How to upgrade your SharePoint SPFx App from SharePoint Online Store

Before you update, it is important to know if you installed the app to a tenant app catalog or site collection app catalog.

Previously, all add-ins and SharePoint Framework solutions had to be managed centrally in the tenant app catalog. With the introduction of site collection app catalogs, tenant administrators can enable app catalog on the specific sites. Once enabled, site collection administrators can deploy SharePoint add-ins and SharePoint Framework solutions that will be available only in that particular site collection.

I installed the app at the Tenant App Catalog

  1. Go to your SharePoint admin center
  2. Select More features from the left menu. Then in the Apps section from SharePoint admin, click Open.
  3. From the App catalog, select the App and click View app details
  4. From the app details, select GET IT to update.

I installed the app at the Site Collection App Catalog

To access your app catalog

  1. Navigate to your SharePoint Site
  2. Access “Site Contents”
  3. You should see the App Catalog. It’s called “Apps for SharePoint”
  4. From the Apps for SharePoint library, select the app you want to update. Click on the Files tab and then View Details Page
  5. From the app details, select GET IT to update.

How to enable Application Password for WordPress Posts SharePoint Web Part

Some WordPress Security plugin offers a setting to Restrict Access to most REST API data. With this setting, most requests will require a logged in user or a user with specific privileges, blocking public requests to potentially-private data.

For example, with such settings enabled in iThemes Security, you will see this error when you use WordPress Posts web part.

access to rest api requests is restricted by ithemes security settings

To enable WordPress Posts web part to access your site’s posts, you can use Application Passwords. An application password is a securely generated key that can be used to authenticate REST API requests only. You cannot use an application password to log in to a WordPress site.

To generate an application username and password, follow the below steps.

  1. Log in to your WordPress site with an admin user account (a user with the administrator role).
  2. Navigate to Users.
  3. Click on Edit link to edit details for a user.
    • To list posts, iThemes Security requires the user to have a Contributor role as minimum before access is granted.
    • To list categories in addition to posts, iThemes Security requires the user to have an Editor role as minimum before access is granted.
    • We recommend you can create a new user specifically for this.
  4. Scroll down to the “Application Passwords” heading.
  5. Enter a descriptive name for your application password in the “New Application Password Name” field. This field is for internal use only and helps you identify what your application password is connected to.
  6. Click the “Add New Application Password” button to create your password.
    1. Be sure to immediately copy and paste your password in a secure location. Application passwords cannot be retrieved after you exit this screen.
    2. Your user account can generate an unlimited number of application passwords.
    3. We recommend generating one password per third-party app you connect with. This way you can easily disable and delete a single password if you decide not to use that third-party application or find that your password has become compromised.
  7. You can now use this password to authenticate with WordPress Post web part to connect to your site via REST API.

CORS Issue

Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) defines a way for client web applications that are loaded in one domain to interact with resources in a different domain.

Make sure you have set CORS policy ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ header to * or your SharePoint tenant URL to enable access.

5 web parts to design amazing SharePoint pages

This article showcases the features of 5 modern web parts that support business scenarios, works on SharePoint Online, SharePoint 2016/2019 and help design amazing SharePoint pages for employees to perform their best. Plus, get a sneak peek at upcoming features.

The web parts covered are Celebrations, Lists, Script Editor, Quick Links, Image Gallery, Title, and Divider.

1. WordPress Posts

Show posts from any WordPress sites in a variety of layouts on SharePoint pages. With WordPress Posts, you can keep your intranet fresh and up-to-date with the latest content from any WordPress site. You can filter posts and choose from any categories.

  • Quick and easy way to display posts from any WordPress site on SharePoint pages
  • Customizable layouts, so you can match your intranet design
  • Filter posts by category, so you can show only the most relevant content to your audience
  • Easy to use and highly affordable.

2. Event Timeline

The Timeline Web Part is a valuable addition to any SharePoint site that utilizes event lists. With this web part, you can easily turn events from a specific list into customized timeline. You can also show only the events that are most relevant to your audience.

  •  Filter events to show only relevant events.
  • Customize the display of the events. You can customize the colors and design.
  • Choose which fields from the event list to show.
  • Select the order in which they are displayed. 

3. List to FAQs

The FAQs Web Part for SharePoint is a powerful webpart accordion that allows you to easily create and manage a list of frequently asked questions using any SharePoint list.

With this web part, you can easily create and manage a list of FAQs using any SharePoint list.

  • Create and manage a list of frequently asked questions using any SharePoint list
  • Display questions and answers in a clear and organized manner
  • It includes a search feature to easily find answers
  • The FAQs can be sorted and filtered to show specific information
  • The web part can be added to Teams as tabs

4. Announcement Ticker

Keep your team informed and up-to-date with the SharePoint Announcement Ticker app. This webpart allows you to use any SharePoint announcement list to generate a dynamic announcement ticker that displays announcements in the form of scrolling text running from bottom to left across your team’s homepage, ensuring that your team stays informed on important updates and news.

5. Employee Directory

We know finding co-worker at the workplace is a common and important task in most organisation. The Employees Directory Web Part enables every employee in an organisation to connect with each other. 

Must have SharePoint Web Parts

Looking for the best SharePoint web parts to take your intranet to the next level?

There are many SharePoint web parts that you can choose from. This makes it extremely overwhelming for SharePoint administrators to find the right webparts for their intranet.

We are often asked by readers for the best SharePoint web parts. Being the largest SharePoint web parts resource site, our experts creates many SharePoint web parts every year, so we can make it easy for our users (you) to find the best solutions.

Having the right set of SharePoint web parts can help you build the best intranet and SharePoint team sites. In this article, we share our expert pick of the must-have SharePoint web parts for business websites 2020.

1. SP Stream

Most organizations have videos they would like to show their employees. It could be videos about the organization, events or training videos.

Once you create a Video library, you may need to present it a way that will make it easy for people to view.

Why not try this YouTube like web part. The SP Stream Web Part allows you to play videos contained in a specified SharePoint Assets Library. You have the choice to select which videos library and filter by your own criteria.

2. WordPress Post

Show posts from any WordPress sites in a variety of layouts on SharePoint pages. You can filter posts and choose from any categories.

Introducing the easiest way to display posts from any WordPress site on SharePoint pages! WordPress Posts allows you to quickly and easily display posts in a variety of layouts, so you can customize the look and feel to match your intranet design. Plus, you can filter posts by category, so you can show only the most relevant content to your audience.

3. Timeline

Why not bring life to your SharePoint calendar. Forget about the boring view you get out of the box, and make your intranets beautiful and meaningful using this timeline web part.

This timeline provides a visual representation of events that will help users better understand history, a story, a process or any other form of an event sequence arranged in chronological order and displayed along a line.

You have the choice to select which Event list, filter by your own criteria.
Multiple Timeline Web Parts can be placed on a page.

How to install web parts

To use client-side web parts you downloaded on modern SharePoint server-side pages, you need to deploy and register the web part with SharePoint.

Installation

  1. After downloading the web part, extract the package from the zip file.
    • Most of our packages have other files included. We are interested in the .sppkg file.
  2. Upload your SPFx web part package to the SharePoint App Catalog. You can simply drag-and-drop the .sppkg file into your App Catalog.

    Once uploaded, a dialog will appear. This dialog will allow you to deploy your solution after clicking on Deploy.


    You have the choice to make the web part available to all site collections immediately or instead require a site owner to add the web part “app” to their site to make the web part available on pages.
  3. If your solution was deployed and installed on all sites in your organization, then you can skip this step.
    1. Go to the SharePoint site collection that needs your solution. Add an app (from the gear located at the Microsoft 365 top bar or from the Site Contents › New › App) and click on your solution.



      Once installed, you can see the instance of your solution from the Site Contents.

Add the web part to modern page

  1. In your browser, go to your site where the solution was installed.
  2. Select the gears icon in the top nav bar on the right, and then select Add a page.
  3. Edit the page.
  4. Select the add icon (this icon appears when you mouse hovers over a section as shown in the image above). This opens the toolbox where you can see a list of web parts available for you to add. Search for the web part and click on it to add to the page.

  5. Select the pencil icon on the far left of the web part to reveal the web part property pane. The property pane is where you can define properties to customize your web part. 

Add the web part to classic page

Prerequisites for SharePoint 2016

Before going any further, we have to check if the “September 2017 Public Update for SharePoint 2016” is installed on our server, otherwise, we can’t use SPFx. The “Configuration database” version must be equal or greater than 16.0.4588.1000

Go to System Settings -> Manage Servers to verify. Updates can be found here.

  1. Edit a web part page and click on Add a web part.
  2. From the Envoqon web part category, select the spfx client-side web part to add to the page.