In this article, I will introduce you to an online service I created that allows you to code against certain services without using an SDK, simply by sending HTTPS REST commands. In this article, I will demonstrate how this works against SharePoint Online; however other services are also available.

Please note that I built this service with the community in mind, and as a result, it is free for simple use. The service stores your configuration settings securely so that the actual service secrets (such as your SharePoint password) are not stored on the client code.

Developing without an SDK makes it much easier to code IoT, web and Mobile projects, and works regardless of the operating system or programming language. That’s because you can make simple REST commands instead of using an SDK; the call returns a JSON payload with the data.

Let’s see how we can fetch SharePoint List Items using a simple HTTP REST command. The REST method to call is called GetListItemEx. Let’s first look at a raw HTTP command that you can send using Postman for example. There are a few variables to change, which we will review.

GET ENZO_URI/bsc/sharepoint/getlistitemsex HTTP/1.1
authToken: YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN
_config: myconfigname
viewname: mylist
where: State=’FL’

The following variables should be replaced in the above code:

• ENZO_URI: this is the URI of your Enzo service endpoint that is assigned to you on the portal
• YOUT_AUTH_TOKEN: this is your assigned authToken, also available on the portal
• myconfigname: this is a configuration name that you created in the portal that points to SharePoint
• viewname: the name of the SharePoint list
• where: an optional WHERE clause that looks like a SQL where clause

For example, the following Postman screenshot shows you the REST command I sent to my server, which in turn connected to SharePoint Online to fetch items from the US States list. The name of the configuration is called sharepointroggero (we will see this shortly).

As you can see, there are no SharePoint-specific secrets here; all the details are stored on the portal under the configuration setting called sharepointroggero. Let’s go to the portal and review the configuration settings; once you log in to the portal, click on the SharePoint service on the left, and click on Create. You will see a screen similar to this where you can store your configuration settings.

Now let’s create a small C# Console project to make the same REST call. To try the following source code, you will need to sign up on the Enzo Online portal here, create a configuration setting for SharePoint Online and access your Enzo URI and AuthToken by selecting Enzo Accounts from the menu. The code does essentially the same thing as above: it retrieves the content of a list called MyList using a configuration setting called myconfigname. As discussed previously, this code does not use the SharePoint SDK; it relies entirely on HTTPS REST calls.

Similarly, here is a Python sample code that does essentially the same thing.

The purpose of this article was to introduce you to a new development approach that simplifies development, and removes complex SDKs from client code using SharePoint as an example. Additional documentation and sample code is available online.

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This post will explain you about create task list in SharePoint 2013. Using task list can in SharePoint to track your daily activities, assign task to team members, track due date for daily activities, etc.

First, open SharePoint site. Now, select the Site settings and Add an app.

Click on Task app to create.

Provide the name for the task list. Click Create.
So the new task list has been created successfully. So here’s the task list with timeline. In SharePoint 2013 we have a timeline feature in the task list to track your daily task activities.

Now I am going to assign a task to my team member. Click on new task.
Provide the name for the task.
Provide the task start date and due date.
Assigned to ‘Assign the task to any of your team member’.
Percentage completed and the default will be ‘0’ as in the following screenshot:

Set priority to Low, High, Normal.

Update the status of the task.
Click Save.
Fill the description if u needed and add predecessors.
So the new task has been assigned successfully.

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A SharePoint library is a location on a site where you can upload, create, update, and collaborate on files with team members. To remove an empty folder from the library is difficult since we need to go to each and every library and identify whether it is empty or not. Then, we have to remove it from the library. To automate this process, I used Powershell scripting because it is easy to parse through each and every library using PNP library. So it is easy to identify and remove the empty folders in SharePoint library

Prerequisite

Before you begin utilizing PowerShell to oversee SharePoint Online, ensure that the SharePoint Online Management Shell is installed. You can install the SharePoint Online Management Shell by downloading and running the SharePoint Online Management Shell. You only need to do this once for each computer from which you are running SharePoint Online PowerShell commands.

Connect to Site

Connect to SharePoint site using Connect-PnPOnline cmdlet. The required parameters are,

-Url

The SharePoint site URL (Eg: https://hubflysoft.sharepoint.com/sites/Hubfly)

The following code snippet helps to connect SharePoint sites.

Get Web Instance using Get-PnPWeb

$web = Get-PnPWeb     

The Get-PnPWeb cmdlet actually has its own Recurse option, and you could use that if you want to rather than doing your own recursion.

Get User Context using Get-PnPContext

$context = Get-PnPContext

The Get-PnPContext returns a Client Side Object Model context. This command is very handy and it returns the current context. You might need context because it might be the case you need to save the current context. By switching between two sites you need this.

Get folders from the library using Get-PnPFolder

The Get-PnPFolder returns the folder called ‘Shared Documents’ which is located in the root of the current web.

Get all subfolders and remove empty folders

Using the context we need to load all files, folders, and Parent folder like below code snippet

1. $files = $folder.Files
2. $context.Load($folder.Files)
3. $context.Load($folder.Folders)
4. $context.Load($folder.ParentFolder)
5. $context.ExecuteQuery()

We can find the folder is empty by the following conditions,

• Check if the files count is equal to zero
• Check  if the folders count is equal to zero

And remove the empty folders using below PS script

I hope you learned how to remove empty folders and files in the SharePoint library programmatically using PnP PowerShell scripting. The operations mentioned above are tested on SharePoint Online environment. Feel free to leave a comment  below, if you need any assistance.