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Read and write to the social feed by using the .NET client object model in SharePoint

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Create a console application that reads and writes to the social feed by using the SharePoint .NET client object model.

Prerequisites for creating a console application that reads and writes to the social feed by using the SharePoint .NET client object model

The console application that you'll create retrieves a target user's feed and prints the root post from each thread in a numbered list. Then, it publishes a simple text reply to the selected thread. The same method ( CreatePost ) is used to publish both posts and replies to the feed.

To create the console application, you'll need the following:

  • SharePoint with My Site configured, with personal sites created for the current user and a target user, and with a few posts written by the target user
  • Visual Studio 2012
  • Full Control access permissions to the User Profile service application for the logged-on user

Note

If you're not developing on the computer that is running SharePoint, get the SharePoint Client Components download that contains SharePoint client assemblies.

Core concepts to know about working with SharePoint social feeds

Table 1 contains links to articles that describe core concepts you should know before you get started.

Table 1. Core concepts for working with SharePoint social feeds

Article title Description
Get started developing with social features in SharePoint Find out how to get started programming with social feeds and microblog posts, following people and content (documents, sites, and tags.md), and working with user profiles.
Work with social feeds in SharePoint Learn about common programming tasks for working with social feeds and the API that you use to perform the tasks.

Create the console application in Visual Studio 2012 and add references to client assemblies

  1. On your development computer, open Visual Studio 2012.

  2. On the menu bar, choose File, New, Project. . In the New Project dialog box, choose .NET Framework 4.5 from the drop-down list at the top of the dialog box.

  3. From the Templates list, choose Windows, and then choose the Console Application template.

  4. Name the project ReadWriteMySite, and then choose the OK button.

  5. Add references to the client assemblies, as follows:

    1. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the ReadWriteMySite project, and then choose Add Reference.

    2. In the Reference Manager dialog box, choose the following assemblies:

      • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client
      • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime
      • Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.UserProfiles

      If you are developing on the computer that is running SharePoint, the assemblies are in the Extensions category. Otherwise, browse to the location that has the client assemblies you downloaded (see SharePoint Client Components).

  6. In the Program.cs file, add the following using statements.

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Social;

Retrieve the social feed for a target user by using the SharePoint .NET client object model

  1. Declare variables for the server URL and target user's account credentials.

    const string serverUrl = "http://serverName/";
const string targetUser = "domainName\\userName";

    Note

    Remember to replace the http://serverName/ and domainName\\userName placeholder values before you run the code.

  2. In the Main() method, initialize the SharePoint client context.

    ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext(serverUrl);

  3. Create the SocialFeedManager instance.

    SocialFeedManager feedManager = new SocialFeedManager(clientContext);

  4. Specify the parameters for the feed content that you want to retrieve.

    SocialFeedOptions feedOptions = new SocialFeedOptions();
feedOptions.MaxThreadCount = 10;

    The default options return the first 20 threads in the feed, sorted by last modified date.

  5. Get the target user's feed.

    ClientResult<SocialFeed> feed = feedManager.GetFeedFor(targetUser, feedOptions);
clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

    GetFeedFor returns a ClientResult<T> object that stores the collection of threads in its Value property.

Iterate through and read from the social feed by using the SharePoint .NET client object model

The following code iterates through the threads in the feed. It checks whether each thread has the CanReply attribute and then gets the thread identifier and the text of the root post. The code also creates a dictionary to store the thread identifier (which is used to reply to a thread) and writes the text of the root post to the console.

Dictionary<int, string> idDictionary = new Dictionary<int, string>();
for (int i = 0; i < feed.Value.Threads.Length; i++)
{
    SocialThread thread = feed.Value.Threads[i];
    string postText = thread.RootPost.Text;
    if (thread.Attributes.HasFlag(SocialThreadAttributes.CanReply))
    {
        idDictionary.Add(i, thread.Id);
        Console.WriteLine("\\t" + (i + 1) + ". " + postText);
    }
}

Post a reply to the social feed by using the SharePoint .NET client object model

  1. (UI-related only) Get the thread to reply to and prompt for the user's reply.

    Console.Write("Which post number do you want to reply to?  ");
string threadToReplyTo = "";
int threadNumber = int.Parse(Console.ReadLine()) - 1;
idDictionary.TryGetValue(threadNumber, out threadToReplyTo);
Console.Write("Type your reply:  ");

  2. Define the reply. The following code gets the reply's text from the console application.

    SocialPostCreationData postCreationData = new SocialPostCreationData();
postCreationData.ContentText = Console.ReadLine();

  3. Publish the reply. The threadToReplyTo parameter represents of the thread's Id property.

    feedManager.CreatePost(threadToReplyTo, postCreationData);
clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

    Note

    The CreatePost method is also used to publish a root post to the current user's feed by passing null for the first parameter.

  4. (UI-related only) Exit the program.

    Console.WriteLine("Your reply was published.");
Console.ReadKey(false);

  5. To test the console application, on the menu bar, choose Debug, Start Debugging.

Code example: Retrieve a feed and reply to a post by using the SharePoint .NET client object model

The following example is the complete code from the Program.cs file.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Social;

namespace ReadWriteMySite
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            // Replace the following placeholder values with the target server running SharePoint and the
            // target thread owner.
            const string serverUrl = "http://serverName/";
            const string targetUser = "domainName\\userName";

            // Connect to the client context.
            ClientContext clientContext = new ClientContext(serverUrl);

            // Get the SocialFeedManager instance.
            SocialFeedManager feedManager = new SocialFeedManager(clientContext);

            // Specify the parameters for the feed content that you want to retrieve.
            SocialFeedOptions feedOptions = new SocialFeedOptions();
            feedOptions.MaxThreadCount = 10;

            // Get the target owner's feed (posts and activities) and then run the request on the server.
            ClientResult<SocialFeed> feed = feedManager.GetFeedFor(targetUser, feedOptions);
            clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

            // Create a dictionary to store the Id property of each thread. This code example stores
            // the ID so a user can select a thread to reply to from the console application.
            Dictionary<int, string> idDictionary = new Dictionary<int, string>();
            for (int i = 0; i < feed.Value.Threads.Length; i++)
            {
                SocialThread thread = feed.Value.Threads[i];

                // Keep only the threads that can be replied to.
                if (thread.Attributes.HasFlag(SocialThreadAttributes.CanReply))
                {
                    idDictionary.Add(i, thread.Id);

                    // Write out the text of the post.
                    Console.WriteLine("\\t" + (i + 1) + ". " + thread.RootPost.Text);
                }
            }
            Console.Write("Which post number do you want to reply to?  ");

            string threadToReplyTo = "";
            int threadNumber = int.Parse(Console.ReadLine()) - 1;
            idDictionary.TryGetValue(threadNumber, out threadToReplyTo);

            Console.Write("Type your reply:  ");

            // Define properties for the reply.
            SocialPostCreationData postCreationData = new SocialPostCreationData();
            postCreationData.ContentText = Console.ReadLine();

            // Post the reply and make the changes on the server.
            feedManager.CreatePost(threadToReplyTo, postCreationData);
            clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

            Console.WriteLine("Your reply was published.");
            Console.ReadKey(false);

            // TODO: Add error handling and input validation.
        }
    }
}

Next steps

To learn how to do more read tasks and write tasks with the social feed by using the .NET client object model, see the following:

See also