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Managing SharePoint Sites and Lists

Once connected with Connect-PnPOnline, you can create and manage SharePoint sites, lists, and columns entirely from PowerShell.

Getting Site Information

Retrieve details about the site you are connected to:

powershell

Get-PnPSite                   # Returns the site collection object
Get-PnPWeb                    # Returns the current web (subsite) object
Get-PnPWeb | Select-Object Title, Url, Language

Key Concept: In SharePoint, a site collection (returned by Get-PnPSite) is the top-level container. A web (returned by Get-PnPWeb) is an individual site or subsite within that collection.

Creating New Sites

Use New-PnPSite to create communication or team sites. The -Type parameter controls which kind:

powershell

# Communication site
New-PnPSite -Type CommunicationSite -Title "Company News" `
    -Url "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/CompanyNews"

# Team site (backed by an M365 Group)
New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title "Engineering" -Alias "Engineering"

Communication sites are for broadcasting content. Team sites are collaboration spaces tied to a Microsoft 365 Group.

Working with Lists

Lists are the core data structure in SharePoint. Retrieve, create, and remove them with these cmdlets:

powershell

# Get all lists on the current site
Get-PnPList

# Get a specific list by title
Get-PnPList -Identity "Projects"

# Create a new generic list
New-PnPList -Title "Inventory" -Template GenericList

# Create a document library
New-PnPList -Title "Proposals" -Template DocumentLibrary

Adding Columns (Fields)

After creating a list, add custom columns with Add-PnPField:

powershell

Add-PnPField -List "Inventory" -DisplayName "SKU" `
    -InternalName "SKU" -Type Text

Add-PnPField -List "Inventory" -DisplayName "Quantity" `
    -InternalName "Quantity" -Type Number

Key Concept: Always specify both -DisplayName (what users see) and -InternalName (used in code and queries). The internal name cannot be changed after creation, so choose it carefully.

Removing a List

To delete a list, use Remove-PnPList. Add -Force to skip the confirmation prompt:

powershell

Remove-PnPList -Identity "Inventory" -Force

Exercises

0/4 completed

Write a command to get the current SharePoint web and display only its Title and Url properties.

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