SharePoint Importer

Introduction

The Microsoft SharePoint Importer allows migrating documents, folders, list items and lists/libraries to SharePoint 2013, 2016, and 2019 offering following features:

• Import documents to Microsoft SharePoint Document Library items

• Import folders to Microsoft SharePoint Document Library items

• Import list items to Microsoft SharePoint Document Library items

• Import lists/libraries to Microsoft SharePoint Sites

• Set values for any columns in SharePoint, including user defined columns

• Set values for SharePoint specific internal field values

• Create documents, folders and list items using standard SharePoint content types or custom content types

• Set permissions for individual documents, folders, list items and lists/libraries

• Set the folder path and create folders if they don’t exist

• Apply Content Types automatically to lists/libraries if they are not applied yet

• Delta migration

• Import versions (minor or major, automatic enabling of versioning in the targeted document library)

• Import files with a size up to 15 GB (depending on the target SP version)

Installation

To install the main product components, consult the migration-center Installation Guide document.

The migration-center SharePoint Importer requires installing an additional, separate component besides the main product components. This additional component is able to set system values (such as creation date, modified date, author and editor) as well as taxonomy values for your objects. It is designed to run as a Windows service and needs the .NET Framework 4.7.2 installed on your computer, which is running this service as well as the migration-center Job Server.

This component must be installed in all machines where the migration-center server components is installed.

To install this additional component, it is necessary to run an installation file, which is located within the

SharePoint component folder of your migration-center Job Server installation location, which is by default C:\Program Files (x86)\fme AG\migration-center Server Components <version>\lib\mc-sharepoint-online-importer\CSOM_Service\install. This folder contains the file install.bat, which must be executed with administrative privileges.

After the service is installed you will need to start it manually for the first time, after that the service is configured to start automatically as soon as the computers operating system is loaded.

In case it is necessary to uninstall this component, the file uninstall.bat must be executed.

Known Issues and Limitations

The SharePoint on-premise importer supports only the following authentication types:

• NTLM Windows authentication (authenticationMethod = direct)

• AD FS SAML token-based authentication (authenticationMethod = adfs)

Kerberos Windows authentication is currently NOT supported.

Due to restrictions in SharePoint, documents cannot be moved from one Library to another using migration-center once they have been imported. This applies to Version and Update objects.

Moving folders is only supported for SharePoint 2016 and later.

Moving folders is only supported within the same site, i.e. the importer parameter "serverURL" and the system attribute "site" must have the same values for the initial and any update import runs.

Even though some other systems such as Documentum allow editing of older versions, either by replacing metadata, or creating branches, this is not supported by SharePoint. If you have updates to intermediate versions to a version tree that is already imported, the importer will return an error upon trying to import them. The only way to import them is to reset the original version tree and re-import it in the same run with the updates.

Running multiple Job Servers for importing into SharePoint must be done with great care, and each of the Job Servers must NOT import in the same library at the same time. If this occurs, because the job will change library settings concurrently, the versioning of the objects being imported in that library will not be correct.

The SharePoint system has some limitations regarding file names, folder names, and file size. Our SharePoint importer will perform the following validations before a file gets imported to SharePoint (in order to fail fast and avoid unnecessary uploads):

SharePoint 2013

• Max. length of a file name: 128 characters

• Max. length of a folder name: 128 characters

• Invalid leading chars for file name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid leading chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid trailing chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid file or folder names: "AUX", "PRN", "NUL", "CON", "COM0", "COM1", "COM2", "COM3", "COM4", "COM5", "COM6", "COM7", "COM8", "COM9", "LPT0", "LPT1", "LPT2", "LPT3", "LPT4", "LPT5", "LPT6", "LPT7", "LPT8", "LPT9"

• Consecutive PERIOD characters are not allowed in file or folder names

• The following characters are not allowed in file or folder names: ~ # % & * { } \ : < > ? / | “

• Max. length of a file path: 260 characters

• Max. size of a file: 2 GB

• Max. size of an attachment: 250 MB

SharePoint 2016

• Max. length of a file name: 128 characters

• Max. length of a folder name: 128 characters

• Invalid leading chars for file name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid leading chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD, ~

• Invalid trailing chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid file or folder names: "AUX", "PRN", "NUL", "CON", "COM0", "COM1", "COM2", "COM3", "COM4", "COM5", "COM6", "COM7", "COM8", "COM9", "LPT0", "LPT1", "LPT2", "LPT3", "LPT4", "LPT5", "LPT6", "LPT7", "LPT8", "LPT9"

• The following characters are not allowed in file or folder names: " # % * : < > ? / \ |

• Max. length of a file path: 260 characters

• Max. size of a file: 10 GB

• Max. size of an attachment: 250 MB

SharePoint 2019

• Max. length of a file name: 400 characters

• Max. length of a folder name: 400 characters

• Invalid leading chars for file name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid leading chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD, ~

• Invalid trailing chars for folder name: SPACE, PERIOD

• Invalid file or folder names: "AUX", "PRN", "NUL", "CON", "COM0", "COM1", "COM2", "COM3", "COM4", "COM5", "COM6", "COM7", "COM8", "COM9", "LPT0", "LPT1", "LPT2", "LPT3", "LPT4", "LPT5", "LPT6", "LPT7", "LPT8", "LPT9"

• The following characters are not allowed in file or folder names: " * : < > ? / \ |

• Max. length of a file path: 400 characters

• Max. size of a file: 15 GB

• Max. size of an attachment: 250 MB

Importer Configuration

To create a new SharePoint Importer, create a new importer and select SharePoint from the Adapter Type drop-down. Once the adapter type has been selected, the Parameters list will be populated with the parameters specific to the selected adapter type. Mandatory parameters are marked with an *.

The Properties of an existing importer can be accessed after creating the importer by double-clicking the importer in the list or selecting the Properties button/menu item from the toolbar/context menu. A description is always displayed at the bottom of the window for the selected parameter.

Multiple importers can be created for importing to different target locations, provided each importer has a unique name.

Importer parameters

The common adaptor parameters are described in Common Parameters.

The configuration parameters available for the SharePoint Importer are described below:

• authenticationMethod* Method used for authentication against SharePoint. If your SP is setup to directly authenticate your users, enter "direct" and provide user name and password in the corresponding parameters. If your SP is setup to use ADFS authentication, enter "adfs" and provide values for the user name, password, domain, adfsBaseUrl, adfsEndpoint, and adfsRealm parameters.

• serverURL* This is the URL to the root site collection of your SharePoint environment.

• adfsBaseUrl ADFS login page URL. Depends on your ADFS configuration. Example: https://adfs.contoso.com

• adfsEndpoint ADFS Federation Service endpoint URL. Depends on your ADFS configuration. Example: https://sharepoint.contoso.com/_trust/

• adfsRealm Realm for relying party identifier. Depends on your ADFS configuration. Example: https://sharepoint.contoso.com or urn:sharepoint.contoso.com

• username* The SharePoint user on whose behalf the import process will be executed. Should be a SharePoint site administrator. Example: sharepoint\administrator (direct authentication) or [e-mail] (ADFS authentication) Note: If you import into a SharePoint sub-site, this user needs Full Control permission on the root site as well!

• password* Password of the user specified above

• autoAdjustVersioning Enable/Disable whether the lists/libraries should be updated to allow versions imports. Enabled: The importer will update the lists/libraries if needed. Disabled: In case the feature is needed in the import process but not allowed by the target lists/libraries and error will be thrown.

• autoAdjustAttachments Enable/Disable whether the lists should be updated to allow attachments imports. Enabled: The importer will update the lists if needed. Disabled: In case the feature is needed in the import process but not allowed by the target lists/libraries and error will be thrown.

• autoAddContentTypes Enable/Disable whether the lists/libraries should be updated to allow items with custom content type imports. Enabled: The importer will update the lists if needed. Disabled: In case the feature is needed in the import process but not allowed by the target lists/libraries and error will be thrown.

• autoCreateFolders Enable/disable whether folders which do not exist should be created during import. Enabled: the importer created any specified folders automatically. Disabled: no new folders are created, but any existing folders (same path and name) are used. References to non-existing folders throw an error.

• proxyURL This is the URL, which defines the location of your proxy to connect to the Internet. This parameter can be left blank if no proxy is used to connect to the internet.

• proxyUsername The login of the user, who connects and authenticates on the proxy, which was specified in parameter proxyURL. Example: corporatedomain\username

• proxyPassword Password of the proxy user specified above

• loggingLevel* See Common Parameters.

Parameters marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

ADFS authentication

The following screenshots shows where you can find the necessary values for the "adfsEndpoint" and "adfsRealm" parameters in the Windows AD FS configuration tool:

Content Integrity Check

Starting from migration-center 3.5 the SharePoint importer has the option of checking the integrity of each document’s content after it has been imported. This will be done if the “checkContentIntegrity” parameter is checked and it will verify only documents that have a generated checksum in the Source Attributes.

Currently the only supported checksum algorithm is MD5 with HEX encoding.

For certain types of documents such as Office documents and also .MSG documents, “Document Information Panel” is activated and SharePoint changes the content slightly upon upload. This will cause the integrity check to fail for those documents and there is no workaround so far, other than importing without the content integrity check or finding a way to disable this feature directly in SharePoint.

Migset System Rules

Documents

Documents targeted at a Microsoft SharePoint Document library will have to be added to a migration set. This migration set must be configured to accept objects of type <source object type>ToSharePoint (document).

Create a new migration set and set the <source object type>ToSharePoint(document) in the Type drop-down. This is set in the -Migration Set Properties- window which appears when creating a new migration set. The type of object can no longer be changed after a migration set has been created.

• contentType* Rule setting the content type. Example: Task This value must match existing migration-center object type definitions See Object Type definitions.

• copyRoleAssignments Specify if roles from the parent object are copied or not. This system rule is necessary only if the system rule roleAssignments is set, otherwise it is not used. By default, this value is set to false.

• fileExtension Specify the file extension of the file name that is used to upload the content file to SharePoint. See also section Object Values

• isMajorVersion Specify, if the current object will be created as a major or minor version in the SharePoint target library. Example: TRUE or YES or 1 (check in as major version) FALSE or NO or 0 (check in as minor version)

• library* Specify the name of the library, where to import the current object.

• mc_content_location Specify the location of a document’s content file. If not set, the default content location (i.e. where the document has been scanned from) will be used automatically. Set a different path (including filename) if the content has moved since it was scanned, or if content should be substituted with another file.

• parentFolder* Rule which sets the path for the current object inside the targeted Document Library item Example: /username/myfolder/folder If the current object shall be imported on root level of the targeted library, specify a forward slash “/”.

• roleAssignments Specify role assignments for the current object. If a role definition is assigned to the current object, the migration-center SharePoint Importer breaks the role inheritance. It is possible to specify either a list of users and/or a list of SharePoint groups. If a group is specified, it is necessary, that the targeted SharePoint Group exists in your SharePoint Site. Pattern for setting single users: username;#roledefinitionname Pattern for setting groups: @groupName;#roledefinitionname Example: user;#Read @Contributors;#Contribute

• site* Specify the target (sub-) site relative to your site collection, which was specified in the SharePoint Importer connector parameters. If the current object shall be imported on root level of the targeted site collection, specify a forward slash “/”

Links

The same procedure as for documents also applies to links about to be imported to SharePoint Online. For links the object type to select for a migration set would be <source object type>ToSharePoint(link).

SharePoint Online supports documents with the file format ".url". We call these documents "link documents" since they do not have real content but just point to another document in SharePoint Online or to an external web site. The importer will create the necessary content of the link documents on the fly. Thus, the importer will ignore the content of any source object that is imported as a link document because it will import the generated link content instead.

Compared to the Documents migset, the Link migset is missing the fileExtension and mc_content_location system rules and has the following new rules:

• url* The target URL of this link document. Can be a URL to another SharePoint document or a URL to an external web site.

  Example:

  https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/MySite/Documents/Test.docx

Folders

The same procedure as for documents also applies to folders about to be imported to SharePoint. For folders the object type to select for a migration set would be <source object type>ToSharePoint (folder).

Compared to the Documents migset, the Folder migset is missing the fileExtension, isMajorVersion and mc_content_location system rules, and has no additional ones.

Lists

The same procedure as for documents also applies to lists or libraries about to be imported to SharePoint. For lists or libraries the object type to select for a migration set would be <source object type>ToSharePoint (list).

Compared to the Documents migset, the List migset is missing the contentType, fileExtension, isMajorVersion, library, mc_content_location and parentFolder system rules, and has the following additional rules:

• baseTemplate* Rule setting the base template for this list. A list of valid values can be found in the Appendix.

  This value must match existing migration-center object type definitions; see paragraph Object Type definitions

• title Specify the title of the list or library, which will be created

List Items

The same procedure as for documents also applies to list items about to be imported to SharePoint. For list items the object type to select for a migration set would be <source object type>ToSharePoint (listItem).

Compared to the Documents migset, the ListItem migset is missing the fileExtension and mc_content_location system rules, and has the following additional rule:

• relationLinkField Rule which sets a list of column names, where to insert links to AttachmentRelation associated with the current object.

Object Types

Documents, Folders and List Items

In order to associate transformation rules with SharePoint columns, a migration-center object type definition for the respective content type needs to be created. Object type definitions are created in the migration-center client. To create an object type definition, go to Manage/Object Types and create or import a new object type definition. In case your content type contains two or more columns with the same display name, you need to specify the columns internal names as attribute names.

Working with object type definitions and defining attributes is a core product functionality and is described in detail in the Client User Guide.

A Microsoft SharePoint content type corresponds to a migration-center object type definition. For the Microsoft SharePoint connector, an object type definition can be specified in four ways, depending on whether a particular SharePoint content type is to be used or not or multiple but different content types using the same name across site collections:

• My Content Type describes explicitly a SharePoint content Type named My Content Type defined either in the SharePoint document library or at Site Collection level

• @My Document Library describes the SharePoint document library named My Document Library using only columns, which are defined explicitly in the SharePoint document library My Document Library

• My Content Type;#Any Custom Value describes a SharePoint content type named My Content Type. Everything after the delimiter ;# will be cut off on importing

• @My Document Library;#Any Custom Value describes the SharePoint document library named My Document library using only columns, which are defined explicitly in the SharePoint document library My Document Library. Everything after the delimiter ;# will be cut off on importing.

Lists

Importing lists or libraries into SharePoint is a little bit different than for documents, folders or list items, since the migration-center SharePoint Importer sets Microsoft defined attributes, which are not visible to the user. In order to set those attributes, it is necessary to create object type definitions for each type of list template (see List of possible list templates). The SharePoint Connector is able to set any possible attribute of a list. See List of possible list attributes for more information about possible attributes.

Object Values

File Reader

The SharePoint Importer is able to read values from files. This might be necessary if the length of a string might exceed the maximum length of an Oracle database column, which is 4096 bytes.

To tell the SharePoint Importer reading strings from a text file, the filepath of the file containing the value must be placed within the markup <@MCFILE>filepath</@MCFILE>.

The File Reader does not read values from files for the following attributes: Check-In Comment, Author, Editor, Creation Date, Modified Date.

Example:

Assuming you have a file at path \\scanlocation\temp\1\4a9daccf-5ace-4237-856c-76f3bd3e3165.txt you must type the following string in a rule:

<@MCFILE>\\scanlocation\temp\1\4a9daccf-5ace-4237-856c-76f3bd3e3165.txt</@MCFILE>

On import the SharePoint importer extracts the contents of this file and adds them to the associated target attribute.

Filename

The SharePoint Importer is able to modify the filename of a file, which is imported to SharePoint. To set the filename, you must create a target attribute named Name in the object type definition. You can associate any filename (without an extension) for a document. The importer automatically picks the extension of the original file or of the file specified in the rule mc_content_location. If the extension needs to be changed as well, use the system rule fileExtension in order to specify a new file extension. You can also change only the extension of a filename by setting fileExtension and not setting a new filename in the Name attribute.

Example:

Original content location: \\Fileshare\Migration\Scan\566789\content.dat

mc_content_location	Name	fileExtension	Result filename
-	-	-	content.dat
\\Fileshare\Migration\Conversion\invoice.pdf	-	-	invoice.pdf
-	MyContent	-	MyContent.dat
-	MyContent	pdf	MyContent.pdf
-	-	pdf	content.pdf

Check-In Comment

The SharePoint Importer can set the check-in comment for documents. To set the check-in comment, you must create a target attribute named checkin_comment in the object type definition. You can associate any string to set the check-in comment

Author

The SharePoint Importer can set the author for list items, folders and documents. To set the author, you must create a target attribute named author in the object type definition. The value of this attribute must be the loginname of the user, who shall be set as author.

Editor

The SharePoint Importer can set the editor for list items, folders and documents. To set the editor, you must create a target attribute named editor in the object type definition. The value of this attribute must be the loginname of the user, who shall be set as editor.

Creation Date

The SharePoint Importer can set the creation date for list items, folders and documents. To set the creation date, you must create a target attribute named created in the object type definition. The value of this attribute must be any valid date.

Modified Date

The SharePoint Importer can set the modified date for list items, folders and documents. To set the modified date, you must create a target attribute named modified in the object type definition. The value of this attribute must be any valid date.

Lookup values

The SharePoint Importer can set lookup values. If you want to set a lookup value, you can either set the ID of the related item or the title. If you set the title of the document and there is more than one item with the same title in the lookup list, the SharePoint Importer marks your import object as an error, because the lookup item could not be identified unequivocally.

The importer will treat any numeric value provided as the ID of the lookup value. In case you want to look up the value by title and the title is numeric, please surround the numeric value with " characters. The importer will automatically remove any " characters in the provided value before trying to match it with the title of the lookup field.

URL values

The SharePoint Importer can set URL values. You can define a friendly name as well as the actual URL of the link by concatenating the friendly name with ;# and the actual URL.

Example: migration-center;#http://www.migration-center.com

Taxonomy values

The SharePoint Importer can set taxonomy values and Migration Center provides two ways to do it. The first possibility is to use the name of the Taxonomy Service Application, a term group name, a term set name and the actual term. Those four values must be concatenated like the following representation:

TaxonomyServiceApplicationName>TermGroupName>TermSetName>TermName

Example: Taxonomy_+poj2l53kslma4==>Group1>TermSet 1>Value

The second possibility is to use the unique identifier of the term within curly brackets {}.

Example: {2e9b53f9-04fe-4abd-bc33-e1410b1a062a}

Multiple values can be set also but the attribute has to be set as a Multi-value Repeating attribute.

In case you receive an error on setting taxonomy values make sure the TaxonomyServiceApplicationName is up to date and valid since Microsoft changes the identifier at certain times.

Performance

The performance of the import process is heavily impacted by some specific features, namely autoAdjustVersioning, autoAdjustAttachments, autoAddContentTypes, autoCreateFolders, setting taxonomy values, and setting system attributes like Author, Editor, Created, and Modified.

In case you are importing an update for a major version the increase in processing time can get up to three times compared to a normal document import. Combining all the above-mentioned features over the same document can increase the time for up to four times. Take this into consideration when planning an import as the time might vary based on the above described features.

You will achieve the highest import performance if you perform the appropriate configuration of your SharePoint system before you start the import and disabled the above-mentioned features in the SharePoint importer.

Appendix

List of possible list templates

Template Name	Template Identifier	Description
GenericList	100	A basic list which can be adapted for multiple purposes.
DocumentLibrary	101	Contains a list of documents and other files.
Survey	102	Fields on a survey list represent questions that are asked of survey participants. Items in a list represent a set of responses to a particular survey.
Links	103	Contains a list of hyperlinks and their descriptions.
Announcements	104	Contains a set of simple announcements.
Contacts	105	Contains a list of contacts used for tracking people in a site.
Events	106	Contains a list of single and recurring events. An events list typically has special views for displaying events on a calendar.
Tasks	107	Contains a list of items that represent completed and pending work items.
DiscussionBoard	108	Contains discussions topics and their replies.
PictureLibrary	109	Contains a library adapted for storing and viewing digital pictures.
DataSources	110	Contains data connection description files. - hidden
XmlForm	115	Contains XML documents. An XML form library can also contain templates for displaying and editing XML files via forms, as well as rules for specifying how XML data is converted to and from list items.
NoCodeWorkflows	117	Contains additional workflow definitions that describe new processes that can be used within lists. These workflow definitions do not contain advanced code-based extensions. - hidden
WorkflowProcess	118	Contains a list used to support execution of custom workflow process actions. - hidden
WebPageLibrary	119	Contains a set of editable Web pages.
CustomGrid	120	Contains a set of list items with a grid-editing view.
WorkflowHistory	140	Contains a set of history items for instances of workflows.
GanttTasks	150	Contains a list of tasks with specialized Gantt views of task data.
IssueTracking	1100	Contains a list of items used to track issues.

List of possible list attributes

Attribute	Type	Description
ContentTypesEnabled	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether content types are enabled for the list.
DefaultContentApprovalWorkflowId	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the default workflow identifier for content approval on the list. Returns an empty GUID if there is no default content approval workflow.
DefaultDisplayFormUrl	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the location of the default display form for the list. Clients specify a server-relative URL, and the server returns a site-relative URL
DefaultEditFormUrl	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the URL of the edit form to use for list items in the list. Clients specify a server-relative URL, and the server returns a site-relative URL.
DefaultNewFormUrl	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the location of the default new form for the list. Clients specify a server-relative URL, and the server returns a site-relative URL.
Description	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the description of the list.
Direction	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the reading order of the list. Returns "NONE", "LTR", or "RTL".
DocumentTemplateUrl	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the server-relative URL of the document template for the list. Returns a server-relative URL if the base type is DocumentLibrary, otherwise returns null.
DraftVersionVisibility	Number	Gets or sets a value that specifies the minimum permission required to view minor versions and drafts within the list. Represents an SP.DraftVisibilityType value: Reader = 0; Author = 1; Approver = 2.
EnableAttachments	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether list item attachments are enabled for the list.
EnableFolderCreation	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether new list folders can be added to the list.
EnableMinorVersions	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether minor versions are enabled for the list.
EnableModeration	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether content approval is enabled for the list.
EnableVersioning	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether historical versions of list items and documents can be created in the list.
ForceCheckout	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that indicates whether forced checkout is enabled for the document library.
Hidden	Boolean	Gets or sets a Boolean value that specifies whether the list is hidden. If true, the server sets the OnQuickLaunch property to false.
IrmEnabled	Boolean
IrmExpire	Boolean
IrmReject	Boolean
IsApplicationList	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies a flag that a client application can use to determine whether to display the list.
LastItemModifiedDate	DateTime	Gets a value that specifies the last time a list item, field, or property of the list was modified.
MultipleDataList	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that indicates whether the list in a Meeting Workspace site contains data for multiple meeting instances within the site.
NoCrawl	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies that the crawler must not crawl the list.
OnQuickLaunch	Boolean	Gets or sets a value that specifies whether the list appears on the Quick Launch of the site. If true, the server sets the Hidden property to false.
ValidationFormula	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the data validation criteria for a list item. Its length must be <= 1023.
ValidationMessage	String	Gets or sets a value that specifies the error message returned when data validation fails for a list item. Its length must be <= 1023.