ctx.web.site_users.get_by_email(user_email) returns with E404 - how to fix?

Question

Dear Support,

I use python to work with Sharepoint lists, and need to fill a "Users and Groups" type of column from the code. For this, the e-mail need to be transferred into user id. To lookup the user id I use this code

from office365.sharepoint.client_context import ClientContext
....
user = ctx.web.site_users.get_by_email(user_email)
ctx.load(user)
ctx.execute_query()
user_id = user.properties['Id']

This works in general, but only in case the user is available in the user list of https://[company-sharepoint]/sites/[site-name]/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx page, but if the user is not there, it does not work - that case the execute_query() call returns with office365.runtime.client_request_exception.ClientRequestException: ('-2130575276, Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException', 'User cannot be found.', "404 Client Error:...
Why it is a problem? Because the user exists!
From the UI, when I try to fill the column manually, I can select the User (so the user exists) and I can find and select the user even if the person is not yet mentioned in the site catalog.
So - could you pls help how I can do it by enhancing the python code, meanwhile the only info I have is the person's e-mail + the fact, that I can do it manually on the UI?

Answer 1

Per my knowledge, in the SharePoint, it's by designed that when using Python or Graph, you could only through user ID in the site collection user information list to update a person column. But when using UI, you could choose all users in the tenant to update a person column.

First, query site collection user information list to get user ID.

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site collection guid}/lists/{user info list guid}/items?$select=Fields&$filter=Fields/Title eq 'User Display name'&$expand=Fields

Then, use Python or Graph to update a person column.

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