European Sharepoint 2013 Hosting Blog
Articles about European Sharepoint Hosting Service
Remote PowerShell Execution For SharePoint On-Premises
Jun 20th
We all know PowerShell is mostly used by SharePoint admins to manage their servers in a farm. SharePoint admins perform many activities as part of the SharePoint administration. In this article, we will learn how to execute remote PowerShell commands from one server on a remote server.
Why do we need this remote execution of PowerShell script?
- Managing multiple servers and running a command on every server individually is time-consuming.
- Centralized server (one server) to run a script on all remote servers gives more control over process.
- Prevents uneccessary access to all servers.
- Tighter and secure environment.
- Single script to run on one machine and updating multiple servers at once.
Use case
For the sake of the article, we will take an example on how to deploy WSP from client to SharePoint Server A.
Setup Remote Server
Check if WINRM service is started and running. Go to services.msc and see if Windows Remote Management (WS-Management) service is running.
Enable PowerShell Remoting. Run the below command in PowerShell (as administrator).
|
1 |
Enable-PSRemoting |
Enable Server as Remote server. Run the below command in PowerShell (as administrator).
|
1 |
Enable--Role Server |
Run the below 2 commands one after another.
|
1 |
winrm/config/‘@{MaxShellsPerUser=”}’ winrm/config/‘@{MaxMemoryPerShellMB=”}’ |
Notes
- Firewall rule must be enabled to allow communication with the server.
- Ensure the user has permission to SharePoint content database.
Setup Up Client machine
Enable PowerShell Remoting. Run the below command in PowerShell (as administrator).
|
1 |
Enable-PSRemoting |
Enable Client. Run the below command in PowerShell (as administrator).
|
1 |
Enable--"Client" -"server2.contoso.com" -Force |
We have configured the client to run remote commands on any remote server.
Run commands from the client machine.
Get user credentials and store in variables.
|
1 |
$= ConvertTo-"your password" -- $= New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential("username",$password) |
Enable SSP and Get Session object to enter to remote server.
|
1 |
$s=new--ComputerName serverA -authentication -$cred |
Run command via -ScriptBlock attributes. Using script block, you can run multiple commands at once on a remote server.
|
1 |
Invoke--$-{Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell;Update-SPSolution -Identity yourfile.wsp -LiteralPath "C:\Program Files (x86)\(location of your file)...\yourfile.wsp" -GacDeployment} |
Now, enter the session of the remote server.
|
1 |
Enter--$s |
On successfully running this, it will run all the invoke commands on the remote server. Go to the server and check if WSP is updated.
Using the Invoke-Command method, you can run any command available and it will execute in the remote server.
Examples of other commands.
Summary
In this article, we have learned how to enable remote execution of PowerShell script on SharePoint server and in an example, deployed WSP rom the client to a SharePoint Server.
SharePoint 2013 Hosting – HostForLIFE.eu :: SharePoint Column Formatting: Display A Single line Of Text As Hyperlink
Jun 13th
In this article, we will see how we can make a single line of text column’s values be displayed as a hyperlink with icon and how to create a dynamic href. Suppose you have an email field in your list which is a single line of text. Single line of text values will be displayed as normal text in SharePoint modern views.
Scenario Suppose you have custom list name ‘Xyz’ and it has one column named ‘Email’ which is a single line of text (due to business requirements you have not chosen to use people and group or you are storing some external user’s email id in this column). Now when you see this in Default list view it would be displayed like below.
Now you need to make this Email column values clickable so that on click it opens an email client new mail window with ‘To’ field pre-populated. We will have to just customize this field to display it as anchor tag with href set to mailto:’brucewayne@gmail.com’.
We have 2 options to achieve this:
- Using SPFx extension Field customizer
- Using Column Formatting option
The first one would need you to create a package and write custom code, so here we will use the second option using the Column formatting option.
Microsoft has introduced column and view formatting to let us control how default list views are displayed. We won’t be able to change the value of fields but we will be able to change its formatting. Now let us see how can we achieve this.
Go to List Settings -> Edit Column ‘Email’ – Find option Column formatting,
Add the below Json inside text area.
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 |
{ "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/column-formatting.schema.json", "elmType": "div", "children": [ { "elmType": "a", "style": { "padding-right": "8px" }, "txtContent": "@currentField", "attributes": { "target": "_blank", "href": { "operator": "+", "operands": [ "mailto:", "@currentField", "?subject=Wonder women here&body=Hey ", "[$Title]", "\nJust checking, if you have saved the world?.\r\n---\r\n", "\r\nClick this link for more info. http://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/ConferencePrep/Tasks/Prep/DispForm.aspx?ID=", "[$ID]" ] } } }, { "elmType": "a", "attributes": { "target":"_blank", "iconName": "Mail", "class": "sp-field-quickActions", "href": { "operator": "+", "operands": [ "mailto:", "@currentField", "?subject=Wonder women here&body=Hey ", "[$Title]", "\nJust checking, if you have saved the world?\r\n---\r\n", "\r\nClick this link for more info. http://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/ConferencePrep/Tasks/Prep/DispForm.aspx?ID=", "[$ID]" ] } } } ] } |
Click Ok and go back to view and refresh the page, you should see the below.
On click of link it will open a new mail window (based on your default client configuration) with To, Subject and body field populated.
Below is what we get in anchor tag for the first item
mailto:brucewayne@gmail.com?subject=Wonder women here&body=Hey Batman%0D%0AJust checking, if you have saved the world?.%0D%0A—%0D%0A%0D%0AClick this link for more info. http://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/ConferencePrep/Tasks/Prep/DispForm.aspx?ID=1
If you look closely the Json we have used hass some placeholders to place dynamic values of list item.
brucewayne@gmail.com – comes from @currentField
Batman – comes from [$Title]
1 – comes from [$ID]
In a similar way we can use any column values using the format [$<ColumnName>]
If we know how to format this Json, we can do wonders…there are some great examples on microsoft docs.
I will try to explain some basic structure based on our example for understanding.
- The first – “elmType”: “div” – Here we are saying that we need the element to be rendered as div
- Now within this div, we will create 2 children of type anchor tag (one for email and one for icon) – yes, this could have been done in a single anchor tag but I wanted to understand how it works so I kept 2 childrens both childrens “elmType”: “a” is anchor(a is html tag)
- For the first one we are having attribute “txtContent”: “@currentField” – This tells it to render text inside anchor tag as value of current field.
- Then we have ‘attributes’ – it is Json because we are setting different attributes like target and href.
- Within href we are using again using json object as we need to concate some values, hence ‘operator’ is ‘+’ and operands are array of values with static text and dynamic values(from other columns in list item).
- Values within array are separated by comma, a typical javascript array.
- As explained before some of fields like $Title, $ID are being used to create href link.
- href could have been built by simply using ‘+’ operator like below,
“href”: “=’http://finance.yahoo.com/quote/’ + @currentField”
Summary – This article will give you a basic start on using the column formatting feature. This can be really helpful to style columns values without any customizatoin and it will work for all the OOTB views. If you are really into what operators, expressions and elm and other attributes are supported, refer to the Json schema.
SharePoint 2013 Hosting – HostForLIFE.eu :: Export Import Content Types In SharePoint Online Using PowerShell
May 23rd
In SharePoint, we have lists and libraries for collaboration purposes. The lists and libraries contain a huge number of columns.
For better understanding and reusability, these are grouped in content types.
Content types are, hence, reusable collections of metadata which can be attached to any list or library. They help us to organize and handle the data in a better and more efficient way.
There are 2 types of content types.
- Site Content types
This is present in the root level of the site which can be used by subsequent subsites and lists/ libraries. - List Content types
These are associated with lists and libraries and are a subset of site content types.
Let’s take an example where content types are required.
Suppose, we have an Employee site which contains list like EmployeeData, HREmployeeData, FinanceEmployeeData, EmployeeDocuments, HRDocuments.
In this case, as we can see for EmployeeData and HR EmployeeData, we can have similar columns related to employees (For example, Firstname, Lastname, Ph Number, Address). So, here there are 2 possibilities.
- We can either create a parent content type as Employee(which contains basic Employee details). Then, create HREMPContenttype and EMPContentype which will inherit from Employee.
- Or, we can create a content type Employee and add that in the 2 lists. Then, add additional columns for the respective list.
Same goes for documents as well.
Now comes a situation where we need the same content types or a few of them in a separate site.
In on-premise, we have a content type hub for publishing the content type to be used across multiple locations. But, in SP Online we do not have the feature.
There is an option to export and import content type.
In the below PowerShell CSOM code, we can export the content type in XML file and use in the respective sites as required.
|
1 |
//We need to refer to the DLLs first, Add - Type - Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll" Add - Type - Path "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll" $URL = Read - Host - Prompt "Enter URL"– - URL of your online site. $User = Read - Host - Prompt "Enter User"– - YOUR inline username $siteURL = $URL $userId = $User $pwd = Read - Host - Prompt "Enter password" - AsSecureString--password $creds = New - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($userId, $pwd) //Read the SharePoint site content $ctx = New - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteURL) $ctx.credentials = $creds try { $OutPutLocation = "C:\Powershell"– Give your respective file location to store xml files $web = $ctx.Web $contenttypes = $web.ContentTypes; --This line gives the content types presemt in the site. $fileName = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($OutPutLocation, "content-types.xml") Write - Host "Starting content type export to $fileName" - ForegroundColor Green $ctx.load($contenttypes) $ctx.executeQuery() $GroupName = "Discussion" //Here it iterates through all content types and store the data in xml file $contenttypes | ForEach - Object { #if ($_.Group - eq $GroupName) { Write - Host - ForegroundColor Blue $_.Name Add - Content $fileName $_.SchemaXml # } } Add - Content $fileName "</ContentTypes>" } catch { write - host "$($_.Exception.Message)" - foregroundcolor red } |
Please store the DLLs in respective ISAPI folder before proceeding with the code.
Similarly, we can import the respective content types to a destination site collection using the below script.
|
1 |
- - "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll" - - "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll" $= "C:\powershell\content-types.xml" $= - - "Enter URL" $= - - "Enter User" $= $ $= $ $= - - "Enter password" - $= - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($userId, $pwd) $= - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteURL) $ctx.= $ $= $ctx. $ctx.executeQuery() $= [xml](- Content($xmlFilePath)) # get content types from xml path $ctsXML.ContentTypes.ContentType | ForEach - Object { $SPContentType = New - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContentType($_.ID, $destWeb.ContentTypes, $_.Name) $SPContentType.Group = $_.Group # loop through each content type and add them. $_.Fields.Field | ForEach - Object { if (!$spContentType.FieldLinks[$_.DisplayName]) { #Create a field link for the Content Type by getting an existing column $spFieldLink = New - Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldLink($destWeb.Fields[$_.DisplayName]) # Check to see if column should be Optional, Required or Hidden if ($_.Required - eq "TRUE") { $spFieldLink.Required = $true } if ($_.Hidden - eq "TRUE") { $spFieldLink.Hidden = $true } #Add column to Content Type $spContentType.FieldLinks.Add($spFieldLink) } } #Create Content Type on the site and update Content Type object $ct = $destWeb.ContentTypes.Add($spContentType) $spContentType.Update() write - host "Content type" $ct.Name "has been created" } $destWeb.Dispose() |
SharePoint 2013 Hosting – HostForLIFE.eu :: The Generic REST Library CRUD Operation in SharePoint
May 16th
For one of my clients, I was working on developing custom forms to interact with SharePoint lists and document libraries.
In that project, there were so many forms to be developed. So, I decided to develop one generic library that can be reused to perform operations using REST API.
The aim of this library is to create a generic set of methods as well, keeping one thing in mind that it should be enhanced easily to include more features.
In this library, there are a total 4of four files.
ListManager.js
This file is used to specify list columns we are working with.
ListUtility.js
This file contains all generic methods.
Main.js
Use this file to write application logic. This will be the main file referenced in our page, the rest of the files are loaded from Main.js itself.
Utility.js
It can be used to specify constants as well as utility methods.
I have also provided detailed information and instructions in attached zip file.
SharePoint 2013 Hosting – HostForLIFE.eu :: Find All Lists And Libraries Using Infopath In SharePoint
May 9th
InfoPath is one of the most popular and widely used forms design and development solution that developers and IT consultants use alike, primarily across on-premise versions. However, there are no direct out-of-the-box means of identifying lists/libraries using InfoPath.
Once again, PowerShell comes to the rescue. Using a simple PowerShell, we can easily identify the lists/libraries using InfoPath Forms. We can extend it and generate a report out of it as well.
This script can identify all the lists and libraries that use InfoPath. This can be useful for scenarios like –
- Identify lists using InfoPath to consider them for replacement with other solutions like Nintex Forms, K2 SmartForms, etc.
- Convert/Re-engineer InfoPath forms to PowerApps
- Generate a report containing lists using InfoPath form, and replace them with CSOM designs
- User Profile service embedded in InfoPath works differently in SharePoint 2016 than that of SharePoint 2010. A report of all InfoPath enabled list/library will be beneficial to perform the fix.
The Script
|
1 |
######################################### #### Infopath Usage Identifier #### #### Scope - Site Collection #### #### Input - Site Collection URL #### ######################################### $siteCollectionURL = "http://sharepoint.devbox.com/sites/mysitecollection" if((Get-PSSnapin | Where {$_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"}) -eq $null) { Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell; } try { $mySite = Get-SPSite -Identity $siteCollectionURL $myWebs = Get-SPWeb -Site $mySite -Limit All $results = @() foreach ($myWeb in $myWebs) { Write-Host "Looking in WEB: " $myWeb.Url -ForegroundColor Green foreach ($myList in $myWeb.Lists) { if ($myList.ContentTypes[0].ResourceFolder.Properties["_ipfs_infopathenabled"] -eq $true) { Write-Host "Found this list using Infopath - " $myList.Title -ForegroundColor Blue $RowDetails = @{ "Site Collection" = $siteCollectionURL "Web" = $myWeb "List Name" = $myList.Title "List URL" = $myList.DefaultViewUrl } $results += New-Object PSObject -Property $RowDetails } } $myFileName = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") + "\InfopathDependencyFinder-SiteCollectionScope-" + (Get-Date).ToString('MM-dd-yyyy') + ".csv" $results | export-csv -Path $myFileName -NoTypeInformation } Write-Host "---------------------Completed--------------------------" -ForegroundColor Green } catch { $ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message Write-Host $ErrorMessage } |
The key here is the line below,
- $myList.ContentTypes[0].ResourceFolder.Properties[“_ipfs_infopathenabled”] -eq $true
This snippet above checks if the Content Type’s Resource Folder metadata has the InfoPath property – InfoPath Forms Services (_ipfs_infopathenabled) activated on it.
This script runs against site collection, but it can be very easily extended to run across subsite level or even list/library level.
Usage
The script returns the InfoPath lists/libraries below details
- Site,
- Web,
- List/Library Name,
- List/Library URL where the form is deployed
The output is in the form of a CSV file which can be very easily be converted into a .xlsx file for further processing and reporting.
SharePoint 2013 Hosting – HostForLIFE.eu :: Get Site Collection From Web Application
Apr 25th
We can get the subsites under the site using CSOM easily but if we need to get all the site collections under a specific web application from a SharePoint farm, then we can’t get it directly. For that, we have to use SharePoint search. By using SharePoint Search, we set the “KeywordQuery” to filter and get the site collections. Before using the code block, we should ensure that the SharePoint Search Service Application is running and active.
The code block for this is mentioned below.
In this blog, I have explained how you can get all the site Collections under a SharePoint web application. I hope this blog will help you out in a few scenarios.
