Authenticating a connection to SharePoint allows the two platforms to communicate. This authentication must be completed before Form Connectors (SharePoint List and SharePoint Document) can push data or Data Source Connectors can pull data.
The SharePoint connector is a premium feature and requires premium user accounts to access or use.
Adding
The Data Hub area of the platform is where you can add connections for connectors. Navigate the side menu to Data Hub > Connections.
On the Connections page:
- Click the ADD CONNECTION button in the top-right-hand corner to bring up a list of connections.
- Click on the SharePoint option.
Authenticating
After adding a connection, fill in the required properties and save.
Besides MS Graph (our preferred connection method), two other authentication types 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 using your SharePoint user account credentials. We recommend creating a dedicated SharePoint user specifically for 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 requires a more complicated setup process to get up and running. We recommend this approach only if your corporate policy does not permit providing user credentials.
The 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 loaded, click 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 screenshot below.
The client ID and client secret need to be stored as you’ll require them 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 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:
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.