Get user identity and properties in SharePoint

There are different ways to retrieve user identity and information, depending on what information you want to retrieve. This article shows you some of the ways you can accomplish that.

Prerequisites for retrieving user identity and properties

• Prepare your add-in development environment as described in Set up an on-premises development environment for SharePoint Add-ins.

• If you don't already have Visual Studio 2013 or later installed, install it with the instructions at Install Visual Studio. We recommend using the latest version from the Microsoft Download Center.

• Visual Studio includes the Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio, but sometimes a version of the tools is released between updates of Visual Studio. To be sure that you have the latest version of the tools, run the installer for Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 or the installer for Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2015.

Core concepts to know for retrieving user identity and properties

The following table lists some useful articles that can help you to understand the concepts involved in creating SharePoint Add-ins.

Retrieve current website user identity by using the Web object

The easiest way to retrieve the identity of the current user of the website is via the Web object. With the TokenHelper.cs file in your project, you can get the current website user identity by using the following code snippet.

    ClientContext clientContext =
                TokenHelper.GetClientContextWithAccessToken(sharepointUrl.ToString(), accessToken);
    
                //Load the properties for the Web object.
                Web web = clientContext.Web;
                clientContext.Load(web);
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
    
                //Get the site name.
                siteName = web.Title;
    
                //Get the current user.
                clientContext.Load(web.CurrentUser);
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
                currentUser = clientContext.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName;

If you are using Office 365, the sign-in name you get is similar to i:0#.f|membership|adam@contoso.com.

If you are using Microsoft SharePoint on-premises, and the user is signed in as a normal user using NTLM, the sign-in name you get is similar to i:0#.w|contoso\adam.

If you are using SharePoint on-premises, and the user is signed in by using a farm account, the sign-in name you get is SHAREPOINT\System.

Retrieve user identity by using the ResolvePrincipal method

The following is another way to retrieve a user's sign-in name. If you have the user's email address or display name, you can use the ResolvePrincipal method to get the user's sign-in name.

The following is sample code to show how to get the user sign-in information.

    ClientResult<Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Utilities.PrincipalInfo> persons = Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Utilities.Utility.ResolvePrincipal(clientContext, clientContext.Web, <email>, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Utilities.PrincipalType.User, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Utilities.PrincipalSource.All, null, true);
                clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
                Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Utilities.PrincipalInfo person = persons.Value;

The Person.LoginName value gives the sign-in information.

Retrieve user identity and profile properties by using the OAuth token and social features APIs

If you want to retrieve the user's identity and properties, you can use the OAuth token and the social features APIs. First get the OAuth token, and then set it to the client context.

The following sample code shows how to get the user profile properties.

    ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext(<sharepointurl>);
    clientContext.AuthenticationMode = ClientAuthenticationMode.Anonymous;
    clientContext.FormDigestHandlingEnabled = false;
    clientContext.ExecutingWebRequest +=
    delegate(object oSender, WebRequestEventArgs webRequestEventArgs)
    {                      
        webRequestEventArgs.WebRequestExecutor.RequestHeaders["Authorization"] =
            "Bearer " + accessToken;
    };

Next, use the UserProfilesPeopleManager API to get the properties of the user who is using the add-in.

    PeopleManager peopleManager = new PeopleManager(clientContext);
    PersonProperties personDetails = peopleManager.GetMyProperties();
    clientContext.Load(personDetails, personsD => personsD.AccountName, personsD => personsD.Email,  personsD => personsD.DisplayName);
                    clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

For the code to work:

• The user profile shared service should be configured and synced on SharePoint for the users.

• You must add the following permission scope for social features in the add-in manifest:

      <AppPermissionRequest Right="Read" Scope="http://sharepoint/social/tenant" />
  

• The APIs are in Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.UserProfiles.dll.

The following is another sample code snippet that shows how to access the user profile store.

    ClientContext clientContext; //Create this like you normally would.               
    PeopleManager peopleManager = new PeopleManager(clientContext);
    PersonProperties myProperties = peopleManager.GetMyProperties();
    clientContext.Load(myProperties);
    clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

See also

• Develop SharePoint Add-ins
• SharePoint Add-ins