How to retrieve data from SharePoint? - sharepoint

I have a web application. When the user clicks on a button in my web application, I'd like to retrieve data from SharePoint on behalf of the user. I have read quite a few articles on SharePoint but I'm still not sure how to proceed. Should I create a provider hosted SharePoint App and use the SharePointREST API? Thank you in advance for your help.

You don't need to create a Provider to use the SharePoint Rest Services.
Quoting http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/jj164022(v=office.15).aspx :
One advantage of using REST is that you don’t have to add references to any SharePoint 2013 libraries or client assemblies. Instead, you make HTTP requests to the appropriate endpoints to retrieve or update SharePoint entities, such as webs, lists, and list items. See Get started with the SharePoint 2013 REST service for a thorough introduction to the SharePoint 2013 REST interface and its architecture.
Inside the page you will find videos and code examples that will help you to connect and execute operations.

It's Correct. Data in SharePoint is Stored in Lists or Libraries (to files).
You can use the Client Object Model, to get data remotely from a SharePoint Server (on-premise or Online). The Client Object Model can be used through Assemblies (DLL files) or REST services provided by SharePoint. Generally you should know the location of the data you are going to get, that is, as I initially mentioned, the data in SharePoint are stored in Lists or Libraries, therefore you must know the name of the List or Library Additional Site or Sub-site of the List or Library is.
If the name of the list where the information is stored is "employees" and the HR website, the URL could be formed as follows:
http://spserver.company.com/HR/Employees
For REST services, simply complete URL of the list you want to see, so that you retrieve the information from the list. If you want to apply filters, sorting, to retrieve specific columns, you must do it through CAML queries which the add on REST service call.

Related

How to obtain ACLs for different sharepoint sites

Using the graph API or sharepoint REST APIs, is there a way to obtain, for each site, the list of users/o365 groups that are allowed read access to the site?
We are able to obtain the list of sites using the graph API GET /sites?search=* but cannot find a way to get the list of users allowed to access each site (except for Sharepoint team sites associates with o365 groups that we can enumerate using GET /groups/{group-id}/sites API call.
We are building a server side application so need to do this from the server using application-level permissions, and not from the client.
Pointers for how to do this are greatly appreciated!
Looks like there is no such endpoint that gets the site permissions and there are few uservoices here that are close to your scenario. Please upvote them so that it could be developed by the product team in future.

How do I get started from reading SharePoint list information from outside of SharePoint?

We have a SharePoint subscription and an Azure subscription. I want to make a web app that is hosted in Azure, but the database for the app would basically be SharePoint lists. I'm looking up documentation on how to do this, but I'm just finding how to make "web parts" and they keep assuming I want to build my website inside SharePoint rather than outside.
How do I access a user's SharePoint lists from outside of SharePoint?
The easy part is the request for data. Use the SharePoint REST API. The harder part is authentication. How is the Azure app related to the SharePoint app? Same user login?
A sample REST call for select columns from a list:
https://yourDoamin/sites/yourSite/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('My List')/items?$select=Title,Price,Qty
The REST API also support filtering and sorting along with insert, update and delete.
A filter example:
https://yourDoamin/sites/yourSite/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('My List')/items?$select=Title,Price,Qty&$filter=Title eq 'Toys'
If you would like to experiment with the REST API from your SharePoint site, I have "REST tester" you can add to a Content Editor Web Part.
https://github.com/microsmith/SharePointRESTtester

Secure CRUD SharePoint rest apis

Is it possible to secure SharePoint rest APIs?
I have a SharePoint portal that allows users to create accounts an get access to the portal.
The portal uses SharePoint client object model, if any of the users try to access let's say getuserbyid method or retrieving items for lists and changes the ID value, he will be able to retrieve information for other users on the portal.
So it is possible or is their any way to restrict access to the rest APIs outside the portal itself? Because with manipulation using Fiddler or burp suite the request can be replayed with different information or values.
The operations performed by the Client Side Object Model respect the SharePoint site permissions in the SharePoint site you are interacting with. You need to set/customize the site permissions such that you get the results that you want.

Sharepoint: get number of sites in a collection

I'm trying to get the total count of subsites created in a very large Sharepoint collection. Please note, I don't have direct access to the server.
Is there any native sharepoint feature I'm missing that will provide a site count?
Is there a webservice that can crawl the collection? (we have google analitics)
Are there any other options short of running a powershell script on the server?
Thanks!
I would suggest using the 'Webs' Web Service - you can invoke it by putting /_vti_bin/webs.asmx on the end of your site URL. It has a method GetAllSubWebCollection.
The only gotcha is that you will get filtered results based on the user being used to access the web service. For example, if you have a site collection that has a sub-web created for HR, Business, Management, Sales and IT - but your account only has access to the HR and Sales site - you will only get results back for the HR and Sales sites.
You may also find the SPServices jQuery library helpful as it has wrappers for most of the web services and can make calling them from a client much less painful.
Note: These web services exist for the 2007 and 2010 editions of SharePoint. You didn't mention a specific version but hopefully it is one of these two.

Is it possible to create a list in WSS 3.0 based on a custom template using SharePoint web services?

I want to create a SharePoint list using SharePoint web services (instance is SharePoint Services v3.0). That list should be built from the custom list template that I have created previously. Browsing through MSDN documentation resulted in the following resolutions:
services.ListsService.AddList(title, description, templateID);
or
services.ListsService.AddListFromFeature(title, description, featureGUID, templateID);
Now, if we take a look at the first implementation, there is a problem as the templateID doesn't exist for my custom template - it refers to the default ones instead.
The second implementation is no good either as I need the templateID again, but I also need the feature GUID which I have no idea how to get. Could anyone help please? Thanks.
It has been confirmed to me from people from Microsoft that, unfortunately, it is not possible to utilize features to create a SharePoint list using SharePoint web services. It can be either done by developing custom web service, or by using Object Model.

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