Question

I’m using the (JSON) HTTP interface to communicate with SharePoint. The communication itself is done via cURL and a convinience-wrapper in PHP. Problems arise, when I want to push data to SP.

Since I’m no Microsoft / SharePoint guy, I’m missing the proper vocabulary to explain my needs. I’ll therefore demonstrate using data I received from SharePoint.

GET http://example.org/mytest/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/Aufgaben(2) returns the following (truncated by me) data:

{
  "d" : {
    "__metadata": {
      "uri": "http://example.org/mytest/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/Aufgaben(2)", 
      "etag": "W/\"5\"", 
      "type": "Microsoft.SharePoint.DataService.AufgabenItem"
    }, 
    "ID": 2, 
    "InhaltstypID": "0x010800821BC29B80192B4C960A688416597526", 
    "Inhaltstyp": "Aufgabe", 
    "Titel": "Neuer Titel", 
    "ZugewiesenAn": {
      "__deferred": {
        "uri": "http://example.org/mytest/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/Aufgaben(2)/ZugewiesenAn"
      }
    }, 
    "ZugewiesenAnId": 29, 
    "F\u00e4lligkeitsdatum": "\/Date(1323993600000)\/"
  }
}

“ZugewiesenAn” is a user. If I query the deferred values, I get (truncated by me, again)

{
  "d" : {
    "__metadata": {
      "uri": "http://example.org/mytest/_vti_bin/listdata.svc/Benutzerinformationsliste(29)", 
      "etag": "W/\"1\"", 
      "type": "Microsoft.SharePoint.DataService.BenutzerinformationslisteItem"
    }, 
    "InhaltstypID": "0x010A000719C31710976A48867763D86F6586E0", 
    "Name": "Rehm Rodney", 
    "Konto": "EXT\\rodney.rehm", 
    "ID": 29, 
    "Inhaltstyp": "Person", 
  }
}

So I can see that the value of “ZugewiesenAn” should be “EXT\rodney.rehm” (as I need the username). Thus far, no problem.

The question is how I create a new or update an existing object with a different user for “ZugewiesenAn” (a User/Group field)?

I’ve tried:

• Sending the username as the value of “ZugewiesenAn” or “ZugewiesenAnId” results in a Bad Request.
• Querying http://example.org/_vti_bin/People.asmx (SOAP: SearchPrincipals) only yields numeric IDs for people that have actually worked with the list. If I query a username that hasn’t logged into that SharePoint list before, I get ID -1.

Answer 1

I could not find out how to add users to the userlist via REST. You can, however, use the SOAP ResolvePrincipal request (example) – which does the job!