Using PowerShell to add a list or library WebPart to a SharePoint publishing page via CSOM

Thought I would share this as I struggled to find a complete article online how to do this. First of all, the code below is based on José Quinto’s post USING POWERSHELL TO ADD WEBPART TO SHAREPOINT PAGE VIA CSOM IN OFFICE 365. It’s a really good article on adding a content editor web part to a publishing page.

I couldn’t find any posts online on how to use the same technique to add a list view web part to a page. Eventually I figured out how to create the XML for adding a list view web part.

This is an adaptation of Jose’s function to add a web part to a page:

function AddWebPartToPage ($ctx, $sitesURL, $WebPartXml, $pageRelativeUrl, $wpZoneID, $wpZoneOrder) {
	try{
		Write-Host "Starting the Process to add the User WebPart to the Home Page" -ForegroundColor Yellow
		#Adding the reference to the client libraries. Here I'm executing this for a SharePoint Server (and I'm referencing it from the SharePoint ISAPI directory, 
		#but we could execute it from wherever we want, only need to copy the dlls and reference the path from here        
		Add-Type -Path "c:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll" 
		Add-Type -Path "c:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\15\ISAPI\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime.dll" 
		Write-Host "Getting the page with the webpart we are going to modify" -ForegroundColor Green
		#Using the params, build the page url
		$pageUrl = $sitesURL + $pageRelativeUrl
		Write-Host "Getting the page with the webpart we are going to modify: " $pageUrl -ForegroundColor Green
		#Getting the page using the GetFileByServerRelativeURL and do the Checkout
		#After that, we need to call the executeQuery to do the actions in the site
		$page = $ctx.Web.GetFileByServerRelativeUrl($pageUrl);
		$page.CheckOut()
		$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
		try{
		#Get the webpart manager from the page, to handle the webparts
		Write-Host "The page is checkout" -ForegroundColor Green
		$webpartManager = $page.GetLimitedWebPartManager([Microsoft.Sharepoint.Client.WebParts.PersonalizationScope]::Shared);
		Write-Host $WebPartXml.OuterXml
		#Load and execute the query to get the data in the webparts
		Write-Host "Getting the webparts from the page" -ForegroundColor Green
		$ctx.Load($webpartManager);
		$ctx.ExecuteQuery();
		#Import the webpart
		$wp = $webpartManager.ImportWebPart($WebPartXml.OuterXml)
		#Add the webpart to the page
		Write-Host "Add the webpart to the Page" -ForegroundColor Green
		$webPartToAdd = $webpartManager.AddWebPart($wp.WebPart, $wpZoneID, $wpZoneOrder)
		$ctx.Load($webPartToAdd);
		$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
		}
		catch{
			Write-Host "Errors found:`n$_" -ForegroundColor Red
		}
		finally{
			#CheckIn and Publish the Page
			Write-Host "Checkin and Publish the Page" -ForegroundColor Green
			$page.CheckIn("Add the User Profile WebPart", [Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.CheckinType]::MajorCheckIn)
			$page.Publish("Add the User Profile WebPart")
			$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
			Write-Host "The webpart has been added" -ForegroundColor Yellow 
		}	
	}
	catch{
		Write-Host "Errors found:`n$_" -ForegroundColor Red
	}
}

And this is the XML to add a SharePoint document library called “Documents” to the page.

$WebPartXml1 =  "
		<webParts>
			<webPart xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3'>
				<metaData>
				<type name='Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.XsltListViewWebPart, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' />
				<importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
			</metaData>
			<data>
				<properties>
					<property name='ListUrl' type='string'>Documents</property>
					<property name='ListName' type='string'>Documents</property>
				</properties>
			</data>
			</webPart>
		</webParts>"

The URL for a list is slightly different to a document library, the example below is the XML for an announcement list.

$WebPartXml1 =  "
		<webParts>
			<webPart xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3'>
				<metaData>
					<type name='Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.XsltListViewWebPart, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c' />
					<importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
				</metaData>
				<data>
					<properties>
						<property name='ListUrl' type='string'>Lists/Student Announcements</property>
						<property name='ListName' type='string'>Student Announcements</property>
						<property name='JSLink' type='string'>~sitecollection/Style%20Library/cdb_custom_announcements/cdb_custom_announcements.js</property>
					</properties>
				</data>
			</webPart>
		</webParts>"

I then get the client context and pass the XML and variables to the function to add it to the page

$tenantAdmin = "user@domain.com"
$tenantAdminPassword = "password"
$secureAdminPassword = $(convertto-securestring $tenantAdminPassword -asplaintext -force)
$siteURL = "https://domain.com/sites/subsite";
$ctx = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteUrl) 
$credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($tenantAdmin, $secureAdminPassword)  
$ctx.Credentials = $credentials
$relUrl = "/sites/subsite"
$pageRelativeUrl1 = "/Pages/Default.aspx"
$wpZoneID1 = "Top Left"
$wpZoneOrder1 = 0
#Run function
AddWebPartToPage $ctx $relUrl $WebPartXml1 $pageRelativeUrl1 $wpZoneID1 $wpZoneOrder1

Nice example of adding web parts to a SharePoint Online publishing page using PowerShell CSOM.