SharePoint APIs

SharePoint APIs provide programmatic access to Microsoft SharePoint services, enabling developers to integrate SharePoint functionality into applications for document management, collaboration, and content sharing.

Power end-to-end data operations for your SharePoint APIs storage with Nexla. Our bi-directional SharePoint APIs connector makes it simple to ingest data from and deliver data to any SharePoint APIs location. Nexla automatically organizes ingested data into ready-to-use, reusable data products you can transform, validate, move, and manage at scale, all with no coding required. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your SharePoint APIs workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.

Features

Type: File System

SourceDestination

• Universal file support for any file format including CSV, JSON, Parquet, Avro, and custom binary formats
• Incremental processing with file change detection and delta sync to process only new or modified files
• Schema inference that automatically detects file structure and creates appropriate data schemas

Prerequisites

Before creating a SharePoint credential, you need to obtain your OAuth2 Application ID (Client ID), Client Secret, and Tenant ID from your Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) application registration. SharePoint uses OAuth2 2-legged authentication (Client Credentials flow), which allows Nexla to access your SharePoint resources using client credentials without user interaction.

To obtain your SharePoint OAuth2 credentials, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the Azure Portal using your Microsoft administrator credentials.

2. Navigate to Azure Active Directory > App registrations in the Azure Portal.

3. If you don't have an application yet, click New registration to create a new application registration.

4. Configure your application registration settings:

   • Enter a name for the application (e.g., "Nexla Integration")
   • Select the supported account types (typically Accounts in this organizational directory only)
   • Leave the redirect URI empty for client credentials flow

5. Click Register to create the application registration.

6. Your Application (client) ID will be displayed on the application overview page. Copy the Application ID.

7. Navigate to Certificates & secrets in the left menu of your application registration.

8. Click New client secret to create a new client secret.

9. Configure your client secret settings:

   • Enter a description for the secret (e.g., "Nexla Integration")
   • Select an expiration period (e.g., 24 months)

10. Click Add to create the client secret.

11. Your Client Secret Value will be displayed immediately after creation. Copy the Client Secret Value immediately, as it may not be accessible again after you navigate away from the page.

12. Navigate to Overview in the left menu of your application registration to find your Directory (tenant) ID. Copy the Tenant ID.

13. Navigate to API permissions in the left menu of your application registration.

14. Click Add a permission and select Microsoft Graph.

15. Select Application permissions (not Delegated permissions).

16. Add the required permissions for SharePoint access (e.g., Sites.Read.All, Files.Read.All).

17. Click Grant admin consent to grant the permissions for your organization.

18. Store all credentials securely, as you will need them to configure your Nexla credential. The Application ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID are sensitive information and should be kept confidential.

The Application ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID are used to authenticate with the Microsoft identity platform (/oauth2/v2.0/token) to obtain an access token. The access token is then sent in the Authorization header with the Bearer prefix for all subsequent API requests to the SharePoint API (Microsoft Graph API). The access token is automatically obtained and refreshed by Nexla as needed. If your credentials are compromised, you should immediately revoke them in your Azure Portal and generate new ones. For detailed information about SharePoint OAuth2 authentication, API access, and available endpoints, refer to the Microsoft Graph API documentation.

Authenticate

Credentials required

Field	Required	Secret	Description
Application ID	Yes	No	Sharepoint Client ID
Client Secret	Yes	Yes	Sharepoint Client Secret
Tenant ID	Yes	No

Create a credential in Nexla

1. After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.

New Credential Overlay – SharePoint APIs

2. Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.

3. Enter your SharePoint Application ID (Client ID) in the Application ID field. This is the Application (client) ID you obtained from your Azure AD application registration (Overview page). The Application ID is used along with the Client Secret and Tenant ID to authenticate with the Microsoft identity platform and obtain an access token.

4. Enter your SharePoint Client Secret in the Client Secret field. This is the Client Secret Value you obtained from your Azure AD application registration (Certificates & secrets page). The Client Secret is used along with the Application ID and Tenant ID to authenticate with the Microsoft identity platform and obtain an access token. The Client Secret is sensitive information and must be kept confidential.

5. Enter your Tenant ID in the Tenant ID field. This is the Directory (tenant) ID you obtained from your Azure AD application registration (Overview page). The Tenant ID is used in the OAuth2 token endpoint URL to identify your Azure AD tenant.

   Your SharePoint OAuth2 credentials can be found in your Azure AD application registration in the Azure Portal. The Application ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID are used to authenticate with the Microsoft identity platform (/oauth2/v2.0/token) to obtain an access token. The access token is then automatically sent in the Authorization: Bearer {token} header for all subsequent API requests to the SharePoint API (Microsoft Graph API).

   The access token is automatically obtained and refreshed by Nexla as needed. If your credentials are compromised, you should immediately revoke them in your Azure Portal and generate new ones. The Application ID, Client Secret, and Tenant ID provide access to your SharePoint resources and should be treated as sensitive information. Keep your credentials secure and do not share them publicly.

   For detailed information about SharePoint OAuth2 authentication, API access, and available endpoints, see the Microsoft Graph API documentation.

6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.

Use as a data source

To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the SharePoint connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to your SharePoint account, and click Next; or, create a new SharePoint credential for use in this flow.

Endpoint templates

Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common SharePoint endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below.

Get File

This endpoint template retrieves a file from your SharePoint account. Use this template when you need to download files from SharePoint, including documents, images, and other file types.

• Enter the item URL in the Item URL field. This should be the complete URL to the SharePoint file you want to retrieve (e.g., https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/drive/items/{item-id}/content). The item URL determines which file will be retrieved from SharePoint.
• Select the file format from the File Format pulldown menu (optional). Available options include PDF, CSV, XML, AVRO, JSON, Parquet, XLSX, and other file formats. The file format determines how the file will be processed and converted. Leave this field empty to use the original file format.

This endpoint retrieves a file from your SharePoint account and downloads it as a file. The endpoint uses the item URL to identify and retrieve the specific file from SharePoint. You can optionally specify a file format to convert the file to a different format during the download process.

For detailed information about file retrieval, API response structures, file formats, and available file properties, see the Microsoft Graph API documentation.

Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.

Manual configuration

SharePoint data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid SharePoint API endpoint, including endpoints not covered by the pre-built template, chained API calls, or custom request parameters. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.

SharePoint API (Microsoft Graph API) typically uses the GET method, with endpoint URLs in the Microsoft Graph format (e.g., https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/drive/items/{item-id}/content, https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/lists/{list-id}/items). For the Response Data Path, use $[*] or $.value[*] to extract items from an array response, or $ to extract the entire response for single-record or file-download endpoints, depending on the endpoint used.

Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Next button to proceed with the rest of the data flow configuration, or click Save to save the new SharePoint data source for later use. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.