To add a SharePoint connection, go to the Connections page which is accessed via Menu -> Connected Data -> Connections.

You must be an Administrator level user to see this option. 

  • Click the ADD CONNECTION button on the top right of the page to add a new connection.
    This will bring up a list of connections that you can choose from.

   

Click on SharePoint to add a new connection.


Setting up your Connection

There are two different authentication types that are supported for SharePoint namely:

  • User Account authentication
  • App-Only Principal authentication


User Account Authentication

The simplest and recommended way of connecting your SharePoint site is by using your SharePoint user account credentials. We recommend creating a dedicated SharePoint user specifically for use by our platform, as you can then restrict access as needed and clearly see what changes our Connectors make to your site. 


App-Only Principal Authentication

The App-Only principal authentication is an older way of authenticating to SharePoint. This involves a more complicated setup process to get up and running and we only recommend this approach if your corporate policy does not permit providing user credentials.

Full Microsoft article on how to set up SharePoint App-Only authentication can be seen here. Granting access using SharePoint App-Only


To grant access using SharePoint App-Only authentication, you need to set up tenant permissions.


First, navigate to your SharePoint site (e.g. https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com), next open up the appregnew.aspx page (e.g. https://yourcompany.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/appregnew.aspx). Once the page has finished loading click on the Generate button next to the Client Id and Client Secret text fields to generate valid client id and client secret credentials. Fill in the remaining required text fields as indicated in the screen-shot below.

The client id and client secret need to be stored as you'll require it in the next step.


You need to grant permissions to the newly created principal. This can merely be done via the appinv.aspx page on your SharePoint administrator site which can be reached via https://yourcompany-admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx. Once the page has finished loading, add your client id in the App Id text field and click on the Lookup button to search for your newly created principal account.

Grant the required permissions in the App's Permissions Request XML text field as indicated below:

<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">

  <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/tenant" Right="FullControl" />

</AppPermissionRequests>


Once you've created your app permissions request, SharePoint will provide you with a dialog indicating whether you trust YourCompanyApp. Click on the Trust It button to grant the permissions.


Once the above steps have been completed you are now ready to fill in your client id and client secret into your connection on our platform as indicated by the placeholders below namely YourCompanyClientId and YourCompanyClientSecret.

Finally, click the SAVE button on the top right of the page to store your configuration. Your connection will then be verified automatically - you will see a green tick if everything is working.