Building a Hub Site Explorer using the Lightning Conductor
Why use the Lightning Conductor?
SharePoint’s native navigation does not provide a consolidated, data-centric view of your Hub architecture. While you can navigate between sites, it is difficult to view a list of all Hub Sites and immediately see which sites are associated with them without navigating away. The pre-built ones already provided are extremely limited and don’t offer any ways to customise them.
The Lightning Conductor solves this by leveraging its powerful aggregation capabilities to query your entire tenant instantly. This allows you to build a tool where users can select a Hub Site and immediately see a rollup of all associated sites on the same page without using code. While creating this level of interactivity would typically require hiring a full-time developer to build a custom solution, the Lightning Conductor allows you to configure it in minutes using the steps below.
Part 1: Configuring the Hub Selector (Provider)
The goal of this instance is to list all Hubs and provide the selected results to the second Lightning Conductor instance.
1. Add a Lightning Conductor to the page and open the Configure dialog.
2. Data Source Tab:
○ Rollup Engine: Select Search Rollup Engine.
○ Result Source: Leave as Local SharePoint Results.
○ Query: Enter contentclass:sts_site IsHubSite:true.
○ Reason: This specific search query filters the results to ensure only sites designated as "Hubs" are returned.
3. Columns Tab:
○ Select the columns you wish to display (e.g., Title, Path).
○ Crucial Step: Ensure the SiteId column is selected. It does not need to be visible in the view, but it must be available for the connection to work.
4. Display Tab:
○ Tick the checkbox for Allow Row Selection.
○ Reason: This enables the "Provider" functionality, allowing the web part to send the data of the row you click to other web parts.
Part 2: Configuring the Associated Sites (Consumer)
The goal of this instance is to list sites, but wait for a filter command from the Hub Selector.
1. Add a second Lightning Conductor to the page.
2. Data Source Tab:
○ Rollup Engine: Select Search Rollup Engine.
○ Result Source: Leave as Local SharePoint Results.
○ Query: Enter contentclass:sts_site.
○ Reason: This query looks for all sites. We will filter them dynamically in the next steps.
3. Columns Tab:
○ Click Add Managed Property (top right of the grid).
○ Add: DepartmentId and RelatedHubSites.
○ Note: You do not need to check the display boxes for these columns; they just need to be present for the filter logic.
Part 3: Connecting the Web Parts
Now we link the two instances so the second one filters based on the first one.
1. In the second Lightning Conductor (Associated Sites), go to the Display tab and click the Advanced Filtering icon (the funnel). Make sure it’s set to an Or Operator.
2. Configure the First Condition (DepartmentId):
○ Column: Select DepartmentId.
○ Operator: Select Contains.
○ Value: Click the Plug Icon to the right of the value box.
■ Choose Data Source: Select Lightning Conductor (Instance 1/Hub Sites).
■ Lightning Conductor Properties: Select Selected Items.
■ Selected Items Properties: Select SiteId.
3. Configure the Second Condition (RelatedHubSites):
○ Column: Select RelatedHubSites.
○ Operator: Select Contains.
○ Value: Repeat the Plug Icon steps exactly as above (DataSource: LC1 -> Selected Items -> SiteId).
Why this logic?
This tells the second web part: "Show me any site where the Department ID or RelatedHubSites matches the Site ID of the Hub I just clicked on."
How to use the solution
Once you have saved the page:
1. The first web part will load a list of your Hub Sites.
2. Click a row in the first web part (the Hub Selector).
3. The page will refresh the second web part to display only the sites associated with that specific Hub.
Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions, we would be more than happy to help.