I need to programatically interface with SharePoint folders, files and lists from outside SharePoint. Most tutorials focus on working within SharePoint itself, or at least on the same server where SharePoint is installed. I need to automate some tasks from completely different servers -- tasks that require reading SharePoint lists, browsing folders, checking files out and in, reading files stored in SharePoint libraries, etc. It used to be easy using UNC folder and file paths. Now many of our SharePoint sites don't allow UNC access (probably for good reasons), but my needs are the same. What languages / libraries / interfaces will allow this? I'd like to be able to do this from server-side .NET code and from PowerShell scripts (not on the SharePoint server). Thanks for any pointers.
SharePoint offers a web services API. I won't claim it's particularly friendly or fun, but it does work. You can get started learning here.
Use Sharepoint Web Services which provides a suite of standard web service endpoints you can use to do most anything you can through the objet model API.
You can use SPServices whichis a jQuery library which abstracts SharePoint's Web Services and makes them easier to use. It also includes functions which use the various Web Service operations to provide more useful (and cool) capabilities. It works entirely client side and requires no server install.
Here's anoth example of SPServices in use Example
if you are using SharePoint 2010 you can use the Client Side Object Model (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee537247(v=office.14).aspx). It will help you to access sharepoint objects, lists and everything. There are 3 types one for C#, Silverlight and Javascript.
there are more than one methods:
use csom (client side object model)
use rest services
use sharepoint out of the box web services.
If you want to be able to choose the language in which you program, I'd recommend using the Sharepoint REST API. I'm writing my service in Java, requesting data in JSON, and using Jackson to parse it into Java Objects.
Related
I have a Rails application I want to do CRUD operation on user's documents online but I want to render MS Office (OpenXML-based) docs in the browser. I have heard about WOPI/SharePoint. How can I integrate it with my web app?
What you're looking for is indeed called WOPI. To be precise, you want to integrate Office Online Server (WOPI client) with your application (WOPI host). This is how SharePoint's integration works as well (SharePoint plays the role of a WOPI host here).
You need to implement the following flow:
Translated to your app - your Rails app will generate URLs pointing to the WOPI client and providing it with information about the MS Office files, authentication information, etc. Then, the WOPI client reaches for those files to your Rails app which will also need to implement the REST endpoints defined by MS-WOPI protocol (mainly CheckFileInfo, GetFile, and PutFile actions).
If you just want to provide view for the documents, that are publicily available, you could use office live viewer, or google docs viewer. You need to basically provide an URL to your document to those services.
I have found this site that has demos for online viewers currently available, you could check it out: https://xtai-umd.github.io/docs-viewer-demo/
SharePoint also has something called WopiFrame.aspx page (or WopiFrame2.aspx), that allows you to show documents like the site above, but with authentication. Please note that this will work only for the documents that are stored in the SharePoint (in the particular SharePoint where you use that WopiFrame.aspx, that is).
If you are developing SPFx web part, this is the way to go I think. Since in this case both are running in the context of SharePoint site, you don't really need to think much about security, it's all taken care of.
I mean, implementing your own WOPI server is not easy at all, and in addition to that you'll need Office Web Apps server, either installed on-premise in your organization, or the Microsoft's online one. To be able to use Microsoft's one you need to be a member of Cloud Storage program, as far as I know.
I would not recommend implementing custom WOPI server unless it is really needed for whatever reason (in my case, it was quite specific security requirements)
I am a SharePoint novice and need help to determine which api set to use. I have given task to develop an outlook web add-in which will be side loaded to client's computer. This add-in will perform search on SharePoint lists and access content types and allow to move emails to SharePoint.
I have two options from what Choose the right API set tells me, REST OR JSOM.
It says to use JSOM but I am favoring little towards using REST.
My Concerns using REST is if it supports
External content types. I used Microsoft.BusinessData.MetadataModel.Entity in .NET CSOM?
Managed Meta Data/TaxonomyFieldTypes?
Are there any benefits of using one on another?
Really appreciate any comments or suggestions :)
Thanks for reading.
Yes,rest support both of them.
rest update managed matadata:
https://github.com/SharePoint/sp-dev-docs/issues/4758
I have read very little content regarding Sharepoint (SP), and most of my reading has been sales pitch oriented overview material. I utilitze VBA with Office apps - especially Access - on a regular basis, and I am wondering if there is any translatable way to retain the custom functionality of writing my own VBA within Sharepoint, especially with MS Access.
I have read that Access databases can be run on SP, with tbales to list and forms to InfoPath, but I am assuming they are primarily talking about Access database apps that were built with wizards, which consist mainly of bound objects without explicitly-defined code.
Most of my app are primarily code driven with VBA because of my automation requirements, which I rely on to perform my tasks. Am I going to be able to accomplish the same thing within SP, and could anyone please provide any references on the subject, specifically?
You can use Access to distribute your front end to users, regardless of how much VBA it has, but an app with VBA code in it will not convert to run in the browser as a Web Database within Sharepoint 2010's Access Services. For that to work, you have to use the new, more powerful macros and limit yourself to the features supported by web objects. For an existing app, this means rebuilding every object from scratch.
Do you need to run your Access app in a web browser? If not, then you're barking up the wrong tree here.
AFAIK Sharepoint does not support VBA.
If you publish an Access database to SharePoint as a web database it cannot use VBA, however you can create a hybrid with the tables in SharePoint and the frontend in Access, that way you can have as much VBA etc as you want and still have the advantages of your data being stored in the SharePoint SQL server. You can store the frontend on SharePoint and have users download it through SharePoint .
The alternative is to keep a traditional Access database on the SharePoint share and access it via webDAV rather than the SharePoint web interface. You could map the SharePoint library as a local drive to make it easy.
Note that drive mapping is considered a legacy technology and will no longer be supported by Windows 11 due to the demise of IE11.
We have an ASP.NET website that we use internally to do some project tracking and various work. We would like to integrate some pieces of it to co-exist with Sharepoint2007 WSS.
Basically what we would really need to do is be able to add items to a list in one of the Sharepoint sites.
I'm not sure where to begin. I've looked online a bit but it seems overly complicated. Is there a quick start guide somewhere that can get me rolling with ease?
The SharePoint Web Services would be a logical place to start. In my opinion this would be the easiest way to build interaction between ASP.NET and SharePoint.
A list of available web services can be found on MSDN.
If adding items to a list is the primary goal, then check out the UpdateListItems method of the Lists web service.
With the scope narrowed to Web Services, you can certainly find tutorials/references online. However, this InfoQ post by Trent Swanson is a decent introduction to SP web services. Note that they recommend generating .NET types using XSD files; in practice, for simple projects I have simply parsed the XML myself using LINQ. You can make it as easy or complex as you like, I suppose.
How would I programmatically access a SharePoint document library from another machine? I want to recursively scan all the folders and generate a list of files with a certain custom property.
You'll need to use the List Data Retrieval web service. Example code using the service can be found on the Query method page.
Vinny is correct. I just wanted to elaborate a little on the next version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2010. There are several client based models for access that essentially wrap the web service calls. There is a managed .NET dll for Windorm/WPF applications, a library for use within websites that is JavaScript based and a Silverlight based implementation.
This MSDN article has links to more information on all three.