Numbers are Being Added to My SharePoint List Internal Names

When you create a list or library, the name you enter becomes both the internal name (used in the url), and the display name. When you rename a list, only the display name is changed. If you later create a new list with the same name as a renamed list’s original name, the new list’s internal name will have a number added.

Here are the steps to show what's happening:

1. Create a new Custom list and name it "TestList".
2. Navigate to the list and note that the URL contains "TestList".
3. Go to the list and List Settings and use "List name, description and navigation" to rename it to something like "TestListNorth".
4. Note the URL. It's still "TestList".
5. Create a new Custom list and name it "TestList".
6. Navigate to the list and note that the URL contains "TestList1". This is also the internal name. The display name is "TestList".
7. Change the display name of this list to "TestListEast" and note that the URL is still "TestList1".
8. Create yet another new Custom list and name it "TestList".
9. Navigate to the list and note that the URL contains "TestList2". This is also the internal name. The display name is "TestList".
10. Change the display name of this list to "TestListWest" and note that the URL is still "TestList2".

The internal name is both unique and not changeable from the browser user interface. The display name is also unique amongst the display names, but can be different than the internal name.

Keep in mind that the deletion of large objects in SharePoint is a gradual and background process. You might get numbers added to the internal name when you delete a large list, or even a Site or Site Collection, and then recreate those objects and lists using the same names.

Run SharePoint 2013 and 2016 Search Reports from PowerShell

Updated to include IDs for SharePoint 2016!   Original article here.

Update! Need these reports for every site collection in the farm? See Part 2: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2015/04/run-sharepoint-2013-search-reports-from_21.html

In my Search Administration class I stress that admins should dump the search reports on a regular basis as the data is only kept in detail for 14 days and in summary form for 35 months. But who wants to both run these reports at least once every 14 days, even they can remember to do so. So, PowerShell to the rescue… Schedule this script to run each weekend and your work is done.

The following script works for on premise SharePoint 2013. To work with Office 365 you will have to figure out how to include your credentials. The example included here works on premises by using "UseDefaultCredentials = $true".

After lots of hacking, detective work (see below) and just plain trial and error, here's the script:

# This is the URL from YOUR Central Admin Search Service Usage Reports page:
#
# The script will not work unless this is correct!
#
$url = "http://yourCentralAdminURL/_layouts/15/reporting.aspx?Category=AnalyticsSearch&appid=ed39c68b%2D7276%2D46f7%2Db94a%2D4ae7125cf567"  

# This is the path to write the reports to (must exist, but can be anywhere):
$path = "c:\SearchReports\"




function Get-SPSearchReports ($farmurl, $searchreport, $path, $version)
{
  # TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

  if ($version -eq "2013")
  {
    # Report names and IDs
    $Number_of_Queries          = "21be5dff-c853-4259-ab01-ee8b2f6590c7"
    $Top_Queries_by_Day         = "56928342-6e3b-4382-a14d-3f5f4f8b6979"
    $Top_Queries_by_Month       = "a0a26a8c-bf99-48f4-a679-c283de58a0c4"
    $Abandoned_Queries_by_Day   = "e628cb24-27f3-4331-a683-669b5d9b37f0"
    $Abandoned_Queries_by_Month = "fbc9e2c1-49c9-44e7-8b6d-80d21c23f612"
    $No_Result_Queries_by_Day   = "5e97860f-0595-4a07-b6c2-222e784dc3a8"
    $No_Result_Queries_by_Month = "318556b1-cabc-4fad-bbd5-c1bf8ed97ab1"
    $Query_Rule_Usage_by_Day    = "22a16ae2-ded9-499d-934a-d2ddc00d406a"
    $Query_Rule_Usage_by_Month  = "f1d70093-6fa0-4701-909d-c0ed502e3df8"
  }
  else # 2016
  {
    $Number_of_Queries          = "df46e7fb-8ab0-4ce8-8851-6868a7d986ab"
    $Top_Queries_by_Day         = "06dbb459-b6ef-46d1-9bfc-deae4b2bda2d"
    $Top_Queries_by_Month       = "8cf96ee8-c905-4301-bdc4-8fdcb557a3d3"
    $Abandoned_Queries_by_Day   = "5dd1c2fb-6048-440c-a60f-53b292e26cac"
    $Abandoned_Queries_by_Month = "73bd0b5a-08d9-4cd8-ad5b-eb49754a8949"
    $No_Result_Queries_by_Day   = "6bfd13f3-048f-474f-a155-d799848be4f1"
    $No_Result_Queries_by_Month = "6ae835fa-3c64-40a7-9e90-4f24453f2dfe"
    $Query_Rule_Usage_by_Day    = "8b28f21c-4bdb-44b3-adbe-01fdbe96e901"
    $Query_Rule_Usage_by_Month  = "95ac3aea-0564-4a7e-a0fc-f8fdfab333f6"
  }

  $filename = $path + (Get-Variable $searchreport).Name + " " + (Get-Date -Format "yyyy-mm-dd")  + ".xlsx"
  $reportid = (Get-Variable $searchreport).Value

  $TTNcontent = "&__EVENTTARGET=__Page&__EVENTARGUMENT=ReportId%3D" + $reportid

  # setup the WebRequest
  $webRequest = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($farmurl)
  $webRequest.UseDefaultCredentials = $true
  $webRequest.Accept = "image/jpeg, application/x-ms-application, image/gif, application/xaml+xml, image/pjpeg, application/x-ms-xbap, */*"
  $webRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
  $webRequest.Method = "POST"

  $encodedContent = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($TTNcontent)
    $webRequest.ContentLength = $encodedContent.length
    $requestStream = $webRequest.GetRequestStream()
    $requestStream.Write($encodedContent, 0, $encodedContent.length)
    $requestStream.Close()

  # get the data
  [System.Net.WebResponse] $resp = $webRequest.GetResponse();
    $rs = $resp.GetResponseStream();
    #[System.IO.StreamReader] $sr = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader -argumentList $rs;
    #[byte[]]$results = $sr.ReadToEnd();
    [System.IO.BinaryReader] $sr = New-Object System.IO.BinaryReader -argumentList $rs;
    [byte[]]$results = $sr.ReadBytes(10000000);

  # write the file
  Set-Content $filename $results -enc byte
}


# Note: Change the version to 2013 or 2016

Get-SPSearchReports $url "Number_of_Queries" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Top_Queries_by_Day" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Top_Queries_by_Month" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Abandoned_Queries_by_Day" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Abandoned_Queries_by_Month" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "No_Result_Queries_by_Day" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "No_Result_Queries_by_Month" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Query_Rule_Usage_by_Day" $path "2013"
Get-SPSearchReports $url "Query_Rule_Usage_by_Month" $path "2013"
 

The Detective Work…

I could not find anything documented on how the reports are called or details on things like the report GUIDs. So here's how I got there:

• Go the search reports page in Central Admin and press F12 to open the Internet Explorer F12 Developer Tools then:
  • Click the Network tab and click the play button to start recording.
  • Click one of the report links.
  • Double-click the link generated for the report in the F12 pane to open up the details.
  • Make note of the URL (It's the same as the report page!)
  • Note the Accept, and Content-Type Request Headers.
  • Click the Request Body tab.
  • Stare at 3000 characters in that string until your head really hurts, or until you recognize most of what is there is the normal page postback stuff like VIEWSTATE. So we need to find what's unique in the string. (It's the Report IDs.)
  • Click on each of the nine reports and copy out the report IDs.
  • With a lot of trial and error figure out what the minimum string needed is to generate the reports. (It's ""&__EVENTTARGET=__Page&__EVENTARGUMENT=ReportId" plus the report id.)
  • Find out how to do an HTTP POST using PowerShell. (Steal most of it from here: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/846061/PowerShell-Http-Get-Post.)
  • Find some other needed .Net code and convert the C# to PowerShell.
  • Fill in some gaps with PowerShell putty …….

.

SharePoint 2016 Durable Links

I recently had a question in class about “Durable Links”. I did a search of the Microsoft sites to find anything official on SharePoint 2016 “Durable Links”, and basically only found a beta vintage blog article.

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/wbaer/2015/09/22/durable-links-in-sharepoint-server-2016-it-preview/

While I did find a number of other blog articles from the beta period, mostly of the “what’s new in SharePoint 2016” type, I found no TechNet articles. So… I thought I’d share part of one of my courses that has a section on Durable Links. This course is available from many Microsoft Learning partners, and of course, from MAX!

From:
Course 55198A: Microsoft SharePoint Server Content Management for SharePoint 2013 and 2016

SharePoint 2016 Durable Links

Prior to SharePoint 2016, renaming or moving a file would break all of the links and shortcuts that pointed to the file. In SharePoint 2013 you might have had a file named “FinancialStatementFY14Q2.xlsx” that had no spaces in the name. This is both an ugly filename and a name that will cause problems with search. (Users searching for “Statement” or “FY14” would never find it based on the title.) The 2013 URL would look something like this:

http://yourServer/sites/yourSite/Shared%20Documents/FinancialStatementFY14Q2.xlsx

Renaming this file to include spaces in the name would create the following URL. But, users with links to the old file will no longer be able to find it.

http://yourServer/sites/yourSite/Shared%20Documents/Financial Statement FY14 Q2.xlsx

Note the spaces in the URL will be replaced with “%20”.

Durable Links
SharePoint 2016 now appends a “d” query string to the URL with a unique ID that will not change even if the file has been renamed. (But not always… see notes below…)

http://yourServer/sites/yourSite/Shared%20Documents/FinancialStatementFY14Q2.xlsx?d=w780e689061e44dbfb4123fe450f4b957

After renaming, SharePoint will still find the correct document as it looks for the Durable Link ID first to find the document.

http://yourServer/sites/yourSite/Shared%20Documents/Financial%20Statement%20FY14%20Q2.xlsx?d=w780e689061e44dbfb4123fe450f4b957

To find the Durable Link in SharePoint 2016, or the SharePoint Online “Classic UI”, click the “…” next to the filename.

Notes:

• Durable Links are not a feature and cannot be enabled or disabled.
• Durable Links require Office Online Server to be part of the farm.
• Works with Office documents like Word, Excel and PowerPoint (i.e. things displayed in Office Server), but not other files like .jpeg, .png, etc.
• At the time of this writing, the Office 365 / SharePoint Online “Modern Library” pages do not offer a way to copy the URL that includes the Durable Link query string.
• Documents that are moved (drag and drop or cut/paste) will preserve the Durable Link ID. Documents that are copied and pasted will get a new Durable Link ID.
• The Publishing site Content and Structure feature does not preserve the SharePoint 2016 Durable Link. (A new ID is assigned after a Move.)

  .

SharePoint Search Weirdness – Part 5: Search REST API Ignores Duplicates

A continuation of the "Search Weirdness" series!

If you are a developer, or a SharePoint 2013 workflow designer, then you probably have used the SharePoint Search REST API. Did you know that you are probably not getting all of the results expected?

Here’s a typical REST search for the word “sharepoint”:

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'

Or if you would like to be a little more selective:

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'&selectproperties='Title,Author'&refinementfilters='fileExtension:equals("docx")'

or you would like to return more than the default number of items:

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'&selectproperties='Title,Author'&refinementfilters='fileExtension:equals("docx")'&rowlimit=1000

The problem with the above searches is that Search thinks some of your results are duplicates, so it removed them! To solve this problem just add this to your URL:

    &trimduplicates=true

Your search URLs then might look like these:

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'&trimduplicates=true

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'&selectproperties='Title,Author'&refinementfilters='fileExtension:equals("docx")'&trimduplicates=true

http://yourSiteUrl/_api/search/query?querytext='sharepoint'&selectproperties='Title,Author'&refinementfilters='fileExtension:equals("docx")'&rowlimit=1000&trimduplicates=true

.