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Upload files to SharePoint Library with Metadata

Create the SharePoint library metadata columns

A PowerShell with SharePoint tutorial

PowerShell iconSharePoint has several methods to upload files from Windows Explorer to a document library, but if you want to do it automatically, you should use a PowerShell script. In earlier articles, we have seen how do create such a script and how set a task to run it automatically.

In such a scenario, you can put all files that should be uploaded in a specific folder and then they will be uploaded automatically to the SharePoint document library of your choice. All uploaded files are moved to a subfolder, so that they will not be uploaded to the library again.

The demo below is the first of three where Peter Kalmström explains how metadata can be kept when you upload files to SharePoint. The metadata he uses as an example comes from a Windows Explorer folder named CVs. This folder has three subfolders: Hired, Maybe and No. A file's placement in one of those folders gives us the first keyword.

The files are all named in a consistent way, so the file names can be used to extract three more keywords for each file: first name, last name and department.

We of course want to have the metadata distributed into SharePoint library columns, so the first step is to create a new SharePoint library and add relevant columns to it.

Earlier in this tips series, we have shown several PowerShell scripts for app creation, among them a general script for creation of any kind of apps. Here Peter also uses the cmdlet Add-PnPField and specifies four columns for metadata. In PowerShell, "field" is almost always used instead of "column".

New-PnPList -Title "CVs" -Template DocumentLibrary -OnQuickLaunch -EnableVersioning
Add-PnPField -List "CVs" -DisplayName "Decision" -InternalName "CVDecision" -Type Choice -Choices "Yes","No","Maybe"
Add-PnPField -List "CVs" -DisplayName "First Name" -InternalName "CVFirstName" -Type Text
Add-PnPField -List "CVs" -DisplayName "Last Name" -InternalName "CVLastName" -Type Text
Add-PnPField -List "CVs" -DisplayName "Department" -InternalName "CVDepartment" -Type Text

Note that Peter enters both display names and internal names in the code. The internal names will be used in next demo, where he analyzes the metadata and structures it in a way that makes it possible to add it to the correct SharePoint library columns.

To add the new columns to the default views, add the parameter AddToDefaultView to the Add-PnPField rows in the script. In the demo, Peter adds them manually.

In the next article, we will structure the metadata go make it possible to add to the ¨library columns we have created here.

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