Office 365 – SharePoint – Update list items using PowerShell

The PowerShell commands of the PnP Framework have many useful commands that help you manage SharePoint online. One of these commands is the Set-SPOListItem Command.

Set-SPOListItem –Identity <ListItemPipeBind> [–ContentType <ContentTypePipeBind>] [–Values <Hashtable>] [–Web <WebPipeBind>] –List <ListPipeBind>

All the parameters are quite easy to understand:

The majority of the issues with this command are related to the Values. How do you update all the different column formats. In this article I’m trying to give a full overview of all the possible options.

I have created a list called TestList and I’ve added a list item to the list. For each column type of  I’ve added a new column to the list.

Single line of text columns

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Title” = “Title New”}

Multiple lines of text columns

For a simple multiple lines of text column the following will work:

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“MultiText” = “New text”}

To update formatting in the rich text field use the following syntax by including html.

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“MultiText” = “<strong>New</strong> text”}

Choice column

For a choice column called Choice that has the options

• Value 1
• Value 2
• Value 3

The following syntax can be used:

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Choice” = “Value 1”}

Number column

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Number” = “10”}

Currency column

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Currency” = “10”}

Date and Time column

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“DateAndTime” = “03/10/2015 14:16”}

Lookup column

Ok, setting lookups can be really complicated. Well not with the PnP PowerShell commands. Simply use the ID of the item in the Lookup:

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Lookup” = “2”}

Yes/No column

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“YesNo” = “No”}

Person/Group column

Setting a person field is harder

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Person” = “3”}

The above sets the person field to the owner group of the site. I found that 1 sets the user to an internal user. 2 gives an invalid user.

Multi-Person column

For a multi-people column the following lines of PowerShell will add 2 people:

$peopleArr = @()

$peopleArr += “ben@mytenant.onmicrosoft.com”
$peopleArr += “chris@mytenant.onmicrosoft.com”
Set-SPOListItem -List “testlist” -Identity 1 -Values @{“People”=$peopleArr}

Hyperlink or Picture column

Set-SPOListItem -List TestList -Identity 1 -Values @{“Hyperlink” = “https://sharepains.com, SharePains”}