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In this post, we’ll see how to get a SharePoint Group in SharePoint Online using REST. I’ll be using a SharePoint hosted app for the purpose of demonstration.

Launch Visual Studio 2013.

I will be accessing the following REST endpoint for getting a web title

https://yoursite.sharepoint/_api/web/sitegroups(index)

index – an integer that refers a group uniquely in the site.

Since the call is initiating from AppWeb to HostWeb, it will present a classical cross-domain scenario, where I will be using the SP 2013 javascript cross-domain libraries to manage this call.

After creating the App project in Visual Studio 2013, the following points need to be considered.

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a)The App Permission need to be left with default setting of Internal.

<AppPrincipal>
    <Internal/>
  </AppPrincipal>

With this setting, the SharePoint hosted app will have access to the Host Web by default.

b)The App need to be given the following permission.

<AppPermissionRequests>
    <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection" Right="Read" />
    <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection/web" Right="Read" />
  </AppPermissionRequests>

c)The executor object need to be instantiated with the parameter of ‘AppWebUrl’, not the ‘HostWebUrl. (you’ll see more detailed code in the coming sections). If you instantiate it with ‘HostWebUrl, you will get an error like ‘App web not found’.

var executor = new SP.RequestExecutor(AppWebUrl);

d)To access the HostWeb rest end points the url property in the cross-domain call need to be set in this fashion.

AppWebUrl + "/_api/SP.AppContextSite(@target)/web/sitegroups(index)?@target='" + HostWebUrl + "'",

e)Copy and paste the following code in the App.js (replace Ii t the existing code over there)

'use strict';

var context = SP.ClientContext.get_current();
var user = context.get_web().get_currentUser();
var HostWebUrl;
var AppWebUrl;


// This code runs when the DOM is ready and creates a context object which is needed to use the SharePoint object model
$(document).ready(function () {
    //getUserName();

    HostWebUrl =
                decodeURIComponent(
                    RetrieveQueryStringParameter("SPHostUrl")
            );
    AppWebUrl =
        decodeURIComponent(
            RetrieveQueryStringParameter("SPAppWebUrl")
    );

    var scriptbase = HostWebUrl + "/_layouts/15/";
    $.getScript(scriptbase + "SP.RequestExecutor.js", execCrossDomainRequest);

});


function successHandler(data) {

    var jsonObj = JSON.parse(data.body);
    var results = jsonObj.d;
    document.getElementById("message").innerText = "Field title is" + results["Title"] + "Field Id is" + results["Id"];

}

function errorHandler(data, errorCode, errorMessage) {


    document.getElementById("message").innerText = "failure";

}

function RetrieveQueryStringParameter(ParamsforRetrieval) {
    var params =
        document.URL.split("?")[1].split("&");
    var strParams = "";
    for (var i = 0; i < params.length; i = i + 1) {
        var singleParam = params[i].split("=");
        if (singleParam[0] == ParamsforRetrieval)
            return singleParam[1];
    }
}

function execCrossDomainRequest() {

    var executor = new SP.RequestExecutor(AppWebUrl);

    executor.executeAsync({
        url: AppWebUrl + "/_api/SP.AppContextSite(@target)/web/sitegroups(3)?@target='" + HostWebUrl + "'",
        method: "GET",
        headers: {
            "accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
            "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose"
        },
        success: successHandler,
        error: errorHandler
    });

}

Run the above piece of code, now you will be able to get the title and id for the site collection group (no: 3).

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Tomorrow, Nov 9 is the Microsoft Community Day, there are whole lot of community activities planned around latest Microsoft technologies.

The following webcasts are scheduled.

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5	Build HTML 5 based LOB Apps with Light Switch	12:15 PM – 1:00 PM
6	Q&A	1:00 AM – 1:15 AM

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How to get a SharePoint group in SharePoint 2013 Online using REST

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