PnP PowerShell

I was recently asked to write a PowerShell script that identified a bunch of pages and emailed them. They wanted the emails to include the Banner Image (the page/news thumbnail). No problem, I’ll just grab the handy BannerImageUrl field and stick it in some HTML, right? Nope.

Although you can certainly create an email with images using the URL, unless the user is logged in, those images will cause a bunch of authentication errors. This is especially a problem for people checking their email on their phones. Sadness!

Fortunately, you can grab those images in PowerShell and convert them to base-64 strings. That way the authentication for the images is only needed when running the script and not when the user opens the email.

Here’s a basic script that covers the concept using PnP PowerShell:

	# Connect to your site
	# (this example assumes an entry in Windows Credential Manager,
	# but you can pass credentials however you need here)
	Connect-PnPOnline https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite
	$connection = Get-PnPConnection

	# Setup a Web Client using credentials pulled from the connection
	$client = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
	$client.Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($connection.PSCredential.UserName, $connection.PSCredential.Password)
	$client.Headers.Add("X-FORMS_BASED_AUTH_ACCEPTED", "f")

	# Get a page
	# (You could be doing this in a loop or using Get-PnPClientSidePage)
	$page = Get-PnPListItem -List "Site Pages" -Id 294

	# Grab the value of the image and convert it to base-64
	# and slap the data information to the front
	$image = "data:image/png;base64," + [convert]::ToBase64String($client.DownloadData($page.FieldValues.BannerImageUrl.Url))

	# In this sample, just copying the HTML value to the clipboard to prove it works
	# Normally, you'd build an HTML string and append it for your email
	Set-Clipboard -Value "<img src=""$image"">"

	# All done!
	$client.Dispose()
	Disconnect-PnPOnline

view raw ConvertBannerImageUrlToBase64.ps1 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In the Gist above, the HTML value is put in your clipboard. This is just to make it easy to prove it works. Run the script, paste the result in codepen in a browser where you are not authenticated to the site and witness the magic!

The key bit is the setup of the web client (lines 8-10) and the call to convert the downloaded data (line 18). You can easily wrap this logic up inside a foreach loop to process all your pages/news and build a nice html based email. Wowee!

The Embed web part for modern pages lets you display content from secure websites right on your page. Want to show a YouTube video? Grab the embed code from youtube.com and slap it in the Embed web part. Wowee!

By default, modern pages support 30+ sites including the most common like YouTube, Vimeo, TED, and internal domains like Stream and OneDrive. But what about when you’ve got content from a site not on this list? You’ll end up with an error similar to this:

Don’t cry! Wipe those tears off that wet face! If you just need to allow the domain for a single site, the instructions are right there (here’s a quick summary):

Go to Site Settings
Click on HTML Field Security under Site Collection Administration
Type the domain from the error message (no https://) into the box and click Add
Click OK
Give it another try

But wait… Corporate just rolled out a video hosting platform for the enterprise and they want all sites to be able to embed content from this new site. Does the thought of repeating the above steps hundreds or even thousands of times make you weep in despair? Smack those tears off your moistened face!

Here’s a quick snippet of PowerShell which will show you how to add it to multiple sites:

	$SiteUrls = @("HR","Accounting","IT")

	foreach($SiteUrl in $SiteUrls) {

	Write-Host –ForegroundColor Cyan "Applying to $SiteUrl…"

	$FullSiteUrl = "https://superspecial.sharepoint.com/sites/$SiteUrl"

	Connect-PnPOnline $FullSiteUrl –ErrorAction Stop

	$site = Get-PnPSite –Includes CustomScriptSafeDomains
	$ctx = Get-PnPContext

	$ssDomain = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ScriptSafeDomainEntityData]::new()
	$ssDomain.DomainName = "special.hosted.panopto.com"

	$site.CustomScriptSafeDomains.Create($ssDomain)

	$ctx.ExecuteQuery()

	Disconnect-PnPOnline
	}

view raw SharePoint Embed Domains.ps1 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

In the PowerShell above, I’m using PnP PowerShell. You can technically do this without PnP PowerShell since it’s just CSOM, but… why would you make your life harder?

Here’s what’s happening:

The list of sites in line 1 is just an array of the URL portion of the site after /sites/. You could easily alter this to grab all associated sites for a hub or to get all sites within a classification, etc. But I find a simple list of URLs works pretty well.
We connect to the site in line 9 and grab the site object in line 11
We get the Client Context in line 12
We create a new ScriptSafeDomainEntityData object and set the only part we care about, DomainName, to the URL from the error message before
Then in line 17 we use the Create method to add it to the list of domains (there’s no problem if the site already has that domain, it won’t be added twice)
We execute the query for the client context to save our changes in line 19
Finally we disconnect from the site in line 21 and move on to the next site

You can easily adapt the script above as part of your provisioning process to ensure that new site have the correct domains whitelisted as well. So fun!

Now you can take content from all over the web and mash it together to bring all the relevant stuff directly to your users. WOWEE!

The Chris Kent

Quick Fixes, Workarounds, and Other Neat Tricks

Convert Modern SharePoint Page Banner Images to Base-64 using PowerShell

Extending the List of Sites You can Embed From in SharePoint Using PowerShell

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