Adding spices to pan

Add Items to SharePoint Online lists with PowerShell

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When you want to integrate 3rd party systems to SharePoint, you might need to add items to SharePoint Online lists with PowerShell. In this article, you learn, how to do it for each data type.

Use Case

I want to add new oppurtunities as items to my sales list. The aim is to add all values for this various items.

Adding opportunites manually

Step 1 – Connect to SharePoint Online

In order to add items to SharePoint Online lists with PowerShell, you have to connect to SharePoint with PNP.PowerShell. If you never herad of it, read this article: Connect to SharePoint Online with PowerShell (sposcripts.com)

Since I want to use it for automation purposes, I am using a credential object. 

param
(
    $SiteUrl = "https://devmodernworkplace.sharepoint.com/sites/Sales"
)

$Credential = Get-Credential

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteUrl -Credential $Credential

You’ll be prompted for credentials. If you want to prevent prompting, make use of following method:

Step 2 – Get your list

I want to add the items to the opportunites list, and since I know the internal name of the list, I can get it like this.

$ListName = "Opportunities"
$List = Get-PnPList -Identity $ListName

If you are not sure about your list name, you can also get your list interactively name like this. 

Get-PnPList | Out-GridView -PassThru

Take the ID or Name of the list and put it in the script.

Put in list name to list variable

If you didn’t know about the interactive way of getting items, checkout the post: How to filter for PowerShell objects easily – SPO Scripts

Step 3 – Get the internal field values of your list

In order to code according to the right syntax, you have to know the internal name of the columns. To do this, checkout the post: Getting FieldValues of Items – SPO Scripts

So in this case I am getting the last item and retrieving the field values.

$Item = Get-PnPListItem -List $List  | Select-Object -Last 1 
$Item.Fieldvalues
Internal names of fields

You have to create a hashtable of the desired columns you want to fill.

$Values = @{
"KEY"= "VALUE"
}

In my example it is

$Values = @{
"Title"= "Automation"
"Stakeholder" = 2
}

Step 4 – Add your Item

So now it gets exciting. You can add your items like this. 

$Values = @{
"Title"= "Automation"
"Stakeholder" = 2
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

In the following I will show you how to add the values for each column type.

Add String value

Adding string is the simplest way. You have to do it like this:

$Values = @{
"Title"= "Automation"
"Stakeholder" = 2
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

added item with string value

Add Integer value

You have to put the value without quotes.

$Values = @{
"Stakeholder" = 2
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result for integer value

Add Multi line text value

When a new line starts, you just can make use of enter to create a new line.

$Values = @{
"Notes"= "Customer was very glad,

Hopefully he closes the deal"
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result for multi line text value

Add Boolean Value

You can use the variables $true and $false for describing the value

$Values = @{
"Win"= $true
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of boolean value

Add Link value

$Values = @{
"Linktocontract"= "https://sposcripts.com"
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of link value

Add Date Value

Caution: You have to consider that the date, you have entered is your timezone. The date will be parsed and transfered to universal time. If you want it in your time, you have to add the amount of hours depending on your timezone offset.

I live in Germany, so I add a offset of 2 hours (summer time).

Add Date Value (no time)

$Date = get-date 10/07/2021
$Date = $Date.AddHours(2)

$Values = @{
"Date" = $Date
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

If you live in universal timezone, you can even add it like this. Checkout your timezone here: Default Time Zones | Microsoft Docs

$Values = @{
"Date" = "10/07/2021"
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of date value (no time)

Add Date value (with time)

$Date = Get-Date "05:01 10/07/2021"

$Values = @{
"Date" = $Date
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of date (with time) value

Add Currency Value

It is very similar to integer values

$Values = @{
"DealSize" = 8000
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of currency value

Add Metadata Value

We assume following Term store:

Term store example

Add Metadata Value (single value)

We have to get the term, add it to the array departments and add the array to the hash table values.

$Values = @{}
$Departments = @()

Get-PnPTerm -TermGroup 'Company Terms' -TermSet 'Departments' -Identity 'HR' |
 Select-Object id -ExpandProperty id  |
 ForEach-Object {$Departments += ($_.guid).tostring() }

$Values.Add('Customer_x0020_Department', $Departments)

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of single term

Add Metadata Value (multiple values)

We have to get the terms, add them to the array departments and add the array to the hash table values.

$Values = @{}
$Departments = @()

Get-PnPTerm -TermGroup 'Company Terms' -TermSet 'Departments' -Identity 'HR' |
 Select-Object id -ExpandProperty id  |
 ForEach-Object {$Departments += ($_.guid).tostring() }

Get-PnPTerm -TermGroup 'Company Terms' -TermSet 'Departments' -Identity 'Legal' |
 Select-Object id -ExpandProperty id  |
 ForEach-Object {$Departments += ($_.guid).tostring() }

$Values.Add('Customer_x0020_Department', $Departments)

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of multiple terms

Add Person Field Value

Add Person Field Value (single person)

You can achieve adding persons to a person field by the mail address

$Values = @{
"SalesManager" = "[email protected]"
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Single person results value

Add Person Field Value (multiple persons)

You can achieve adding persons to a person field by the mail adress Syntax Highlighter

$Values = @{}

$Persons = @("[email protected]", "[email protected]")
$Values.Add('SalesManager', $Persons)

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Multiple person results value

Add Lookup value

First you got to determine the ID of the value, which you want to lookup in the other list. After determining it, you can add the looked up attribute to your item.

$Account= Get-PnPListItem -List "Accounts" | Where-Object {$_.Fieldvalues.Title -eq "Füller AG"}

$Values = @{
"Account"= $Account.id
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of lookup value

Add Location value

This one is the trickiest. You have to know the complete adress and coordinates.

$Address = @{
"Street" = "Westenhellweg 36"
"City" = "Bergkamen"
"State" =  "Nordrhein-Westfalen"
"CountryOrRegion" = "Germany"
"PostalCode" = "59192"
}

$Coordinates = @{
"Longitude" = [double]"7.6405439376831055"
"Latitude" = [double]"51.646881103515625"
}

$DisplayNameLocation = $Adress["Street"]+ ", " + $Adress["Postalcode"] + " " +$Adress["City"]

$Location = @{
"DisplayName" = $DisplayNameLocation
"Address"= $Address
"Coordinates" = $Coordinates
}

$Location = $Location | ConvertTo-Json

$Values = @{
"LocationofDeal"= $Location
}

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values

The result:

Result of location

Bonus: Adding all types of values in one item

param
(
    $SiteUrl = "https://devmodernworkplace.sharepoint.com/sites/Sales"
)

$Credential = Get-Credential

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $SiteUrl -Credential $Credential

$ListName = "Opportunities"
$List = Get-PnPList -Identity $ListName

<# Determine internal names of columns

$Item = Get-PnPListItem -List $List -Id 4
$Item.Fieldvalues
#>

$Date = Get-Date "05:01 10/07/2021"

$Values = @{
"Title" = "Automation"
"Stakeholder" = 2
"Notes"= "Customer was very glad,

Hopefully he closes the deal"
"Win"= $true
"Linktocontract"= "https://sposcripts.com"
"Date" = $Date
"DealSize" = 4000
}

$Account= Get-PnPListItem -List "Accounts" | Where-Object {$_.Fieldvalues.Title -eq "Füller AG"}
$Persons = @("[email protected]", "[email protected]")

#region define departments
$Departments = @()

Get-PnPTerm -TermGroup 'Company Terms' -TermSet 'Departments' -Identity 'HR' |
 Select-Object id -ExpandProperty id  |
 ForEach-Object {$Departments += ($_.guid).tostring() }

Get-PnPTerm -TermGroup 'Company Terms' -TermSet 'Departments' -Identity 'Legal' |
 Select-Object id -ExpandProperty id  |
 ForEach-Object {$Departments += ($_.guid).tostring() }

#endregion

#region define location 
$Address = @{
"Street" = "Westenhellweg 36"
"City" = "Bergkamen"
"State" =  "Nordrhein-Westfalen"
"CountryOrRegion" = "Germany"
"PostalCode" = "59192"
}

$Coordinates = @{
"Longitude" = [double]"7.6405439376831055"
"Latitude" = [double]"51.646881103515625"
}

$DisplayNameLocation = $Adress["Street"]+ ", " + $Adress["Postalcode"] + " " +$Adress["City"]

$Location = @{
"DisplayName" = $DisplayNameLocation
"Address"= $Address
"Coordinates" = $Coordinates
}

$Location = $Location | ConvertTo-Json
#endregion

$Values.Add('Customer_x0020_Department', $Departments)
$Values.Add('SalesManager', $Persons)
$Values.Add('Account',$Account.Id)
$Values.Add('LocationofDeal',$Location)

Add-PnPListItem -List $List -Values $Values
Final result with all values

Conclusio

As you can see, you can add item to SharePoint Online lists with PowerShell with the scripts I provided. I hope I have saved you a ton of work :).

Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

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