@williambaer At the center of collaboration is the site and modern Team Site in Office 365 are core to discovering and showcasing the most relevant and important information to you and your business. While SharePoint Online in Office 365 is an attractive alternative to on-premises business solutions with SharePoint. You might want to or need to deploy specific solutions in the cloud while still maintaining your on-premises investments or gradually move to cloud using a staged, workload-driven approach. Hybrid scenarios with Office 365 and SharePoint on-premises allow you to bring the cloud to your business while bringing the business to the cloud. Today we’re pleased to announce the availability of hybrid self-service site creation for customers of SharePoint Server 2013. New hybrid self-service site creation allows SharePoint administrators to direct users site creations requests to Office 365. This new hybrid capability allows administrators of SharePoint Server 2013 to have the option to enable their existing or new Self-Service Site Creation flow redirect users to SharePoint Online to create a Group (with an associated Team Site). SharePoint administrators can turn this feature on or off on the Self-service Site Collection Management page, accessible from SharePoint 2013 Central Administration. This capability is included in the March 2017 Public Update available later today. Download the March 2017 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2013 at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt715807(v=office.16).aspx#BKMK_2013. New with the March 2017 Public Update for SharePoint Server 2013 is the option to Create Site Collections in SharePoint Online as illustrated above. When selecting this option any hybrid user that goes to the Self-service Site Creation page (/_layouts/15/scsignup.aspx) will be redirected to SharePoint Online Group creation, and will be able to create a Group and associated Team Site in the Cloud using the new modern group creation flow. Hybrid users are defined through inclusion in one or more audiences as configured when enabling the hybrid sites feature in SharePoint Server 2013. To learn more about hybrid sites and audiences see also https://support.office.com/article/5ff7e56a-7af2-4511-adec-1e043afe244e. For on-premises only users, or those excluded from the hybrid audience as described above, they will still be able to use the existing On-Premise Self-service Site Creation experience. In addition to the configuration options available directly through SharePoint 2013 Central Administration, there will also be entry points to the configuration page through a one-time Central Administration alert box and from the Hybrid Picker in Office 365. [office src=“https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=DB2A854820FFC537&resid=DB2A854820FFC537%2167777&authkey=ADeAzqOAfBbh-2I" width=“320” height=“180”] The cloud is no longer a luxury—it’s central to a mobile, modern workplace—and Office 365 brings the cloud to you, on your terms and across SharePoint and OneDrive we’re constantly working to help you take advantage of the power of Office 365. Kick start the journey to the cloud with hybrid self-service site creation today.

Resources

Learn more about hybrid scenarios across Office 365 at http://hybrid.office.com/. Download the hybrid scenarios pocket guide with SharePoint and Office 365 at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=842608. Get more information on implementing hybrid scenarios with SharePoint and Office 365 at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Hybrid-4c89a95a-a58c-4fc1-974a-389d4f195383.

FaQ

**Q: ** Will this feature be available to SharePoint Server 2016? **A: ** Yes.  In H2 CY2017 we’ll make available hybrid self-service site creation to customers of SharePoint Server 2016.  In the near term you can continue to deploy the hybrid sites feature as an interim solution.  To learn more about hybrid sites see also https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-hybrid-sites-and-search-5ff7e56a-7af2-4511-adec-1e043afe244e.