Creating SharePoint sites from xml using Powershell
- by Norgean
It is frequently useful to create / delete web applications in a development environment. If you need to create a structure, this can quickly become tedious. Enter Powershell, xml and recursive functions. Create the structure in xml. Something like: <Sites> <Site Name="Test 1" Url="Test1" /> <Site Name="Test 2" Url="Test2" > <Site Name="Test 2 1" Url="Test21" > <Site Name="Test 2 1 1" Url="Test211" /> <Site Name="Test 2 1 2" Url="Test212" /> </Site> </Site> <Site Name="Test 3" Url="Test3" > <Site Name="Test 3 1" Url="Test31" /> <Site Name="Test 3 2" Url="Test32" /> <Site Name="Test 3 3" Url="Test33" > <Site Name="Test 3 3 1" Url="Test331" /> <Site Name="Test 3 3 2" Url="Test332" /> </Site> <Site Name="Test 3 4" Url="Test34" /> </Site> </Sites> Read this structure in Powershell, and recursively create the sites. Oh, and have cool progress dialogs, too. $snap = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell" } if ($snap -eq $null) { Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell" } function CreateSites($baseUrl, $sites, [int]$progressid) { $sitecount = $sites.ChildNodes.Count $counter = 0 foreach ($site in $sites.Site) { Write-Progress -ID $progressid -Activity "Creating sites" -status "Creating $($site.Name)" -percentComplete ($counter / $sitecount*100) $counter = $counter + 1 Write-Host "Creating $($site.Name) $($baseUrl)/$($site.Url)" New-SPWeb -Url "$($baseUrl)/$($site.Url)" -AddToQuickLaunch:$false -AddToTopNav:$false -Confirm:$false -Name "$($site.Name)" -Template "STS#0" -UseParentTopNav:$true if ($site.ChildNodes.Count -gt 0) { CreateSites "$($baseUrl)/$($site.Url)" $site ($progressid +1) } Write-Progress -ID $progressid -Activity "Creating sites" -status "Creating $($site.Name)" -Completed } } # read an xml file $xml = [xml](Get-Content "C:\Projects\Powershell\sites.xml") $xml.PreserveWhitespace = $false CreateSites "http://$($env:computername)" $xml.Sites 1 Easy! Sensible real life implementations will also include templateid in the xml, will check for existence of a site before creating it, etc.
