Building a Policy Center with PnP Modern Search

A policy center is a single view of (policies) rolled up from any site. It’s search-driven and based on a democratized content management approach. On of the massive benefits of a (Policy) Canter is the fact that it aggregates and groups all information in a certain space.

Steps to consider to build up the Center:

1. Create a Policy Content Type (that inherits from an interstitial <Company> Document Content Type in the Content Type Hub; use these fields: Name, Title, Effective Date, Expiration Date, Owner(s), Applies To (Managed Metadata), Application (Managed Metadata).
2. Add custom Site Colums to privde additional / useful metadata
3. Create a Policies library in each site where you need to store policies and enable the Policy Content Type
4. Add contentin at lest on e library with metadata values set
5. Map site colums you’d like to use for filters in the Policy center to Managed Properties (RefinableStringXX)
6. Create a PnP Modern Search driven page for the Policy Center
7. Upload (more) policies

These four building blocks are needed to build the Center page:

1. Search Box
2. Search Verticals
3. Search Results: simple query {searchTerms} SPContentType:Policy and Managed Properties (such as RefinableStringXX), connected to Search Filters and Search Verticals webparts
4. Search Filter

Compliance matters: think about review processes and the Policy’s lifecycle. Use a consistent navigation structure across all sites that have a Policies library that store the Policies (e.g. always include the Policy library in the primary navigation bar, add the Policy center as a Bookmark in M365 Search).

Make it an “experience” that tells the user(s) how to use it: include documentation, use text blocks to introduce the functionality or give short guidelines.