How to create console application to work with SharePoint Online Office 365 sites?

In this post, we will discuss how we can create a console application to work with SharePoint online Office 365 sites. In SharePoint online we can not write server-side code, we can write only client-side code. We can create a console application to work with the client object model (csom/c#.net) code.

Follow the below steps:

Open visual studio 2015 and then File -> New -> Project…

Here from the left side, choose Templates -> Visual C#. And then from list of template choose Console Application. Make sure to choose the .net framework version to “.NET Framework 4.5.2” like below:

Now our console application is ready, but to work with SharePoint online sites we need to add few dlls like below:
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll etc.



We can add those dlls like below. Click on Tools -> NuGet Package Manager -> Manage NuGet Packages for Solutions…. like below:

In the Manage Packages for Solution, click on Browse tab and search for “Microsoft.SharePoint.Client”. In the search result we can see like below dlls like below:

Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll
Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll

SharePoint Online client object model csomSelect one dll and then select the project and click on Install like below:

client object model sharepoint onlineThen it will show the Preview dialog box like below. Click on OK like below:

Once it will add the dll successfully, it will show message like below:

sharepoint online visual studio 2015 csomTo connect to SharePoint online site, we need to use credentials which we can save in App.config like below:

<appSettings>

<add key=”SPOAccount” value=”********@OnlySharePoint2013.onmicrosoft.com” />

<add key=”SPOPassword” value=”********” />

</appSettings>

The app.config looks like below:

csom visual studio 2015Then in the Program.cs file we need to retrieve the user name and password from the App.Config file like below:

private static SecureString GetSPOSecureStringPassword()
{

try

{

var secureString = new SecureString();

foreach (char c in ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“SPOPassword”])

{

secureString.AppendChar(c);

}

return secureString;

}

catch

{

throw;

}

}

private static string GetSPOAccountName()

{

try

{

return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“SPOAccount”];

}

catch

{

throw;

}

}

Then we can connect to the SharePoint online site using AuthenticationMode as ClientAuthenticationMode.Default;

And then we can pass the credentials to the context object. The full code looks like below:

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Configuration;

using System.Linq;

using System.Security;

using System.Text;

using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace SPOnlineConsoleAppDemo

{

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

using (ClientContext context = new ClientContext(“https://onlysharepoint2013.sharepoint.com/sites/Bhawana/”))

{

// Use default authentication mode.

context.AuthenticationMode = ClientAuthenticationMode.Default;

context.Credentials = new SharePointOnlineCredentials(GetSPOAccountName(), GetSPOSecureStringPassword());

var web = context.Web;

context.Load(web, w => w.Webs);

context.ExecuteQuery();

}

}

private static SecureString GetSPOSecureStringPassword()

{

try

{

var secureString = new SecureString();

foreach (char c in ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“SPOPassword”])

{

secureString.AppendChar(c);

}

return secureString;

}

catch

{

throw;

}

}

private static string GetSPOAccountName()

{

try

{

return ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[“SPOAccount”];

}

catch

{

throw;

}

}

}

}

Hope this will be helpful.