SharePoint – Beau Cameron

Add comments to SharePoint list items using the REST API

January 18, 2021March 16, 2021Beau Cameron6 Comments

One of the newest features to come to SharePoint Online is the ability to add comments within the activity panel on SharePoint list items. In a previous post, I talked about how we can retrieve these new comments using the SharePoint REST API.

List comments are a great new way for users to collaborate together on list items as users can have threaded conversations with one another.

In the past we would have used a multi-line text column with “append changes” to create threaded conversations on list items. The problem with this is this method creates new versions and those comments are difficult to retrieve programmatically. Please see my post on retrieving values in multi-line text fields more efficiently.

Add a comment using the REST API

Recently, I’ve been seeing more posts on support forums and in social asking how these comments can be accessed and created programmatically. Well, like most things in the modern interface, they are implemented using client-side code, which must mean there is a REST API backing the functionality.

You will need to execute a POST request to the following endpoint

Endpoint – https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/ContosoGroup/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle(“<YourListName>”)/items(<ItemId>)/Comments()

Parameters – The parameter you will pass through the body is called “text”. Construct your JSON object as {“text”:”your sample comment”}

fetch("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/ContosoGroup/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('Test')/items(<ItemId>)/Comments()", {
"headers": {
"accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
"content-type": "application/json;charset=UTF-8",
"x-requestdigest": "<yourRequestDigest""
},
"body": "{\"text\":\"Add a new comment\"}",
"method": "POST",
"mode": "cors",
"credentials": "include"
});

Using the above POST call, you can submit a new comment to the list item as the current user (there is no way to add list item comments on-behalf of another user). When you execute the request and update your x-requestdigest, and the appropriate values for the URI, your comment will be successfully added to the list item (see below).

I hope you find this post helpful and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!

SharePoint Online – Retrieve values of a multi-line text field with append changes in a single REST call

December 22, 2020December 22, 2020Beau Cameron5 Comments

One of the most common questions I see in SharePoint support forums is how to retrieve the history of a multi-line text field with “append changes” in SharePoint. In most cases, the answer is to retrieve each previous version of a SharePoint item and iterate through them to construct all values in the multi-line text field.

The reasoning behind this is fairly obvious — each instance of a change in the multi-line text field is stored in a separate version of the SharePoint item.

Take for example the following Test list. This list contains a title field and a multi-line text field with “append changes”

If you open up the information panel for this item, you will see the multiline text field with the previous values. Notice how I have updated this item twice and added a value to the Multi field multiple times.

In order to see how SharePoint stores this data, check out the version history. The version history shows the two times I have edited the item, with the latest version being the most recent value in the multi-line text field.

Now you can see why you need to loop through versions. If you did a standard REST call using something like _api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Test’)/items(1), the Multi column would only have the value of “My second comment in the multiline text field”.

Well, fear no more! There is in fact a way to retrieve the values in your list item without having to iterate over each previous version of the item.

Introducing RenderExtendedListFormData()

An unknown and undocumented REST endpoint exists in SharePoint Online called RenderExtendedListFormData() is the solution we need. You may be saying, “oh, we shouldn’t use undocumented REST endpoints”. Valid point, however, you should be aware that this endpoint is exactly what is used when rendering the information pane in Modern SharePoint via first-party.

Below you will see how to make this request into SharePoint. The RenderExtendedListFormData method is a POST call and takes 5 parameters:

itemId – The ID of your list item

formId – The form name (this is how MSFT determines what fields are returned in the request based on the form)

mode – I haven’t figured out what this means yet

options – I haven’t figured out what this means yet

cutoffVersion – Which is the latest version you want to pull. e.g, if you pass in 0, it will retrieve every version up until the first. If you pass in “2” it will put every version up until 2.0.

fetch("https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contosoportal/_api/web/GetList(@v1)/RenderExtendedListFormData(itemId=1,formId='editform',mode='2',options=47,cutoffVersion=0)?@v1=%27%2Fsites%2Fcontosoportal%2FLists%2FTest%27", {
   "headers": {
     "accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
     "accept-language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
     "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
     "sec-fetch-dest": "empty",
     "sec-fetch-mode": "cors",
     "sec-fetch-site": "same-origin",
     "x-requestdigest": "<yourRequestDigest>",
   },
   "referrer": "https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/contosoportal/Lists/Test/AllItems.aspx",
   "referrerPolicy": "strict-origin-when-cross-origin",
   "body": "",
   "method": "POST",
   "mode": "cors",
   "credentials": "include"
 });

The Response

The response from this call includes a lot of data as it’s used for the rendering of the edit form, but if you look closely you’ll notice the values for the multiline text field are stored in d.RenderExtendedListFormData.<ColumName>

The Multi (your column name) object contains all of the values in the multi-line text field based on the parameters of my REST call above. The response includes the text value, who wrote the value (email, title, id) as well as when the item was created.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I retrieved all appended changes of my multi-line text field, using a single REST call.

Caveats + FYI

As mentioned previously, this is an undocumented REST endpoint. Even though this is used first-party by Microsoft, you should be aware this endpoint is subject to change and your solutions will have a dependency on that. Use at your own risk!

If you know what the other parameters (mode / option) mean in the REST call, I’d love to find out! Please message me if you know!

Retrieve Modern SharePoint list item comments using REST

December 16, 2020Beau Cameron1 Comment

Recently someone had posted on a SharePoint support forum asking whether or not it was possible to retrieve the new modern list item comments programmatically. In case you haven’t seen this yet, Microsoft has introduced the ability for users to add comments to the activity feed on list items in SharePoint.

To add a comment, navigate to your list item, open up the information pane and scroll to bottom. You will see the activity feed where you can add, remove and view comments from yourself and others on a list item.

While the endpoint is not yet documented, it is indeed possible to interact with these comments. However, be aware, the comments are not apart of the list item object in REST, you must call a different endpoint to retrieve the values.

Get list item comments using REST

To retrieve all of the comments on a list item using REST, you can make a GET call the following API endpoint.

/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('<ListName>')/items(<ItemID>)/GetComments()

Here is the response

{
    "d": {
        "results": [{
            "__metadata": {
                "id": "https://yourcompanyname.sharepoint.com/sites/SiteName/_api/web/lists('43f52951-64fa-4362-b03e-4fefde369da9')/GetItemById(1)/Comments(1)",
                "uri": "https://yourcompanyname.sharepoint.com/sites/SiteName/_api/web/lists('43f52951-64fa-4362-b03e-4fefde369da9')/GetItemById(1)/Comments(1)",
                "type": "Microsoft.SharePoint.Comments.comment"
            },
            "likedBy": {
                "__deferred": {
                    "uri": "https://yourcompanyname.sharepoint.com/sites/SiteName/_api/web/lists('43f52951-64fa-4362-b03e-4fefde369da9')/GetItemById(1)/Comments(1)/likedBy"
                }
            },
            "replies": {
                "results": []
            },
            "author": {
                "__metadata": {
                    "type": "SP.Shring.Principal"
                },
                "email": "beau@yourcompanyname.com",
                "expiration": null,
                "id": 6,
                "isActive": true,
                "isExternal": false,
                "jobTitle": null,
                "loginName": "i:0#.f|membership|beau@yourcompanyname.com",
                "name": "Beau Cameron",
                "principalType": 1,
                "userId": null,
                "userPrincipalName": null
            },
            "createdDate": "2020-12-15T21:32:05.52Z",
            "id": "1",
            "isLikedByUser": false,
            "isReply": false,
            "itemId": 1,
            "likeCount": 0,
            "listId": "43f52951-64fa-4362-b03e-4fefde369da9",
            "mentions": {
                "__metadata": {
                    "type": "Collection(Microsoft.SharePoint.Comments.Client.Identity)"
                },
                "results": []
            },
            "parentId": "0",
            "replyCount": 0,
            "text": "Add a new comment"
        }]
    }
}

Creating hyperlinks to missing pages in modern SharePoint

October 7, 2020October 8, 2020Beau Cameron3 Comments

If you ever used the classic Wiki pages in SharePoint, there was a really cool feature that allowed users to link to pages that did not exist yet. In SharePoint Wikis, you could link to another page on your site using the double bracket syntax. Example:

Please go to the [[Announcements]] page.

SharePoint would handle this by connecting the the Announcements page to the text within the brackets. The really cool thing about this is if a user clicked on a link to a page that didn’t exist it yet, SharePoint would ask them to create a new page! This is similar to how Wikipedia creates empty hyperlinks to pages that still need to be created.

A question came up in a SharePoint sub-reddit asking whether this works in Modern SharePoint. The answer is YES!

Back to basics

To see this feature in action, create a new page in your SharePoint site and add a text webpart to the page.

Let’s say at the end of this text, we would like to add a link to an existing page within this site. All we have to do is start typing “[[” and SharePoint will return all the pages we can link to.

If we wanted to link to the Singapore trip report page, we could then just click that page from the dropdown, and it will become a direct link to that page. Pretty cool right!?

Creating a new page from a link

Now that we have seen how using the “[[” allows users to link to existing pages, lets see how Microsoft brought forward the classic Wiki linking functionality to allow users to create hyperlinks to pages that do not exist yet.

To do so, start by typing “[[“, but ignore the dropdown values for existing pages. Continue typing in the title for a new page and close it with two double brackets “]]”. Make sure you press space key or click away from the “]]” or else the resulting link will be a 404.

Once this happens, SharePoint will automatically create a hyperlink for us.

If you look closely at the link, you’ll notice that the URL points to a new page (doesn’t exist), and it passes along the ?wikiTitle=Communication query string.

The wikiTitle query string parameter notifies SharePoint to not throw a 404 error, but instead initiate the new modern page creation flow. When a user clicks on this link, SharePoint will popup the page template selection screen!

Once a user selects a template, they will be brought to the new Communication page to continue editing and finish creating the page.

This page has also now been linked correctly to our previous page!

Diagnosing changes with the Modern SharePoint page version history.

February 21, 2020Beau CameronLeave a comment

If you love SharePoint, then you already know about it’s rich document and information management capabilities. Version history is a feature of SharePoint that is extremely powerful if you need to look back in history at the changes of an item. This works great if you are working with list items only, as you can see how the fields have changed on a specific item overtime. For documents and pages, SharePoint version history is unable to show us exactly what has changed within those pages.

Turns out, in modern SharePoint we do have better version history which shows us what changes have been done to modern site pages! This is an extremely powerful tool to keep track of changes of your modern SharePoint site pages over time.

Viewing Version History

In order to view the version history of your modern SharePoint site pages, navigate to the page in question. In my scenario, we’ll be looking at a Communication site home page which has a series of hero, news and events web parts on it. Homepage

Accessing the version history is easy. On the page in question, select the “Published” button next to the “Edit” button in the top right of the page. The page will re-render and load a slide out panel from the right hand side, showing the version history of the page.

HomeVersion

Notice how you can see a history of changes that were completed on the page. In my example, edits were made to News, Spacer, Text, Quicklinks, and Events between version v3.0 and v2.0. If I would like to dive into this a bit more, I can select “Highlight changes on the page” toggle from the top of the panel. When turning this one, new boxes will highlight around the web parts that were changed with a specific color.

HomeVersion2

Green means added, Yellow means edited and Red means deleted.
How awesome is that!? Do you think this is valuable? Any new features you’d love to see come to version history?

Rendering multi-value Choice fields vertically using JSON Column Formatting

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020Beau Cameron1 Comment

Recently I was perusing a SharePoint forum post and a member asked if there was a way to change the visual representation of a multiple value choice field in SharePoint. My first thought was to use JSON Column Formatting.

The problem

By default, SharePoint renders a multiple value choice field as a single string in a row, and renders the HTML as a single value in a div.

ChoiceField

One question, if you aren’t familiar with JSON Column Formatting is how would we render these items as new lines if they represented as a single value in the HTML. You’d probably first go and see if you could split on the commas “,”… but unfortunately column formatting does not support a split function.

Introducing ‘forEach’

One feature that column formatting does have is the forEach function. This is an optional property that allows an element to duplicate itself for each member of a multi-valued field. To loop through multi-value fields we’d use the following format

"iteratorName in @currentField" or "iteratorName in [$FieldName]"

Once you’ve implemented the forEach, you have access to each member you are looping through by using the iterator name. For example, if we loop through @currentField using the following formula: "iteratorName in @currentField" we can gain access to each record using [$iteratorName].

Putting it into action

Now that we know we can loop through multi-choice fields, all we need to do is come up with a JSON column formatter which creates each record on it’s own row. See the below JSON object.

We are using the forEach property to loop through each choice value in the currentField. For each record, we set the textContext equal to the choice record, and then we just style the div to be displayed block and 100%

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/v2/column-formatting.schema.json",
  "debugMode": true,
  "elmType": "div",
  "children": [
    {
      "elmType": "div",
      "style": {
        "display": "block",
        "width": "100%"
      },
      "forEach": "choice in @currentField",
      "txtContent": "[$choice]"
    }
  ]
}

The end result turns the original choice field, to be rendered like so:

ChoicesHTML

MultipleLineChoice

Experiment – Find out where SPFx Web Parts are being used in Modern SharePoint sites

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019Beau Cameron1 Comment

Recently, I saw a post on Tech Community that asked if there were APIs available to find out where a specific web part may be used in an environment. The reason was to provide a list of sites so an email could be sent to those specific site owners to let them know that a deployment was going to happen for some SPFx web parts.

My first thought was to loop through all of the sites and find out if the the SharePoint Framework app had been installed. This would work except in the case of a tenant wide deployment of the SharePoint Framework web parts. So instead of finding out where a web part has been installed, we need to find out where a web part was actually being used.

The Experiment

To me, this sounded like a great idea, unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of any APIs that were able to do this. Then I got to thinking, maybe we could use the search API to do this. In those post, I am going to try and see if we can use the Search API to find web part usage in SharePoint. Be aware this solution would only work for modern pages using your SPFx web part.

CanvasContent1

When adding web parts to a modern site page in Office 365, the HTML content is saved into a column called “CanvasContent1”. I quickly looked at the search schema to see if I would be able to search on this column.

canvascontent

Unfortunately, by default, the CanvasContent1 managed property called CanvasContent1OWSHTML didn’t have a crawled property mapped to it. So I decided to map ows_CanvasContent1 to a new RefinableString.

untitled

Now, in order for the column to be searchable we have to wait for the column to re-crawl in our environment… this could take some time in SharePoint Online.

What to search for

The CanvasContent1 field contains a bunch of html data about the contents of the page. This includes web parts and their configuration including properties. Stored inside the CanvasContent1 field will also include the ID of the web parts configured on the page.With this in mind, I figured it would be fairly easy to find where a web part is being used in an environment by searching against this field.

Let’s say that I have a web part with the component id of 62799350-83b2-40a1-b35d-5417cc54daea as shown in this SPFx manifest file.

untitled

If I execute a search query against the RefinableString field where it contains this GUID, I should be fairly certain the page contains my web part.

Using the SharePoint Search REST API, I can execute the following call to return the Title, Path and Site of the page that is rendering my web part.

Request

https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/search/query?QueryText='RefinableString134:62799350-83b2-40a1-b35d-5417cc54daea*'&selectProperties='Title,Path,SPWebUrl'

Response

In the response, I have found 2 pages where my web part is being loaded.

<d:query xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml"m:type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.SearchResult">
<d:ElapsedTime m:type="Edm.Int32">104</d:ElapsedTime>
<d:PrimaryQueryResult m:type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.QueryResult">
<d:CustomResults m:type="Collection(Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.CustomResult)"/>
<d:QueryId>37de1142-2baf-4ea6-ab0b-b646a0a57d31</d:QueryId>
<d:QueryRuleId m:type="Edm.Guid">00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</d:QueryRuleId>
<d:RefinementResults m:null="true"/>
<d:RelevantResults m:type="Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.RelevantResults">
<d:GroupTemplateId m:null="true"/>
<d:ItemTemplateId m:null="true"/>
<d:Properties m:type="Collection(SP.KeyValue)">
<d:element>
<d:Key>GenerationId</d:Key>
<d:Value>9223372036854775806</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int64</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>indexSystem</d:Key>
<d:Value/>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>ExecutionTimeMs</d:Key>
<d:Value>47</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>QueryModification</d:Key>
<d:Value>
RefinableString134:62799350-83b2-40a1-b35d-5417cc54daea* -ContentClass=urn:content-class:SPSPeople
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>RenderTemplateId</d:Key>
<d:Value>
~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/Search/Group_Default.js
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>StartRecord</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsLastBlockInSubstrate</d:Key>
<d:Value>true</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsFirstBlockInSubstrate</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsFirstPinnedResultBlock</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsLastPinnedResultBlock</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsFirstRankedResultBlock</d:Key>
<d:Value>true</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsLastRankedResultBlock</d:Key>
<d:Value>true</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>MixedTableOrder</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
</d:Properties>
<d:ResultTitle m:null="true"/>
<d:ResultTitleUrl m:null="true"/>
<d:RowCount m:type="Edm.Int32">2</d:RowCount>
<d:Table m:type="SP.SimpleDataTable">
<d:Rows>
<d:element m:type="SP.SimpleDataRow">
<d:Cells>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Rank</d:Key>
<d:Value>16.8176937103271</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Double</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>DocId</d:Key>
<d:Value>17601926184608</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int64</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Title</d:Key>
<d:Value>Home</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Path</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/SitePages/AlertnativeHome.aspx
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>SPWebUrl</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>OriginalPath</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/SitePages/AlertnativeHome.aspx
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>PartitionId</d:Key>
<d:Value>ca45b536-df01-44b6-afa0-d3f8e7ebb312</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Guid</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>UrlZone</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Culture</d:Key>
<d:Value>en-US</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>ResultTypeId</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>RenderTemplateId</d:Key>
<d:Value>
~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/Search/Item_Default.js
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
</d:Cells>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.SimpleDataRow">
<d:Cells>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Rank</d:Key>
<d:Value>16.8176937103271</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Double</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>DocId</d:Key>
<d:Value>17601957874490</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int64</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Title</d:Key>
<d:Value>Home</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Path</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/SitePages/AlternativeHome2.aspx
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>SPWebUrl</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>OriginalPath</d:Key>
<d:Value>
https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/SitePages/AlternativeHome2.aspx
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>PartitionId</d:Key>
<d:Value>ca45b536-df01-44b6-afa0-d3f8e7ebb312</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Guid</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>UrlZone</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>Culture</d:Key>
<d:Value>en-US</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>ResultTypeId</d:Key>
<d:Value>0</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element m:type="SP.KeyValue">
<d:Key>RenderTemplateId</d:Key>
<d:Value>
~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/Search/Item_Default.js
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
</d:Cells>
</d:element>
</d:Rows>
</d:Table>
<d:TotalRows m:type="Edm.Int32">2</d:TotalRows>
<d:TotalRowsIncludingDuplicates m:type="Edm.Int32">2</d:TotalRowsIncludingDuplicates>
</d:RelevantResults>
<d:SpecialTermResults m:null="true"/>
</d:PrimaryQueryResult>
<d:Properties m:type="Collection(SP.KeyValue)">
<d:element>
<d:Key>RowLimit</d:Key>
<d:Value>500</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Int32</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>SourceId</d:Key>
<d:Value>8413cd39-2156-4e00-b54d-11efd9abdb89</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Guid</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>CorrelationId</d:Key>
<d:Value>02b6b69e-10c1-7000-727b-bc8a6f5546b9</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Guid</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>WasGroupRestricted</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsPartial</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>HasParseException</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>WordBreakerLanguage</d:Key>
<d:Value>en</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsPartialUpnDocIdMapping</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>EnableInterleaving</d:Key>
<d:Value>true</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>IsMissingUnifiedGroups</d:Key>
<d:Value>false</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.Boolean</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>Constellation</d:Key>
<d:Value>iC6B8D</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
<d:element>
<d:Key>SerializedQuery</d:Key>
<d:Value>
<Query Culture="en-US" EnableStemming="True" EnablePhonetic="False" EnableNicknames="False" IgnoreAllNoiseQuery="True" SummaryLength="180" MaxSnippetLength="180" DesiredSnippetLength="90" KeywordInclusion="0" QueryText="RefinableString134:62799350-83b2-40a1-b35d-5417cc54daea*" QueryTemplate="" TrimDuplicates="True" Site="532bd9a4-869f-45e2-b5f0-323f6604a429" Web="c67564a0-242f-40bf-b4ac-a0ea8dbc935e" KeywordType="True" HiddenConstraints="" />
</d:Value>
<d:ValueType>Edm.String</d:ValueType>
</d:element>
</d:Properties>
<d:SecondaryQueryResults m:type="Collection(Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.REST.QueryResult)"/>
<d:SpellingSuggestion/>
<d:TriggeredRules m:type="Collection(Edm.Guid)"/>
</d:query>

In my result set, I have found two pages in the same site that was using this specific web part. With a larger result set that comes back, I could loop through the records and figure out which sites are running my web part, and send an email accordingly to each site owner about the upcoming web part deployment!

Final Thoughts

This was a fun experiment to test out and I am going to continue to do some more exploration to see if there are other methods possible for finding out this information. I haven’t been able to do thorough testing, but I would love to hear if this works for you and/or if you have another approach!

Caveats/Feedback

This would only work for web parts placed on modern pages
If site owners have disabled content from being searchable, it will not show up. (Thanks Paul Bullock!)
There are much better approaches to monitoring this type of information. As Sam Crewdson noted on twitter the use of Application Insights is a robust way to track and monitor solutions in your environment. Here is a blog post by Chris O’Brien showing how to use application insights with SPFx.

Setting the new page header in a modern SharePoint page using C# or PowerShell

December 13, 2018April 9, 2019Beau Cameron5 Comments

This week a question came up about how to set the Header in a modern page using code. Normally in these cases you could go to the PnP Provisioning library. Using the PnP Schema you can provision a page and specify some properties of the header that shows up when deployed. You can specify:

Title
ServerRelativeImageUrl
Translate X
Translate Y

Unfortunately, there has been some updates to the modern pages which allows for a new layout for headers and the current PnP library doesn’t have support for them yet. Notice the image below, we have a few new layouts and a new field called “Topic Header”.

So what I am going to do, is explain how we can achieve the new layout with the Topic Header field. I looked into the existing PnP codebase to see how the current header implementation was done, and it gave me a lot of insight into how to solve this problem.

How to achieve this

In order to create a new page and specify a new page header we actually have to create a new page in the Site Pages list and then update some of the hidden properties of the site page. Specifically we need to update the following fields:

LayoutWebpartsContent
PageLayoutType
CanvasContent1
_TopicHeader
ClientSideApplicationId

Where do the properties for a header live?

The thing about modern web parts is that a lot of them store the properties that are being rendered within the web part itself. Because of this, I actually have to set the HTML and JSON object of the web part on the site page’s LayoutsWebpartsContent field. It’s quite complex, so in order to be as safe as possible and get the correct HTML, I decided the best approach would be to create a template page (pictured above) and use that as a way to get the proper data for my newly provisioned pages.

C# Implementation

This C# example is actually going to use the PnP Core library (not required). We’ll get a reference to my template page and grab the LayoutWebpartsContent property. This will return all of the HTML required for the header. Then, we’ll create a new article page, update a few required properties and then update the LayoutWebpartsContent property from the template values.

Link to gist

  using (var ctx = new OfficeDevPnP.Core.AuthenticationManager().GetAppOnlyAuthenticatedContext(newSiteUrl, clientId, clientSecret))
            {
                var pages = ctx.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("Site Pages");
                ctx.Load(pages);
                
                //get template page
                var templatePage = pages.RootFolder.GetFile("Project-Home.aspx").ListItemAllFields;
                ctx.Load(templatePage);
                ctx.ExecuteQuery();
                
                //this is our template page content
                var _customPageHeader = templatePage[ClientSidePage.PageLayoutContentField]; //LayoutWebpartsContent
                var _canvasContent = templatePage["CanvasContent1"];

                //create new page in site page library
                var item = pages.RootFolder.Files.AddTemplateFile("/sites/test/sitepages/BeauTest.aspx", TemplateFileType.ClientSidePage).ListItemAllFields;
              
               //update page header from template information
                item[ClientSidePage.PageLayoutContentField] = _customPageHeader;        
                item[ClientSidePage.ClientSideApplicationId] = ClientSidePage.SitePagesFeatureId; //ClientSideApplicationId - b6917cb1-93a0-4b97-a84d-7cf49975d4ec
                item["CanvasContent1"] = _canvasContent; //"

“; item[“_TopicHeader”] = “Service Line”; item.Update(); ctx.Load(item); ctx.ExecuteQuery(); }

PowerShell Implementation

The following example is the equivalent of the C# code using CSOM, and instead of using a template file, I’ve hard coded the HTML into the code itself. This way, if you wanted to add some tokens in your HTML to dynamically replace the “Topic Header”, or change the layout you could do so directly in that HTML string.

Link to Gist

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client")
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime")
 

$admin = 'youraccount@tenant.OnMicrosoft.Com'
$password = Read-Host 'Enter Password' -AsSecureString

$context = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext("https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/testpnp");
$credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($admin , $password)
$context.Credentials = $credentials


$pagesLibrary = $context.Web.Lists.GetByTitle('Site Pages');
$context.Load($pagesLibrary);

$newPageitem = $pagesLibrary.RootFolder.Files.AddTemplateFile("/sites/testpnp/sitepages/TestPage.aspx", "ClientSidePage").ListItemAllFields;

$newPageitem["Title"] = "Project Home";
$newPageitem["ClientSideApplicationId"] = "b6917cb1-93a0-4b97-a84d-7cf49975d4ec";
$newPageitem["PageLayoutType"] = "Article";
$newPageitem["LayoutWebpartsContent"] = '';

$newPageitem["CanvasContent1"] = "";
$newPageitem["_TopicHeader"] = "Service Line";
$newPageitem.Update();
$context.Load($newPageitem);
$context.ExecuteQuery();

A special thanks

I’d like to thank Garry Trinder for mentioning the current limitation and providing me with the idea on figuring out how to solve this issue and subsequently creating this post!

Thanks to the PnP Team for setting up a lot of the framework and for making this post possible. Sharing is caring.

How to find which site designs have been applied on a SharePoint site.

November 21, 2018March 1, 2019Beau Cameron2 Comments

In SharePoint Online, a new provisioning process is being used which allows an administrator to define a set of designs that can be applied to a newly created site. These site designs consist of the ability add column, lists, specify themes, apply SPFx solutions and more.

It’s important to note that multiple site designs can be applied to a site in SharePoint online.

How site designs can be applied to a site collection

During creation of a new site using the SharePoint UI
During the association to a hub site
Invoking on an existing site using Invoke-SPOSiteDesign and Add-SPOSiteDesignTask

Because site designs can be applied in multiple ways and more than one site design can be applied to a site, an admin may want to have a way to see which site designs have been invoked onto a site.

Introducing Get-SPOSiteDesignRun (PowerShell)

Get-SPoSiteDesignRun is a new command available to the SharePoint Online Management Shell that will show which site designs have been applied to a specific site collection.

$siteDesignsRan = Get-SPOSiteDesignRun -WebUrl "https://yoursite.sharepoint.com/sites/testsite"

Id                : e4ff3264-c7b1-4121-b179-445382216703
SiteDesignId      : d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e
WebId             : 42a2b14c-ce2a-485e-8854-92d3b334704f
SiteId            : f848c5a3-9c6b-40f6-becd-8c5661f0e558
SiteDesignVersion : 1
SiteDesignTitle   : Long Site Design

Id                : 8efb3528-3ff1-4dcf-98a3-7f020492a79f
SiteDesignId      : d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e
WebId             : 42a2b14c-ce2a-485e-8854-92d3b334704f
SiteId            : f848c5a3-9c6b-40f6-becd-8c5661f0e558
SiteDesignVersion : 1
SiteDesignTitle   : Long Site Design

Id                : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
SiteDesignId      : 7da58b45-b11d-4e3c-940b-a96c925d02be
WebId             : 42a2b14c-ce2a-485e-8854-92d3b334704f
SiteId            : f848c5a3-9c6b-40f6-becd-8c5661f0e558
SiteDesignVersion : 1
SiteDesignTitle   : MMD Test

Notice the first two site designs that were run, are actually the same. This is because not only does this command show all site designs applied, it also shows the history of invocations against this site collection. Using Invoke-SPOSiteDesign or Add-SPOSiteDesignTask. More information on Add-SPOSiteDesignTask can be found in my previous post.

Needing more information

Get-SPOSiteDesignRun is a valuable command, but as an administrator you may not know what each site design has implemented and the history of actions taken in the site collection. To do this, you can use the new Get-SPOSiteDesignRunStatus command and it will return the result of each action from every site script in your site design.

In the command above, I got a list of site designs that have been invoked onto a site collection and stored them in an object called $siteDesignsRan. I can use the Get-SPOSiteDesignRunStatus command to find more information about each site design invocation.

Get-SPOSiteDesignRunStatus -Run $siteDesignsRan[1]

OrdinalIndex    : 0
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 0
ActionTitle     : Create site column MyTestMMD2TaxHTField through XML
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : Success
OutcomeText     : 

OrdinalIndex    : 1
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 1
ActionTitle     : Create site column MyTestMMD2 through XML
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : Success
OutcomeText     : 

OrdinalIndex    : 2
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 2
ActionTitle     : Create content type Test CT
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : NoOp
OutcomeText     : 

OrdinalIndex    : 3
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 2
ActionTitle     : Add site column MyTestMMD2 to content type
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : NoOp
OutcomeText     : 

OrdinalIndex    : 4
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 2
ActionTitle     : Add site column MyTestMMD2TaxHTField to content type
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : NoOp
OutcomeText     : 

OrdinalIndex    : 5
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 3
ActionTitle     : Create or update list Custom List
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : NoOp
OutcomeText     : List with name Custom List already exists.

OrdinalIndex    : 6
SiteScriptID    : 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd
SiteScriptTitle : LongSiteScript
SiteScriptIndex : 0
ActionIndex     : 3
ActionTitle     : Add content type Test CT
ActionKey       : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
OutcomeCode     : NoOp
OutcomeText     :

This is a great command that should be in every admin’s toolbox to help manage and govern SharePoint sites. It gives us a very clear history of what actions have been taken on a given site collection and the results of those actions.

If you ever have a question as to which site designs have been applied to your site, look no further than Get-SPOSiteDesignRun and Get-SPOSiteDesignRunStatus.

Using REST

The previous example was showing how to get the Site Designs applied using PowerShell. Below is how you can get the results using REST.

Get a list of Site Designs ran on a site using REST

(POST) _api/Microsoft.Sharepoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteScriptUtility.GetSiteDesignRun

Result

{  
   "d":{  
      "results":[  
         {  
            "__metadata":{  
               "id":"https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteDesignRun4eb4e8b2-ead5-4f11-a4f9-0d127b898740",
               "uri":"https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteDesignRun4eb4e8b2-ead5-4f11-a4f9-0d127b898740",
               "type":"Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteDesignRun"
            },
            "ID":"38ef12db-e8b8-4716-96d9-7556c61bf98b",
            "SiteDesignID":"6ebda32f-c2dc-4353-b09c-36df6652dfaa",
            "SiteDesignTitle":"Team Site Design",
            "SiteDesignVersion":1,
            "SiteID":"b6e1bf12-151e-43c7-a889-df7d1759db0f",
            "StartTime":"1535557919000",
            "WebID":"e0a62834-f04f-4f31-b2e1-6c8badf56167"
         }
      ]
   }
}

Get Information about a specific site design using REST

Using the response from the above request, you can grab the ID and pass it as the “runId” parameter to the following endpoint.

(POST) _api/Microsoft.Sharepoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteScriptUtility.GetSiteDesignRunStatusAndSchema

fetch("https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test/_api/Microsoft.Sharepoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteScriptUtility.GetSiteDesignRunStatusAndSchema", {
    "credentials": "include",
    "headers": {
        "accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
        "accept-language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
        "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
        "x-requestdigest": "YourXRequestDigest"
    },
    "referrer": "https://testsite.sharepoint.com/sites/test",
    "referrerPolicy": "no-referrer-when-downgrade",
    "body": "{\"runId\":\"38ef12db-e8b8-4716-96d9-7556c61bf98b\"}",
    "method": "POST",
    "mode": "cors"
});

Result

{  
   "d":{  
      "GetSiteDesignRunStatusAndSchema":{  
         "__metadata":{  
            "type":"Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SPSiteScriptStatusAndSchema"
         },
         "ActionStatus":{  
            "__metadata":{  
               "type":"Collection(Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.WebTemplateExtensions.SiteScriptActionStatus)"
            },
            "results":[  
               {  
                  "ActionIndex":0,
                  "ActionKey":"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
                  "ActionTitle":"Apply theme Black and Yellow",
                  "LastModified":"1535557920000",
                  "OrdinalIndex":0,
                  "OutcomeCode":0,
                  "OutcomeText":null,
                  "SiteScriptID":"72673672-3708-415d-b7f9-5322288dfa6c",
                  "SiteScriptIndex":0,
                  "SiteScriptTitle":"Apply Theme"
               }
            ]
         },
         "Schema":"{\"recipes\":[{\"actions\":[{\"stages\":[\"Apply theme Black and Yellow\"]}],\"recipeGuid\":\"72673672-3708-415d-b7f9-5322288dfa6c\",\"recipeName\":\"Apply Theme\"}],\"siteDesignTitle\":\"Team Site Design\",\"siteDesignVersion\":1}"
      }
   }
}

Hope this helps!

Overcome the 30 action site script limitation in SharePoint Online

November 20, 2018November 28, 2018Beau Cameron2 Comments

This blog post pertains to invoking site designs using PowerShell and not through the SharePoint UI. Increasing the 30 action limit through the UI/UX will be supported soon!

During Ignite in Orlando this year, I had the pleasure to see Sean Squires present on the the latest and greatest features for site provisioning in SharePoint Online. He spoke about some of the future updates coming that will help get over some of the limitations of site designs and site scripts.

What 30 action limit?

When site designs and site scripts were first released, there was a limit of 30 actions that could be used in a site script. These actions include:

Creating a content type
Creating a list
Adding a content type to a list
creating list columns
setting regional settings
deploying SPFx solutions
and more…

That means if you started using site scripts when they were first released and you needed to deploy a large amount of customization, you’d have to do this with PowerShell and Azure Functions using the “triggerFlow” action.

Introducing Add-SPOSiteDesignTask

During Ignite, Sean announced that new PowerShell commandlets would be available to increase this limitation from 30 to an extremely high number (100k characters apparently). The release of this has seemingly gone under the radar, but is now available for use!

Add-SPOSiteDesignTask is meant to replace the existing Invoke-SPOSiteDesign. The command is used to apply an already publishing site design to any target site collection. This means there is still a limit of 30 actions when creating sites from the SharePoint UI.

However, unlike Invoke-SPOSiteDesign, the command doesn’t run the site design immediately, instead the site design invocation is put into a schedule to run.

Testing it out

I’ve created a basic site design and site script that run 30+ actions onto a SharePoint site collection. The site script will create 33 site columns, a custom list and apply the columns to the list.

$script = @'
  {
                  "$schema": "schema.json",
                   "actions": [
                            {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn1",
                                "displayName": "Test Column1",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn2",
                                "displayName": "Test Column2",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn3",
                                "displayName": "Test Column3",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn4",
                                "displayName": "Test Column4",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn5",
                                "displayName": "Test Column5",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn6",
                                "displayName": "Test Column6",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn7",
                                "displayName": "Test Column7",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn8",
                                "displayName": "Test Column8",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn9",
                                "displayName": "Test Column9",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn10",
                                "displayName": "Test Column10",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn11",
                                "displayName": "Test Column11",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn12",
                                "displayName": "Test Column12",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn13",
                                "displayName": "Test Column13",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn14",
                                "displayName": "Test Column14",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn15",
                                "displayName": "Test Column15",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn16",
                                "displayName": "Test Column16",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn17",
                                "displayName": "Test Column17",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn18",
                                "displayName": "Test Column18",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn19",
                                "displayName": "Test Column19",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn20",
                                "displayName": "Test Column20",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn21",
                                "displayName": "Test Column21",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn22",
                                "displayName": "Test Column22",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn23",
                                "displayName": "Test Column23",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn24",
                                "displayName": "Test Column24",
                                "isRequired": false
                               }, {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn25",
                                "displayName": "Test Column25",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn26",
                                "displayName": "Test Column26",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn27",
                                "displayName": "Test Column27",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn28",
                                "displayName": "Test Column28",
                                "isRequired": false
                               }, {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn29",
                                "displayName": "Test Column29",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn30",
                                "displayName": "Test Column30",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn31",
                                "displayName": "Test Column31",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn32",
                                "displayName": "Test Column32",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                                {
                                "verb": "createSiteColumn",
                                "fieldType": "Text",
                                "internalName": "testColumn33",
                                "displayName": "Test Column33",
                                "isRequired": false
                               },
                        {
                           "verb": "createContentType",
                           "name": "Test CT",
                           "description": "custom content type",
                           "parentName": "Item",
                           "hidden": false,
                           "subactions": [                         
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn1"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn2"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn3"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn4"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn5"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn6"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn7"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn8"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn9"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn10"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn11"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn12"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn13"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn14"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn15"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn16"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn17"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn18"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn19"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn20"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn21"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn22"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn23"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn24"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColum25"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn26"
                               },{
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn27"
                               },
                              {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn28"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn29"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn30"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn31"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn32"
                               },
                               {
                               "verb": "addSiteColumn",
                               "internalName":"testColumn33"
                               },
                               
                            ]
                       },
                       {
                        "verb": "createSPList",
                        "listName": "Custom List",
                        "templateType": 100,
                        "subactions": [
                           {
                            "verb": "addContentType",
                            "name": "Test CT"
                           }                      
                         ]
                        }
            
              
                   ],
                   "bindata": { },
               "version": 1
              }
              
              }

}
'@

I have added this site script to SharePoint using the Add-SPOSiteScript command and subsequently added the site script to a new site design using Add-SPOSiteDesign.

Add-SPOSiteScript -Title "LongSiteScript" -Description "Long Site Script" -Content $script
-returned id = 0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd

Add-SPOSiteDesign -Title "Long Action Site Design" -WebTemplate "0" -SiteScripts "0aa8ce3a-0a7f-4963-bd0f-07ce28a6a5dd" -Description "Long Action Test"
-return id = d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e

Using Add-SPOSiteDesignTask

Now that I have created a long site script and the associated site design, it’s time to run the site design on an existing site. I will invoke the site design using Add-SPOSiteDesignTask and passing in the WebUrl and the SiteDesignId from my new site design.

Add-SPOSiteDesignTask -SiteDesignId d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e -WebUrl https://yourtenantsite.sharepoint.com/sites/testlongscript

After invoking the command, PowerShell is going to output some information for you. It will provide the ID of the new task as well as the associated site design that was provisioned.

Add-SPOSiteDesignTask -SiteDesignId d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e -WebUrl https://yourtenantsite.sharepoint.com/sites/testlongscript

Id : e4ff3264-c7b1-4121-b179-445382216703
SiteDesignId : d082fc0e-9a49-4675-88ac-d49e0931670e
WebId : 42a2b14c-ce2a-485e-8854-92d3b334704f
SiteId : f848c5a3-9c6b-40f6-becd-8c5661f0e558
LogonName : i:0#.f|membership|beau@cameronsoft.onmicrosoft.com