Setting a SharePoint Group's Description Using PowerShell

 

The SharePoint Group object has a property named "Description", but it appears to be ignored. When you edit a group in the browser there is no "Description" field, but there is one named "About Me" that is a rich text field. Turns out there's a few secrets you need to know to set this seemly simple little property.

Secret #1: Many of the group's properties are stored in another object, the SPWeb.SiteUserInfoList object.

Secret #2: The internal name of "About Me" is "Notes".

The PowerShell:

#create the group as usual and then retrieve it...
$web = $site.RootWeb;
$group = $web.SiteGroups["Test Group with HTML desc"];

#find the group's SiteUserInfoList info...
$groupInfo = $web.SiteUserInfoList.GetItemById($group.id);

#update the text...
$groupInfo["Notes"] = "<div>This is <strong>bold</strong> and this is <em>italics</em></div>";

#and save it...
$groupInfo.Update();

 

For a C# example see the answer in this discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/968819/change-description-of-a-sharepoint-group

 

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