SharePoint REST Services for Effective Operations

Microsoft SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that allows the creation of powerful websites. SharePoint is not installed on your computer locally but instead connected from a browser, and it is primarily used as a document management and storage system.

Microsoft SharePoint is more than just an application installed on your computer. SharePoint’s most valuable features are collaboration and sharing, which help you stay organized by creating workflows and automating tasks. It is also the right place for you to store your documents securely.

This article discusses SharePoint API, REST API to be specific, that you can leverage for your team to work well together. You’ll also learn to work around SharePoint REST API HTTP commands for added functionality.

What is the SharePoint REST API?

Representational State Transfer, also known as REST, is a standardized Software Architecture Style, or, in other words, a specific type of API used by the industry to establish a connection between Client and Server. REST API is built to guide the development and design of the World Wide Web’s architecture.

REST API provides a flexible, lightweight way of interacting with SharePoint remotely using any technology supporting the REST protocol. With SharePoint API, you can easily perform basic Create, Read, Update, and Delete (also known as CRUD) operations. This can be done from SharePoint Add-ins, Solutions, and Client Object Model Applications. The REST interface exposes all the SharePoint entities and operations available in other SharePoint APIs.

Introduced by Microsoft in SharePoint 2013, the REST service is similar to existing SharePoint Client Object Models like JSOM and CSOM.

Advantages of Using SharePoint API

• SharePoint API is easier to work with and can be accessed from the browser to test the results.
• SharePoint REST API allows you to interact with SharePoint Sites remotely using any technology supporting REST protocol.
• One of the main advantages of using SharePoint REST API is that you can directly retrieve or update SharePoint entities (such as Webs, Lists, and List Items) by creating and sending HTTP requests to appropriate endpoints (URL) without adding references to any SharePoint Libraries or Client Assemblies.
• With SharePoint REST API, no SP.js files must be uploaded for code execution.

How Does SharePoint REST API Work?

Before working around SharePoint REST API, you must construct a RESTful HTTP request using the Open Data Protocol (OData) standard. Open Data Protocol (OData) is used along with REST to access many Cloud-based services. The HTTP request corresponds to the desired Client Object Model API.

Your Client Application will then send an HTTP request to the client.svc web service internally calls the Server Object Model to retrieve data from the Content Database. The Client Application parses the response sent in either Atom or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format.

Understanding SharePoint REST API Commands

With SharePoint API, by building REST endpoints, you can perform typical CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations against SharePoint entities, such as Lists and Sites. The REST endpoints in the SharePoint API correspond to the types and members in the SharePoint Client Object Models.

Endpoints representing Read operations (such as reading data from the SharePoint site) are mapped to HTTP GET commands, Create operations (such as creating a List or Library) are mapped to HTTP POST commands and Update or Insert operations (such as updating a List or Library Title or Description) are mapped to HTTP PUT commands. To start with SharePoint REST API, you must create an HTTP request to build endpoints.

• GET
• POST
• PUT/MERGE
• DELETE

GET

In SharePoint API, the HTTP GET command reads or retrieves information from the SharePoint site. Typically, endpoints representing any Read operation use the GET method.

POST

In SharePoint API, the HTTP POST command creates or updates a List or Library in a SharePoint Site. In SharePoint API POST endpoints, optional properties are set to default values.

PUT/MERGE

In SharePoint API, the HTTP PUT and HTTP MERGE commands update an existing entity in a SharePoint List/Library or SharePoint List/Library Title/Description.

Setting properties is optional in the SharePoint REST API HTTP MERGE method, and if any property is not set explicitly, it keeps its current property. However, it is mandatory to set up all the required properties while updating SharePoint objects in the HTTP PUT method. Optional properties are set to their default values if not set explicitly.

DELETE

In SharePoint API, the HTTP DELETE command is used to delete any SharePoint object like deleting a SharePoint List, SharePoint Library, Documents, etc.

Now that you have a basic idea of various HTTP commands let’s implement them to perform CRUD operations.

SharePoint REST Endpoint Examples

First, to start with SharePoint REST API, you must create a REST endpoint. All the REST endpoint URLs start with:

https://SiteURL/Sites/SiteName/_api/

Here are various examples of SharePoint REST API endpoints.

Operation	SharePoint Rest API endpoint
Retrieve SharePoint Site Collection	https:///{site url}/_api/site
Retrieve a particular SharePoint Site or Web	https:///{site url}/_api/web
Retrieve SharePoint Site Title	https://{site url}/_api/web/title
Retrieve all SharePoint Lists	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists
Retrieve all the Items from a SharePoint List	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘listname’)/items
Retrieve SharePoint List Title	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘listname’)?select=Title
Retrieve all the columns of a SharePoint List	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘listname’)/Fields
Retrieve a SharePoint List by using List GUID	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/Lists(List GUID)
Retrieve a SharePoint List Item by Item Id	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle(‘listname’)/GetItemById(2)
Retrieve SharePoint Current User Information	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/currentUser
Retrieve selected Fields of a SharePoint List Items	https:///{site url}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘listname’)/Items?select=ID,Title,FirstName,LastName
Retrieve all SharePoint Site Users	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/siteusers
Retrieve all Groups from a SharePoint Site	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/sitegroups
Retrieve a particular SharePoint Group by Group Id	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/sitegroups/GetById(GroupId)
Retrieve all the Users from a SharePoint Group	https:///{site url}/_api/Web/sitegroups(Id)/users

Conclusion

As you already know, SharePoint has recently been one of the best collaborative platforms for organizations. Organizations have started leveraging SharePoint API to perform various operations to unleash its full potential. This article introduced you to SharePoint API and showed you how to implement SharePoint REST API endpoints to perform basic operations.

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FAQ on SharePoint REST Services