Last night I search for “export import sharepoint 2013 design packages powershell”. No luck there. – So I created two functions for this purpose. It works nicely 🙂

The functions only use public methods of the SharePoint (Server) Object Model. No reflection, et cetera. The most important class in this context is “Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.DesignPackage”. It has two methods: Export and Install. This I used to create to PowerShell functions: Export-SPDesignPackage and Import-SPDesignPackage. Both are able to work in PowerShell pipeline context. This gives you the possibility to export a bunch of Design Packages from several sites using PowerShell.

You can download the scripts here:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Export-and-Import-0f41b376

You can use the scripts as PowerShell modules or by copying the content to your own PowerShell script files. But please be careful: By now it’s only tested in my dev environment!!

The scripts use the SharePoint Server Object Model. So they have to be executed on a SharePoint farm server! You also need an priviledged account that has rights to export (or import) SharePoint Design Packages.

Today I’ll describe the export function. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I’ll publish a description of the import function. Here is the import part: https://blog.kenaro.com/2013/02/18/sharepoint-2013-design-packages-import-with-powershell-part-2-of-2/

Export-SPDesignPackage

Here are some samples:

$site1=get-spsite"http://sharepoint.local/publishing" 
$site2=get-spsite"http://sharepoint.local/sites/publishing2"

#First Sample

$cred=new-objectSystem.Management.Automation.PSCredential( "domain\spfarm", (ConvertTo-SecureString-AsPlainText"Passw0rd"-Force))

$site1, $site2 | Export-SPDesignPackage -UseTempFileForExportWithExtension ".wsp" -DownloadCredentials $cred -PackageName "test"#Second Sample

$site1, $site2 | Export-SPDesignPackage -ExportFileName "C:\temp\Package.wsp" -UseExportFileNumbering -IncludeSearchConfig -DisposeSiteObject -OverwriteExistingFiles

#Third Sample

(
    @{PackageName="P1"; ExportFileName="C:\temp\p1.wsp"; SiteUrl="http://sharepoint.local/publishing"},
    @{PackageName="P2"; ExportFileName="C:\temp\p2.wsp"; SiteUrl="http://sharepoint.local/sites/publishing2"}
) | New-ObjectFromHashtable | Export-SPDesignPackage

#Fourth Sample

$site2 | Export-SPDesignPackage -ExportFileName "C:\temp\publishing2.wsp"  -IncludeSearchConfig -DisposeSiteObject -OverwriteExistingFiles

The first sample uses two SPSite objects as (pipeline) input and tells the function to export the design packages to temp files with auto generated names. For the download of the packages from the sites you can specify “download credentials”.

The second sample exports the same two SPSites. The export file name is specified. By using “UseExportFileNumbering” a number is inserted into the file name like this: “c:\temp\package-1.wsp”. So both export packages have different file names.

The third sample exports two sites  with individual export settings for each site. This is possible by “parameter binding by property name” where PowerShell binds the input object’s property to the function / cmdlet input parameters by name matching. But this does not work with hashtables. Therefore I created a helper function “New-ObjectFromHashtable” that creates a PowerShell object (“PSObject”). This function is generic. (It’s also included in the script files.)

The fourth sample exports just one site.

Parameters

The function has the following parameters. All can be bound by “parameter binding by property name”!

The function returns an object for each processed (or not processed) site collection:

This objects can be used in pipelines or … as you like.

Some Additions

The design package will be stored in the solution gallery of the site collection that can be found here: <site-collection-url>/_catalogs/solutions. It’s the same location as for the sandboxed solutions. It interesting: sandboxed solutions are deprecated but in this case they use at least the same storage for a new functionality.

After the package is created you can download it from the solution gallery. No big deal.