A content type associates a data element (folder, list item, document, and so on) within SharePoint with key metadata or other information such as a template (e.g MoM.docx) or a retention policy. Content types are defined for a site and applied to that site.

With a focus on overall organisation governance, there is a need to use organisation-wide content types on multiple sites, and across site collections. Because content types include metadata, content types and metadata are very closely linked. A Managed Metadata service in SharePoint makes it possible to publish a content type to sites where the organisation-wide content type has been included in the site’s document library. this defines the site as a “subscriber site”, and now we have arrived at the “Modernized Content Type Hub”.

Content Type Hub from push to pull

if you have read my blog post “Microsoft Project Nucleus is alive!” we see that Microsoft is working on reducing process time in the M365 platform. By changing the push of content types from the hub to all site collections in the tenant to the design decision that the sites themselves pulling the content types that they are using on the site reduces the time it takes for a content type to be distributed to the correct sites.

I believe this is a good design decision but I am looking forward to the full modern experience without jumping back and forth between modern and classic when working with the content types and metadata that is assigned to them.

There is also one other issue that hopefully will be resolved in December 2021 or early January 2022, Microsoft has not released the possibility to add content types from the hub into sites by scripting yet. This requires that there is a manual process of adding content types to sites that have been provisioned from templates. So fingers crossed!