Create Site Collection and Subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell

In this PowerShell SharePoint tutorial, we will discuss how to create a site collection in SharePoint Online using PowerShell. Also, we will see how to create a subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell. We will discuss here:

• How many site collections in SharePoint
• Create site collection SharePoint Online using PowerShell
• Create Subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell
• Create multiple SharePoint sites using PowerShell
• Create SharePoint Online Site Collection manually from SharePoint Online Admin center
• Self-Service Site Collection in SharePoint
• Fast Site Collection Creation in SharePoint 2016

I will explain how to create a site collection using PowerShell in SharePoint Online Office 365. You can learn the process of provisioning Site Collection in SharePoint Online Office 365 using PowerShell.

To create a site collection in SharePoint, we need a site template id. For this, you can check my previous post on how to get all site templates in SharePoint Online using PowerShell. We are going to use site template id while creating the site collection in SharePoint Online using PowerShell.

As a developer, you should have the below things required to create a site collection or subsites using PowerShell in SharePoint Online.

• Basic knowledge in PowerShell
• SharePoint Online Admin center URL & Access
• New Site Collection URL & Owner name
• Site collection template ID

How many site collections in SharePoint

Let us see, how many site collections or sites in SharePoint Online and SharePoint On-premise environments.

Limit of site (Site collection) in SharePoint Online

• In SharePoint Online, we can create 2million sites(site collection) per organization based on the Microsoft 365 plan.
• The maximum storage for each site(site collection) is 25 TB.

Limit of Site Collection in SharePoint On-premise

• In SharePoint On-premise, we can create the number of a site collection is 250,000 per farm. And the maximum number of site collections per farm is 500,000 personal sites plus 250,000 sites for all other site templates. All sites can reside in one web application or can be distributed across multiple web applications.
• This limit will be affected by other factors, that might reduce the number of site collections that can be supported by a given content database (500 content databases per farm).
• Care must be taken to avoid exceeding the supported limit when a container object, such as a content database contains a large number of other objects.
• If a farm contains a smaller total number of the content databases, each of which contains a large number of a site collection and then farm performance affected long before the limit supported by the number of site collection reached.
• Let’s discuss with an example if Farm A contains a web application that has 100 contents database, a supported configuration. If each of these content databases contains 1000 site collections.
• The total number of site collections in the web application will be 100,000, which is falls within supported limits.
• However, if the content database contains 10,000 site collections, then the number of site collections in the farm will be 1,000,000, which exceeds the limit for the number of site collections in web applications.
• On the webserver, memory usage should be monitored, as memory usage depends on the usage pattern, and how many sites are accessed in the given time frame.
• The supported limit for the number of websites in a site collection is 250,000.
• The SharePoint collection can be as large as the content database size. The site collection per content database’s maximum size is 10,000 site collections.

List of Site Collection templates in SharePoint Online

Below is the list of site collection templates which are available in SharePoint Online. Suppose you want to create a SharePoint Online Modern Team site, then you have to use STS#3 template id. Similarly, if you want to create a classic team site, then you can use STS#0 template id.

Site Collection Template ID	Template Name
STS#3	Team site
STS#0	Team site (classic experience)
BLOG#0	Blog
BDR#0	Document Center
DEV#0	Developer Site
OFFILE#1	Records Center
EHS#1	Team Site – SharePoint Online configuration
BICenterSite#0	Business Intelligence Center
SRCHCEN#0	Enterprise Search Center
BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0	Publishing Portal
ENTERWIKI#0	Enterprise Wiki
PROJECTSITE#0	Project Site
PRODUCTCATALOG#0	Product Catalog
COMMUNITY#0	Community Site
COMMUNITYPORTAL#0	Community Portal
SRCHCENTERLITE#0	Basic Search Center
visprus#0	Visio Process Repository
SRCHCENTERLITE#0	Basic Search Center
visprus#0	Visio Process Repository

Create site collection SharePoint Online using PowerShell

Below is the PowerShell script to create a site collection in SharePoint Online Office 365. You can write, test, and debug the PowerShell script using Visual Studio Code or by using Windows PowerShell ISE.

function SPO-CreateNewSiteCollection {
#Parameters for Creating New Site Collection in SharePoint Online
param ($strNewSiteUrl, $strNewSiteTitle,$strNewSiteOwner,$strNewSiteQuota,$strNewSiteResourceQuota, $strNewSiteTemplateID, $strTenantAdminURL,$strTenantAdminName)

# Reading password in the PowerShell window
$password = Read-Host "Please enter the password for $($strTenantAdminName)" -AsSecureString
# Settingup the credentials
$credentials = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $strTenantAdminName, $password
#Connecting to to SharePoint Online
try {
Connect-SPOService -Url $strTenantAdminURL -Credential $credentials
write-host "Report: Connected succesfully to SharePoint Online !!!" -foregroundcolor green
}
catch {
write-host "Error: Could not connect to SharePoint Online !!!" -foregroundcolor red
Break SPO-CreateNewSiteCollection
}
#verifying incase the site collection is already exists in SharePoint Online
$siteExists = get-SPOSite | where {$_.url -eq $strNewSiteUrl}
#verify if site collection exists even in the recycle bin
$siteExistsInRecycleBin = get-SPODeletedSite | where {$_.url -eq $strNewSiteUrl}
#Creating Site Collection by validting flag bits for above 2 scenarios
if (($siteExists -eq $null) -and ($siteExistsInRecycleBin -eq $null)) {
write-host "Report: Creating Site Collection $($strNewSiteTitle)" -foregroundcolor green
New-SPOSite -Url $strNewSiteUrl -title $strNewSiteTitle -Owner $strNewSiteOwner -StorageQuota $strNewSiteQuota -NoWait -ResourceQuota $strNewSiteResourceQuota -Template $strNewSiteTemplateID
}
elseif ($siteExists -eq $true) {
write-host "Report: $($strNewSiteUrl) already exists" -foregroundcolor red
}
else {
write-host "Report: $($strNewSiteUrl) still exists in the recyclebin" -foregroundcolor red
}
write-host "Report: Site Collection $($strNewSiteTitle) Created Successfully !!!" -foregroundcolor green
}
try {
# variables that are needed to host the new Site Collection
$strNewSiteUrl = Read-Host "Please enter URL for new Site Collection:: ex: https://onlysharepoint2013.sharepoint.com/sites/testSite"
$strNewSiteTitle = Read-Host "Name of New Site Collection:"
$strNewSiteOwner = Read-Host "Provide Admin account for new Site Collection:"
$strNewSiteQuota = 1000
$strNewSiteResourceQuota = 50
$strNewSiteTemplateID = Read-Host "Provide site Template-ID ex:STS#0"
$strTenantAdminURL = Read-Host "Provide Admin host URL: ex:https://<<tenant Name>>-admin.sharepoint.com/"
$strTenantAdminName = Read-Host "Provide Admin account ex:<<admin-user>>@<<tenant.onmicrosoft.com"

SPO-CreateNewSiteCollection -strNewSiteUrl $strNewSiteUrl -strNewSiteTitle $strNewSiteTitle -strNewSiteOwner $strNewSiteOwner -strNewSiteQuota $strNewSiteQuota -strNewSiteResourceQuota $strNewSiteResourceQuota -strNewSiteTemplateID $strNewSiteTemplateID -strTenantAdminURL $strTenantAdminURL -strTenantAdminName $strTenantAdminName
}
catch {
write-host "Error: $($strNewSiteUrl) still exists in the recyclebin" -foregroundcolor red
}

Output in PowerShell Window:

Our new Site Collection listed in Admin Center:

You can see below the newly created modern site collection in SharePoint Online.

This is how we can use PowerShell, to create a modern site collection in SharePoint Online Office 365.

Create Subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell

Now, we will see how to create a subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell.

It is always a good idea to create subsites to organize user content for better collaboration across the organization thought it is SharePoint online.

The below PowerShell script will create a subsite in SharePoint online:

function new-spOnlineWeb {

#variables that needs to be set before starting the script
$siteURL = "<< SharePoint Site Collection URL >>"
$webURL = "MyFirstWeb"
$title = "My First Web"
$template = "STS#0"
$userName = "<< User-ID >>"
$useSamePermissionsAsParentSite = $true

# Let the user fill in their password in the PowerShell window
$password = Read-Host "Please enter the password for $($userName)" -AsSecureString

# set SharePoint Online credentials
$SPOCredentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($userName, $password)

#Creating client context object
$context = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteURL)
$context.credentials = $SPOCredentials

#create web using WebCreationInformatin object (wci)
$wci = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.WebCreationInformation
$wci.url = $webURL
$wci.title = $title
$wci.webtemplate = $template
$wci.useSamePermissionsAsParentSite = $useSamePermissionsAsParentSite
$createWeb = $context.web.webs.add($wci)
$context.load($createWeb)

#send the request containing all operations to the server
try{
$context.executeQuery()
write-host "info: Creating $($title)" -foregroundcolor green
}
catch{
write-host "info: $($_.Exception.Message)" -foregroundcolor red
}
}

new-spOnlineWeb

Below is the expected output:

This is how to create a site collection in SharePoint Online using Office 365 using PowerShell. We also saw, how to create a subsite in SharePoint Online Office 365 using PowerShell.

Create multiple SharePoint site using PowerShell

This part of the article is written by our EnjoySharePoint author, Anup Bhavsar.

Purpose of the article: The purpose of this SharePoint online article is to provide instruction on how to create SharePoint Online site collections in bulk using PowerShell.

The scope of the article: The scope of the article is to give detailed guidelines to understand and create SharePoint Online site collection.

Creating SharePoint Online Site Collection can be done using 2 methods:

• PowerShell Script for bulk creation
• Manual

Create SharePoint Online Site Collections in Bulk using PowerShell Script

We can create site collections in bulk in SharePoint online. Here we will see how we can create site collections from an excel file.

Creation of Site collection will be done through PowerShell Script using the below step:

Create a CSV file with the column name shown in below screenshot:

Sample CSV file: You can download the sample CSV file which I have used in this example.

The CSV file contains the information of the site collection which need to be created:

• Site Collection URL: E.g. https://domainname.sharepoint.com/teams/SALES ‘domainname’ your domain name.
• Owner: A user who is responsible for the site collection
• Site collection Admin: The same user as owner or different user depending upon the requirement.
• ResourceQuota: Using 300 resource quota default and the reason behind accepting the default is that if you are creating a site collection with team site template and if you are not going to use any sandbox custom solution. A custom solution requires high server resource quota. If the site collection is highly customized, then require high server resource quota.
• StorageQuota: Put the number of gigabytes (GB). Minimum would be 1 GB and maximum would be 25600 GB (25 TB).
• Template: Use Team site template ID STS#0.
• Title: E.g. SALES with the above example.
• TimeZoneId: Depending upon the requirement that means in which timezone the site collection should be stamped.

Open a Window PowerShell as administrator and run the Connect-SPOService cmdlet as shown below:

NOTE: Before running the above cmdlet, please make sure that the SharePoint Online management shell tool and it’s all modules are installed on the system. Also, check the execution policy is set as per the requirement.

Then supply the value and that value would be https://domainname-admin.sharepoint.com which is the URL of SPO admin center.

Then click enter, which will open a pop window to verify the credentials as shown below:

You can use Global administrator/SharePoint Administrator credentials to authenticate.

Then edit the below script and make sure to change the $AdminName and $csvfile = Import-csv “File Path”:

$AdminURL = "https://domainname-admin.sharepoint.com/"

$AdminName = ""

$csvfile = Import-csv ""

#User Names Password to connect

$SecurePWD = read-host -assecurestring "Enter Password for $AdminName"
$Credential = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $AdminName, $SecurePWD
#Connect to SharePoint Online

Connect-SPOService -url $AdminURL -credential $Credential

#Add Site collection Admin

foreach($row in $csvfile)
{
Write-Host "Creating $($row."Site Collection URL")"
New-SPOSite -url $row."Site Collection URL" -Owner $row.owner -Template $row.Template -Title $row.Title -ResourceQuota $row.ResourceQuota -StorageQuota $row.StorageQuota -TimeZoneId $row.TimeZoneId
Set-SPOUser -site $row."Site Collection URL" -LoginName $row."Site Collection Admin" -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $True
}

• Download SharePoint Online bulk Site Creation PowerShell Script.

NOTE:

• $AdminName: This will be the same UPN that was used as Global administrator/SharePoint Administrator.
• $csvfile = Import-csv “File path”: In this put the path of the CSV file that you have created in beginning.
• Make sure to store CSV file and script in the same location.
• If everything is properly executed, then you will see the New site collection is created and will appear in the URL list in the SharePoint Admin center under site collection section.

Create SharePoint Online Site Collection manually from SharePoint  Online Admin center

Log in to office 365 portal using Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator credentials. If you have not tried Office 365, you can sign up for an Office 365 Enterprise E3 trial.

Select the app launcher icon in the upper-left and choose Admin to open the Office 365 admin center. In the left pane, select Resources, and then select Sites.

Select add a site.

If the admin doesn’t see the options above, then click on App launcher and then from Admin center tab click on SharePoint as shown below:

It will take admin on the below landing page:

Then click on the New tab and then Private Site Collection as shown in the above screenshot:

Once an admin clicks on Private Site Collection, a new window will pop up as shown below:

Admin must fill all the details as shown in above screenshot.

• In the Title box, enter a name for the site collection.
• In the Web Site Address, use ‘teams’ or ‘sites’ as a managed path, URL will be created.
• In the Template Selection section, in the Select a language drop-down list, select a language for the site collection. Admin can enable the SharePoint multiple language interfaces on sites, but the primary language for the site collection will remain the one that has been selected here by admin.
• NOTE: It’s important to select the appropriate language for the site collection because once it’s set, it cannot be changed. After creating a site collection, verify the locale and regional settings are accurate. (For example, a site created for Chinese will have its locale set to China.)
• In the Template Selection section, under Select a template, choose the Team site template as per requirement.
• In the Time Zone box, select as per the requirement.
• In the Administrator box, type the username of your site collection administrator.
• In the Storage Quota box, type the number of gigabytes (GB). The minimum would be 1 GB and the maximum would be 25600 GB (25 TB).
• In the Server Resource Quota box, use 300 resource quota default and the reason behind accepting the default is that if you are creating a site collection with team site template and if you are not going to use any sandbox custom solution. The custom solution requires a high server resource quota. If the site collection is highly customized, then requires a high server resource quota.
• Click on OK.

I hope this article helps you guys to create a site collection in SharePoint Online from the SharePoint Online admin center. Also, it will help to create SharePoint site collections in bulk using PowerShell in SharePoint Online.

Self-Service Site Collection in SharePoint 2019/2016/2013

SharePoint Self-Service Site Creation is a feature which is enabled by administrators and allows users to create their own top-level Web site. Microsoft has introduced the “Self-Service Site Collection” feature from SharePoint 2010 onwards.

I would like to discuss about few important aspects:

• What is the “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint?
• How does “Self-Service Site Collection” helps the users in SharePoint?
• How to enable “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint 2013/2016?

SharePoint Self-Service Site Collection

In a SharePoint site, admin group members can create their own subsites, lists, libraries and also they can manage permissions as per the business needs.

Self-Service Site Creation is a feature which is enabled by administrators and allows users to create their own top-level Web site. User does not need administrator permissions on the web application server / virtual server, once this feature is enabled by FARM administrator any user part of the site can create the top level site collection.

Advantages of Self-Service Site Collection

As we all know SharePoint is meant for collaboration and document management with high security to data. In bigger business units sometimes the user has to create a separate high-level site to collaborate with all the other business units and clients.

It will be helpful to the user to create an individual top-level site without approaching an administrator.

How to enable “Self-Service Site Collection” feature in SharePoint 2013/2016?

Since this can have to be enabled in central administration, only FARM administrator can do this. Follow the below steps to enable this feature:

Log – on to the SharePoint application server with a FARM admin account. Open SharePoint Central Administration, (Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> SharePoint 2013 Central Administration).

Approach 1:

Activating feature from ribbon control

Approach 2:

Configuring from Application Management. From SharePoint 2013 central administration, click on Application Management, then click on Configure self-service site creation.

Once you configure / enable this feature any user from that site collection can create site collection using:

<<site collection URL>>_/layouts/15/scsignup.aspx
Ex: http://sharepoint13:12345_/layouts/15/scsignup.aspx

Creating site collection using non-admin user in SharePoint 2013/2016

Once it is configured, non admin users can create site collection in SharePoint 2013/2016.

You can see that it is not a sub site:

Now if we log on to central admin we can see this as site collection under http://sharepoint13:12345 web application.

Here, we saw, what is self service site creation in SharePoint 2013/2016? How we can enable self service site creation SharePoint 2013/2016.

Fast Site Collection Creation in SharePoint 2016

Now, let us see, the fast site collection creation in SharePoint 2016 using PowerShell. The fast site collection creation process improves site collection creation performance.

One of the new features of SharePoint 2016 is fast site collection creation feature.

Previously when you are trying to create SharePoint site collection it usually takes time to create a site collection. To reduce this performance issue, in SharePoint 2016 Microsoft provides the fast site collection feature which is supported now by PowerShell only.

You can create the fast site collection using PowerShell only because UI is not supported yet.

On a high level, this works at the SQL Server level which reduces round trips required between SharePoint and SQL Server. It simply copies at the SQL server level directly.

SharePoint 2016 provides few PowerShell commands to work with fast site creation.

Below are PowerShell cmdlets to work with Fast site Creation in SharePoint 2016.

Get-SPWebTemplatesEnabledForSiteMaster

This PowerShell command displays a list of template IDs that are enabled for SharePoint 2016 fast site creation.

PS E:\Users\Administrator> Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
Get-SPWebTemplatesEnabledForSiteMaster 

Name	CompatibilityLevel
SPSPERS#2	15
SPSPERS#6	15
SPSPERS#7	15
SPSPERS#8	15
SPSPERS#9	15
SPSPERS#10	15

When you run the above command, you can see the templated ids enabled for fast site creation.

Enable-SPWebTemplateForSiteMaster

By using this PowerShell command you can enable a template for fast site collection creation in SharePoint 2016.

Suppose you want to enable team site template id for fast site collection creation, then you can use the below PowerShell command.

STS#0 is the template id for the team site. You can check a very good article by Vlad in Absolute-SharePoint to see all the template ids.

Enable-SPWebTemplateForSiteMaster -Template "STS#0" -CompatibilityLevel 15

Once you run the above command you can see the team site template is now enabled for fast site creation.

PS E:\Users\Administrator> Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
Enable-SPWebTemplateForSiteMaster -Template "STS#0" -CompatibilityLevel 15
Get-SPWebTemplatesEnabledForSiteMaster

Name	CompatibilityLevel
SPSPERS#2	15
SPSPERS#6	15
SPSPERS#7	15
SPSPERS#8	15
SPSPERS#9	15
SPSPERS#10	15
STS#0	15

Get-SPSiteMaster

This command will display the site master information, it is something like this information will be used when we create a site collection using a fast site creation process.

Get-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase WSS_Content

By default it will provide information like below when you run the above command:

PS E:\Users\Administrator> Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
Get-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase WSS_Content

ContentDatabase          : SPContentDatabase Name=WSS_Content

SiteId                   : bb743227-37ac-404c-8ab3-e6e293313b38

TemplateName             : SPSPERS#10

Language                 : 1033

CompatibilityLevel       : 15

FeaturesToActivateOnCopy : {0ee1129f-a2f3-41a9-9e9c-c7ee619a8c33|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           f661430e-c155-438e-a7c6-c68648f1b119|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           e9c0ff81-d821-4771-8b4c-246aa7e5e9eb|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           fa8379c9-791a-4fb0-812e-d0cfcac809c8|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;…}

It looks like below:

New-SPSiteMaster

We can use this PowerShell command to new site master using any template. As for our requirement we will create a site master for the team site template.

New-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase WSS_Content -Template STS#0

This command will take some time to add to the site master. After this if you will run Get-SPSiteMaster PowerShell command you can see our team site template will be added to the site master like below:

PS E:\Users\Administrator> Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
Get-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase WSS_Content

ContentDatabase          : SPContentDatabase Name=WSS_Content

SiteId                   : ab6df6d4-6b48-4a54-97a8-4dac0f23443c

TemplateName             : STS#0

Language                 : 1033

CompatibilityLevel       : 15

FeaturesToActivateOnCopy : {4c42ab64-55af-4c7c-986a-ac216a6e0c0e|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           8581a8a7-cf16-4770-ac54-260265ddb0b2|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           3bae86a2-776d-499d-9db8-fa4cdc7884f8|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           3cb475e7-4e87-45eb-a1f3-db96ad7cf313|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;…}

ContentDatabase          : SPContentDatabase Name=WSS_Content

SiteId                   : bb743227-37ac-404c-8ab3-e6e293313b38

TemplateName             : SPSPERS#10

Language                 : 1033

CompatibilityLevel       : 15

FeaturesToActivateOnCopy : {0ee1129f-a2f3-41a9-9e9c-c7ee619a8c33|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           f661430e-c155-438e-a7c6-c68648f1b119|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           e9c0ff81-d821-4771-8b4c-246aa7e5e9eb|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;,

                           fa8379c9-791a-4fb0-812e-d0cfcac809c8|00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000|;…}

New-SPSite

Now we can create a site collection from site master in SharePoint 2016 by using the PowerShell command below:

New-SPSite http://mypc/sites/MyFastSiteFromPowerShell -ContentDatabase "WSS_Content" -CompatibilityLevel 15 -CreateFromSiteMaster -Template "STS#0" -OwnerAlias"MySP\Administrator"

This will create the site collection in less time.

You can visit the site url to see the site collection created successfully.

Disable-SPWebTemplateForSiteMaster

Microsoft also provides below command to disable site template from site master.

Disable-SPWebTemplateForSiteMaster -Template STS#0

The above command will disable team site template from site master.

Remove-SPSiteMaster

This PowerShell command will remove site master from the content database.

Remove-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase "WSS_Content" -SiteId

SiteId: You can get the SiteId by running Get-SPSiteMaster -ContentDatabase WSS_Content command.

I hope this SharePoint 2016 tutorial helps to know about SharePoint 2016 Fast Site Collection Creation using PowerShell.

You may like the following SharePoint tutorials:

• Create site page in SharePoint online
• SharePoint Online calendar web part
• How to add parent site navigation to subsite in SharePoint?
• What is a SharePoint site collection administrator?
• How to display excel spreadsheet in SharePoint
• How to allow anonymous read access to a SharePoint site?
• Grant user access to SharePoint site office 365
• Move files from OneDrive for Business to SharePoint Online

In this PowerShell SharePoint tutorial we learned:

• How many site collections in SharePoint
• Create site collection SharePoint Online using PowerShell
• Create Subsite in SharePoint Online using PowerShell
• Create multiple SharePoint site using PowerShell
• Create SharePoint Online Site Collection manually from SharePoint Online Admin center
• Self-Service Site Collection in SharePoint
• Fast Site Collection Creation in SharePoint 2016