Connection and Profiles

The connection panel is the starting point for every session. It lets you specify your SharePoint Online tenant, authenticate, choose one or more target sites, and save all of that as a reusable profile.

Connection Fields

⚠️ Note: The Site URL field is automatically managed when you use the multi-site picker. If two or more sites are selected, the field is grayed out and replaced by a button labeled Sites (n).

Connecting

1. Fill in all four fields (or load a saved profile).
2. Click Connect.
3. A browser window opens for interactive Azure AD authentication.
4. After signing in, the application confirms the connection and enables all feature tabs.

Authentication tokens are managed by PnP.PowerShell and cached for the duration of the session. Re-authentication is triggered automatically if the token expires.

Profiles

Profiles store your connection settings so you can switch between tenants, sites, or output folders without re-entering everything manually. Profiles are persisted in Sharepoint_Export_profiles.json inside the configured data folder.

Creating a Profile

1. Fill in the connection fields.
2. Click Save Profile.
3. Enter a descriptive name (e.g. Contoso – HR Site).
4. Click OK.

Loading a Profile

1. Open the Profiles dropdown.
2. Select the desired profile.
3. All fields are populated automatically.
4. Click Connect to authenticate.

Renaming a Profile

1. Load the profile you want to rename.
2. Click Rename Profile.
3. Enter the new name and confirm.

Deleting a Profile

1. Open the Profiles dropdown and select the profile.
2. Click Delete Profile.
3. Confirm the deletion.

⚠️ Note: Deleting a profile only removes the saved settings. It does not disconnect an active session or delete any exported files.

Multi-Site Picker

The site picker lets you browse and select multiple sites from your tenant without knowing their URLs in advance.

Opening the Picker

Click the Browse button next to the Site URL field. The picker opens as a separate panel or dialog.

How It Works

1. The application queries the tenant's site collection list using PnP.PowerShell.
2. All discovered sites are displayed with their title and URL.
3. You can check/uncheck individual sites or use Select All / Deselect All.
4. Click Apply to confirm the selection.

Caching Behavior

The list of tenant sites is fetched on first use and cached across sessions. This avoids repeating an expensive tenant-wide query every time you open the picker.

• The cache is stored in the JSON data folder alongside profiles and templates.
• If new sites have been added to the tenant, click Refresh inside the picker to invalidate the cache and fetch a fresh list.

Single vs. Multiple Sites Selected

Profile File Format

[
  {
    "Name": "Contoso – HR Site",
    "TenantUrl": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com",
    "ClientId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
    "SiteUrl": "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/HR",
    "OutputFolder": "C:\\Reports\\SharePoint"
  }
]

⚠️ Note: The ClientId stored in the profile is not a secret. Authentication always goes through an interactive browser login; no passwords or tokens are stored in the file.