Site Templates
Capture a site, stamp it on many
Site scripts and site designs in one place. See the tenant's own and Microsoft's, open any of them as JSON, capture a site or one list as a new script, run a script on one site an action at a time, and keep the library tidy - every change to it backed up first.
What it does
- Every site script and site design in the tenant, and Microsoft's own when you ask for them.
- What a design would do, action by action, before you apply it anywhere.
- A site or list captured as a script you can save, edit, run elsewhere or add to the tenant.
- A script run on exactly one site or subsite, with SharePoint's outcome for every action.
- What has already run on a site: SharePoint's own run history for that web.
How it runs
- Sign in. One sign-in when you click the tile. User, App or Cert authentication all work.
- Choose a tile. Template library, Capture a site, Run step by step, Apply to sites or History.
- Library. Open, clone or export a script or design; new, edit and remove need a SharePoint Administrator.
- Capture. Pick a web, choose the whole site or one list, and SharePoint writes the script.
- Run step by step. Pick a script and a web, fill its placeholders, tick actions, run. The exact web URL is shown first.
How it works
The library is read from the tenant each time it opens, with Microsoft's scripts and designs added only when you ask for them; Microsoft's are read only. Opening, exporting or previewing a script or design changes nothing in the tenant. Capture asks SharePoint to describe the chosen web, or one list on it, as a script: nothing on that site changes, and the result opens unsaved in the editor.
Every change to the library, a new or edited script or design, an uploaded package, or a removal, follows the same order. An item that already exists is read again and the change is refused if it differs from what the page loaded. The item as it is now is saved to a file on this computer, and if that save fails nothing is sent. You are then asked, with the file's location in the question, and only then is the change made and read back. A removal counts only once the item can no longer be found, and removing a script first names the designs that run it.
SharePoint has no recycle bin for site scripts or designs and no undo for what a script did to a site. The saved file holds the item as it was before the change, and it is the way back for a removed or edited script or design. Sites a removed script was applied to keep their changes.
Run step by step sends the ticked actions to the one web shown, one action at a time and strictly in order, and each row shows SharePoint's own outcome for that action. With Stop at the first failure on, as it is by default, nothing more is sent after an action fails and the rest are listed as not started. Each action is logged before it is sent and after it returns, and the run is kept in History with its workbook.
What you need
- Reading the library, capturing and running need owner rights on the sites involved.
- Creating, editing or removing scripts and designs needs the SharePoint Administrator role. The page checks after you sign in and locks those buttons with the reason if you do not have it.
- Cert authentication needs an app with Sites.FullControl.All.
What it will not do
- SharePoint has no undo for a site script or design. What a run creates or changes stays.
- Microsoft's limits apply: 300 actions (or 100,000 characters) per design, 30 for a design applied and waited for, and 100 scripts and 100 designs per tenant.
- A removed or edited script or design can only come back from the JSON file ShareMaster saved on this computer before the change. There is no Restore button for it in the app.
- Running one action at a time uses a SharePoint call that is not in Microsoft's published reference; an answer it does not recognise is reported as a failure, never as success.