Blog written by: 
Dhaval Shah
SharePoint & .Net Consultant

Download the Source Code here:https://github.com/QiPointCo/Blogs/tree/master/CreateSitesSPOnline

Install SharePoint Online SDK here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42038

Recently I had to develop the PowerShell script that would create indefinite number of sub sites in SharePoint Online Site Collection so that we can test some sample & dummy data for analytics of the SharePoint Sites. I took a step forward and created a PowerShell Script which would leverage the SharePoint PowerShell CSOM libraries to create hierarchy of sub sites in the Site collection along with lists/libraries and activate the required features.  Below are the functionalities that are covered in this PowerShell script

1. Script will take the input from the configurable XML file and it can create the sub sites in the site collection that can be X level deep.
2. Script can create the Lists and Libraries for each of the subsites
3. Script can also activate the feature required for each of the subsites.

Script takes the input from the xml file so that It is configurable and It can also create sub sites that are X level deep.

This script works with SharePoint Online. You will need to make some modifications to the authentication used (replace Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials) for it to work with SharePoint on-premise.

Configure PowerShell Script

To execute the PowerShell script we will have to update the below variables located at the end of the script.

$siteCollectionUrl = ‘<Site Collection Url>’

$username = ‘< Admin Username>’

$password = ‘< Admin Password>’

Configuring the XML for creating the SubSites

PowerShell script takes the xml input of the sites hierarchy that has to be created under the site collection. Let’s say if we want to create the below Subsite hierarchy

• Site Collection
  • Human Resources
  • Sales
    • Client 1
    • Client 2
    • Client 3
  • Projects
    • Project 1
      • Team 1
      • Team 2
    • Project 2
    • Project 3
  • Marketing
  • Accounting
  • News
  • Executive Blog
    • CEO Blog
    • Mike’s Blog
    • Shen’s Blog
  • Search
  • Reports
  • Org wiki
  • Document Center
  • Organization Policy

My input xml structure would look like below,

Some of the popular templates available with SharePoint Online are,

Configuring the XML to create the Lists/Libraries

To create the lists/libraries in the subsite the XML for the site node would look something like this,

Above example will create the lists and libraries specified in the List node in the ‘Human Resources’ Site.

Template Feature Id attributes will take template Id of the Lists/Libraries. Below are the list of some of the OOB lists and libraries.

Configuring the XML to enable the features

Some of the lists/libraries require some feature to be activated before we can create those lists/libraries. For example, to create the publishing site, we will have to activate the publishing feature at the site collection level and site level.

We can add the feature node for each of the subsite which would activate the feature of that subsite using the feature id. XML node for the feature would something like this,

Let’s say if we want to activate the publishing feature on the human resources site our XML node will look like this,

Scope Attribute can be used to specify if the feature is the site collection level feature or Site level feature.

Scope = ‘Site’  -> Site collection feature

 Scope = ‘Web’  -> Site feature

You can find some of the sample xml files and the PowerShell script from here.

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Dhaval Shah - MCD, MCSD

SharePoint and Dot Net Consultant at QiPoint

Dhaval Shah (Houston, TX USA) has more than 9 Years of professional experience working as a SharePoint and Dot Net Consultant. He has worked on 30+ projects dealing with more than 15+ clients. He has a special focus on developing and implementing enterprise-level business solutions, built on SharePoint, Dot net and the Microsoft technology stack involving MVC apps, Web API and REST services.

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