available out of the box, and editors choose when to use them.
- Existing pages untouched. Existing news configurations, permissions, and publishing workflows continue to work without changes.
If you are already revisiting your page authoring story this quarter, pair this with the refreshed SharePoint page template gallery that landed in March and April 2026. The combination is a strong moment to redesign your home page.
Why the SharePoint News Filmstrip Layout Matters
For years the SharePoint News web part has been competent but visually quiet. Editors had to pick between dense tile grids and the Carousel, which has its own usability problems. Most defaulted to whatever the page template chose for them, and the result on too many intranets has been the same: rows of small images that all look equally important, and therefore none of them do.
The SharePoint News Filmstrip layout changes the default visual hierarchy. By giving each post real estate and motion, it forces editors to think about which stories deserve the spotlight, and that is a healthy constraint for any communications team.
Multi-site news aggregation is the bigger structural change. Until now, surfacing department news on a corporate landing page meant either republishing posts (and breaking analytics) or building a custom search-driven web part. With the new multi-site source selector, the SharePoint News web part itself does the aggregation, with permission trimming baked in. For organisations running a hub-and-spoke intranet, this removes a real friction point.
How to Use the SharePoint News Filmstrip Layout
There is nothing to install and no tenant toggle. The flow is:
- Open the SharePoint page you want to edit and put it in edit mode.
- Click the News web part (or add a new one).
- Open the property pane on the right.
- Under ‘Layout’, select the new SharePoint News Filmstrip option.
- Under ‘News source’, choose ‘Select sites’ and pick the SharePoint sites whose news posts should appear.
- Configure filtering and ordering as you normally would.
- Republish the page.
If you are new to authoring pages and web parts, the comprehensive guide to setting up SharePoint pages covers the page edit basics before you reach for advanced layouts like Filmstrip.
How to Enable the SharePoint News Filmstrip Layout on a Landing Page
For a corporate landing page, the SharePoint News Filmstrip layout works best at the top of the page, as the visual hero, with no more than three or four posts at a time. Combine it with a second News web part lower down using the Tiles or List layout for older stories. That gives readers a clear hierarchy: ‘these are the stories we want you to see today, here is the rest of the archive’.
Rollout Timeline for the SharePoint News Filmstrip Layout
| Release Type | Region | Start | Expected Completion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Targeted Release | Worldwide | Early May 2026 | Mid May 2026 |
| General Availability | Worldwide | Mid May 2026 | Late June 2026 |
According to Microsoft, this should be rolling out around May and June 2026.
What Does IT Need to Know About SharePoint News Filmstrip
No Tenant Configuration Required
The SharePoint News Filmstrip layout and the expanded multi-site capability are enabled by default. There are no SharePoint admin center toggles, no PowerShell, and no policy updates to manage. Once your tenant is on the right release ring, editors will see the new layout in the property pane automatically.
Permissions Are Unchanged
The multi-site news capability respects existing SharePoint permissions. A user who cannot access a source site will not see its posts in the aggregated web part. No new audit surface is introduced, no extra Purview or DLP configuration is required.
Communication Plan
The biggest risk with this update is not technical, it is editorial. If you let every site owner switch to Filmstrip with twelve news posts the day it appears in their property pane, you will end up with landing pages that look like an airport departure board. Send a short guidance note to your site owner community before the GA wave lands.
License Check for SharePoint News Filmstrip
Any SharePoint Online plan that includes communication sites and the modern News web part. No additional license is required. The feature is part of the core SharePoint Online service across worldwide environments.
Admin Tips for the SharePoint News Filmstrip Rollout
- Audit your top ten most-visited intranet pages and decide which would benefit from Filmstrip before editors start experimenting.
- Document a house style: how many posts in a Filmstrip web part, which image aspect ratio works best, when to use Filmstrip versus the existing Top story layout.
- Use multi-site aggregation to consolidate the home page first, then evaluate whether department landing pages still need their own duplicate News web parts.
- Review intranet analytics 30 days after rollout to confirm the new layout is improving engagement, not just looking good.
The Paul-Take on SharePoint News Filmstrip
The SharePoint News Filmstrip layout will get the headlines, and it is a real improvement, but the feature I would actually optimise for is multi-site news aggregation. That one capability changes the architecture conversation for intranets. For five years I have been recommending that customers stop republishing department news on the corporate home page, and the only way to do that cleanly was to write code or accept a worse user experience. Now the platform does it natively, with permission trimming. That is a quiet win that will outlast the visual refresh.
The risk to manage is editorial discipline. Filmstrip is loud by design, and loud everywhere is the same as quiet everywhere. Pick the pages that earn it.
MVP Reference List
- Microsoft Support: Use the News web part on a SharePoint page
- Microsoft Learn: Microsoft 365 Roadmap [URL: verify exact roadmap ID before publishing]
- Related kbworks.eu: SharePoint Page Templates: New, Smarter, Easier in 2026
- Related kbworks.eu: A Comprehensive Guide to Setting Up SharePoint Pages