I’m writing this blog to share my experiences with working the latest version of PnP PowerShell V4 this .NET Core version and Azure Functions V3.
Background
Up until a few weeks ago I was able to write PnP PowerShell provisioning code and run it in an Azure Function V1 to do almost anything I wanted in my SharePoint site. I was receiving warnings that Azure was going to be deprecating the V1 functions but not pay much attention. This forced me to try using the new way of using the Azure V3 function which run PowerShell .NET Core and the new PnP PowerShell libraries built on .NET Core.
Azure has removed all ways through the UI to use experiment languages. You can set the PowerShell Azure function to run in V1 mode, however the toggle switch to enable experimental languages has been removed. Rendering this article is no longer valid – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/site-design-pnp-provisioning#create-the-azure-function [UPDATE: 11/25/2020 – Microsoft has updated that article]
The now older version of PnP PowerShell is referred to as PnP PowerShell V3 which is built on the CSOM for .NET 4.5 Libraries. This runs in PowerShell up V5
The newer PnP PowerShell is referred to as PnP PowerShell V4 which is built on the CSOM for .NET Standard 2.0. This run in PowerShell V7.
You can read more about this here – https://github.com/pnp/PnP-PowerShell. A tremendous amount of work has been done to make the libraries available for .NET Core. It’s time we all start using the new V4 version and help the project by submitting defects and contributing.
My Experience
I was faced with many issues which I will outline. While this was my first time experimenting with the new PnP PowerShell and the Azure Functions V3 it was not an easy one. I wrote this article before changes to official Microsoft documentations updates and had to learn by trial and error which can be tedious.
- On Demand Loading – the function now use a requirements.ps1 file that contains a manifest of the libraries that your function will using. This is how you load the PnP PowerShell libraries. The files will be downloaded on demand when your function is initialized and will stay in memory until your function goes to sleep.
- Problems Connecting / Authentication – I believe there is some issues with Authentication as I spent many hours trying various combinations to work. I would recommend using a certificate as that is the only way I was able to get the functions to work correctly. I think it’s possible some pieces of PnP PowerShell V4 are not working 100% in Azure Functions. I was using 0.2.15-nightly
- Different Commands – not a huge deal but you need to be aware that some of the commandlets have changed and should update them accordingly. It’s well documented just be aware.
- Pre-Release Version – the PnP PowerShell is still currently pre-release and scheduled to be GA in Jan 2021. We can’t do anything about this, if you need this functionality you will be using the pre-release version. It shouldn’t matter too much if the functionality works with the version of PnP PowerShell that you built it on then you are fine. Somethings may or may not work – always send feedback in the github repo’s for issues.
- Timeouts – the on demand loading seemed to timeout my functions [default 5 mins max on Azure Function runtime] this was a problem with the libraries taking 3-4 minutes to load and my code only had 1 minute to finish.
In the host.json file I had increased the timeout to 10 minutes to account for this. At the time of this article I have not tried to upload and host the libraries in my function [more on this in another article]
Summary
Since writing this article I have made more progress in this area. I will post a follow up in the next week with a walk through of setting up a site script to kick off a Power Automate Flow, that runs the Azure Function to make some modifications to a SharePoint site. I’ve had a lot of fun playing around and experimenting with different flows and can now appreciate this method along with the power behind it. I am excited to see the progress here and looking forward to future updates from the PnP PowerShell team!
