How to: Add Users to a Group

Article
05/05/2014

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To add multiple users to a group in Windows SharePoint Services, use either the AddUserToGroup method when adding new or existing individual users, or the AddUserCollectionToGroup method when adding a collection of existing users.

Procedures

Before you begin, create a Windows application as described in Getting Started with Programmatically Customizing a SharePoint Web Site in Visual Studio. For information about setting a Web reference to a Windows SharePoint Services Web service, see Web Service Guidelines.

Adding Multiple Users from a Site or Subsite

Use the GetUserCollectionFromSite method or the GetUserCollectionFromWeb method to return all the users from a Web site. Then iterate through the collection of users and add each one to a specified group by using the AddUserCollectionToGroup method.

To add users to a group from a site or subsite

After creating a Windows application project and adding a Web reference, open Form1 in Design view, open the Toolbox, and then drag a Button control onto the form.

Double-click the button to display the Code Editor, and add the following lines of code to the Click event handler:

'Declare and initialize a variable for the UserGroup Web service.
Dim userGroup As New Web_Reference.UserGroup()

'Authenticate the current user by passing their default 
'credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache and, 
'if adding users from a subsite, set the Url property for the 
'service.
userGroup.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials
userGroup.Url = "http://Server_Name/Subsite_Name/_vti_bin/UserGroup.asmx"

'Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the XML response 
'from either the GetUserCollectionFromWeb method or the 
'GetUserCollectionFromSite method.
Dim usersSite As System.Xml.XmlNode = userGroup.GetUserCollectionFromWeb()

'Declare another XmlNode object and initialize it with the first 
'child node returned from the previous method.
Dim userNode As System.Xml.XmlNode = usersSite.FirstChild

'Pass the first child node and its contents as the XMLNode object 
'parameter for the method.
userGroup.AddUserCollectionToGroup("Group_Name", userNode)

/*Declare and initialize a variable for the UserGroup Web service.*/
Web_Reference.UserGroup userGroup = new Web_Reference.UserGroup();

/*Authenticate the current user by passing their default 
credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache and, 
if adding users from a subsite, set the Url property for the 
service.*/
userGroup.Credentials = 
   System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
userGroup.Url = 
   "http://Server_Name/Subsite_Name/_vti_bin/UserGroup.asmx";

/*Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the XML response 
from either the GetUserCollectionFromWeb method or the 
GetUserCollectionFromSite method*/
System.Xml.XmlNode usersSite = userGroup.GetUserCollectionFromWeb();

/*Declare another XmlNode object and initialize it with the first 
child node returned from the previous method.*/
System.Xml.XmlNode userNode = usersSite.FirstChild;

/*Pass the first child node and its contents as the XmlNode object 
parameter for the method.*/
userGroup.AddUserCollectionToGroup
   ("Group_Name",userNode);

On the Debug menu, click Start to test the form. Click the button to add the users to the specified group.

Adding a Single User

Use the AddUserToGroup method to add a new or existing user to a group, and use the GetUserCollectionFromGroup method to return information about all the users in a group.

To add a single user to a group and display the group members

After creating a Windows application project and adding a Web reference, add five TextBox controls, a Label control, and a Button control to the form.

Double-click the button to display the Code Editor, and add the following lines of code to the Click event handler.

'Declare and initialize a variable for the UserGroup Web service, 
'and authenticate the current user by passing their default 'credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache.
Dim userGroup As New Web_Reference.UserGroup()
userGroup.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials

'Gather data from the text boxes.
Dim groupName As String = textBox1.Text
Dim userName As String = textBox2.Text
Dim userLoginName As String = textBox3.Text
Dim userEmail As String = textBox4.Text
Dim userNotes As String = textBox5.Text

'Add the specified user to the group. 
userGroup.AddUserToGroup(groupName, userName, userLoginName, userEmail, userNotes)

'Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the 
'XML response from the GetUserCollectionFromGroup method, 
'declare a second XmlNode object and initialize it with 
'the first child of the first node returned, and then 
'declare and initialize an XmlNodeList object with the 
'child nodes of the second node.
Dim usersNode1 As System.Xml.XmlNode = userGroup.GetUserCollectionFromGroup(groupName)
Dim usersNode2 As System.Xml.XmlNode = usersNode1.FirstChild
Dim userNodes As System.Xml.XmlNodeList = usersNode2.ChildNodes

'Iterate through the collection of user nodes and 
'parse out the Name, LoginName, Email, and Notes 
'attribute values for each item and 
'then display the values returned.
Dim user As System.Xml.XmlNode
For Each user In  userNodes
   Dim name As String = user.Attributes("Name").Value
   Dim loginName As String = user.Attributes("LoginName").Value
   Dim email As String = user.Attributes("Email").Value
   Dim notes As String = user.Attributes("Notes").Value

   label1.Text += ControlChars.Lf + ControlChars.Lf + name + " : " + loginName + " : " + email + " : " + notes
Next user

/*Declare and initialize a variable for the UserGroup Web service, 
and authenticate the current user by passing their default 
credentials to the Web service from the system credential cache*/
Web_Reference.UserGroup userGroup = new Web_Reference.UserGroup();
userGroup.Credentials = 
   System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

/*Gather data from the text boxes.*/
string groupName = textBox1.Text;
string userName = textBox2.Text;
string userLoginName = textBox3.Text;
string userEmail = textBox4.Text;
string userNotes = textBox5.Text;

/*Add the specified user to the group. */
userGroup.AddUserToGroup(groupName, userName, userLoginName, 
   userEmail, userNotes);

/*Declare an XmlNode object and initialize it with the XML response 
from the GetUserCollectionFromGroup method, declare a second XmlNode 
object and initialize it with the first child of the first node 
returned, and then declare and initialize an XmlNodeList object with 
the child nodes of the second node.*/
System.Xml.XmlNode usersNode1 = 
   userGroup.GetUserCollectionFromGroup(groupName);
System.Xml.XmlNode usersNode2 = usersNode1.FirstChild;
System.Xml.XmlNodeList userNodes = usersNode2.ChildNodes;

/*Iterate through the collection of user nodes and parse out the 
Name, LoginName, Email, and Notes attribute values for each item and 
then display the values returned.*/
foreach (System.Xml.XmlNode user in userNodes)
{
    string name = user.Attributes["Name"].Value;
    string loginName = user.Attributes["LoginName"].Value;
    string email = user.Attributes["Email"].Value;
    string notes = user.Attributes["Notes"].Value;

    label1.Text += "\n\n" + name + " : " + loginName + " : " + email 
        + " : " + notes;
}

On the Debug menu, click Start to test the form. Click the button to add the user to the specified group and to display the group members.

Adding Users from Information in an XML File

Load the collection of user data into a DataSet object, and then use the AddUserToGroup method to iterate through the collection and add each user to the group.

To add users to a group from information in an XML file

After creating a Windows application and adding a Web reference, add a TextBox control and a Button control to the form.