SharePoint Online – privileges

Applies to version 2020.1.3; author: Michał Kastelik

WEBCON BPS offers you several actions enabling integration with the Microsoft SharePoint Online environment and SharePoint workflows. This article describes how to manage these privileges using actions in workflows.

1. SharePoint Site Collection

To configure the actions running in the SharePoint Online environment, first create a connection.

In Designer Studio, go to the Data sources tab -> Connections -> SharePoint Site Collection, select the “New” button in the menu, and set the connection details.

 Fig. 1. The configuration of the SharePoint Site Collection in Designer Studio

WEBCON BPS 2020 allows you to define connections to the following environments:

• SharePoint 2013 On-Premises,
• SharePoint 2016 On-Premises,
• SharePoint 2019 On-Premises,
• SharePoint Online

After selecting the appropriate version, enter:

• Server name and site collection
• User name and password – who will have the appropriate privileges to execute the action of granting privileges

Click the Test button to check the correctness of the connection, and start defining the appropriate actions in the process.

2. Actions group – SharePoint users & privileges

There are three possible actions:

• Create a group
• SharePoint group members management (Add/Remove a user)
• Add SP privileges

3. “Create a group” action

The action allows you to create a group of members in the SharePoint environment. This configuration requires that the following values be selected in the “General” tab.

• Name
• Description
• Owner – a person who will be able to manage the group from the SharePoint site

After starting a new project, the “Create a group” action will create a new group of members in the SharePoint environment.

Fig. 2. Form fields used to create the group of members

The configuration of the action:

Fig. 3. The configuration of the Create a group action

In the Details tab, define the group privileges and security levels:

• Who can view membership data? – all SharePoint users or only group members
• Who can edit membership data? – owner or group members

The “Allow requests to join or leave the group” option allows you to send requests to join/leave the group. You can indicate an e-mail address to which requests will be sent or enable the option of automatically accepting requests.

Fig. 4. The configuration of the Create a group action

In the “Apply permission role” option, select the permission level from the selection list. During the first configuration, load the configuration of a given connection to SharePoint using the button on the right side of the selection menu.

Fig. 5. Permission to SharePoint

After executing the action – the new group will appear in the SharePoint group settings.

Fig. 6. The created group in SharePoint Online

4. “SharePoint group members management” action

This action is used to add or remove a user from the selected group. Select the mode (Add/Remove) and indicate the group to be selected.

Name of the SharePoint group in the form {ID of group}#{Full name of group} – in this case: 33#Group-Integration 2021.  

Fig. 7. The configuration of the “SharePoint group members management”

As you see, the user was added to the group.

Fig. 8. The user added to the group

5. Add SP privileges action

This action is used to add user privileges to a specific object in the SharePoint environment e.g. to the specific list, document library or file.

After selecting the connection, paste the entire link to the object in the “Object URL address”. Important: the link must be added without “https://”.

Below there is the example configuration of this action. The user (with the specified e-mail address) receives the “Full Control” privileges to the Home.aspx page.

Fig. 9. The configuration of the action

The effect of the action is assigned privileges to the indicated workflow.

Summary

By using the SharePoint actions, you can quickly and easily automate the process of creating new privileges groups, task assigning and giving access to the selected organization resources stored in libraries and SharePoint lists.