Monthly Archives: July 2016

Loadtesting SharePoint file uploads with mandatory fields in the content types

When a user uploads a document into a library it can be the case that mandatory fields need to be filled in. If these fields aren’t correctly submitted to the server then the file will remain checked out and other users will not be able to see it.

For an automated load test its important that it correctly supplies the required fields. In a previous post I described all the requests that are involved in the upload. In this post we’ll describe how to correctly POST the fields to the server.

Lets assume you have a required field called “ReferenceId” in your content type. When we want to POST the value of this field to SharePoint we must include SharePoint’s Field ID (a GUID) into the name of the form post parameter.

The first point where we need to intervene is the GET request to EditForm.aspx. Its response contains the ID of each field that’s included in the content-type. Each meta-data field of the content type is described in a JSON datastructure that looks like this:

//This JSON structure is sent as 1 very long line in the response
{
   "ListSchema":{
      "...":{
         "Id":"aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa",
         "...":"..."
      },
      "ReferenceId":{
         "Id":"xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx",
         "...":"..."
      },
      "...":"..."
   }
}

You can use the following ExtractionRule to extract the Id of your ReferenceId field:

Property Value
Context Parameter Name GUID_ReferenceId
Ends With “
Extract Random Match False
Html Decode True
Ignore Case False
Index 0
Required True
Search in Headers False
Starts With “ReferenceId”:{“Id”:”
Use Regular Expression True

On the POST request to EditForm.aspx you need to add an extra Form Post Parameter like this:

Parameter Value Explanation
ClientFormPostBackValue_{{GUID_ReferenceId}}_ReferenceId Insert your desired value for the ReferenceId here See how the name of the form post parameter is constructed from the GUID we extracted earlier

Anatomy of a loadtest for SharePoint file uploads to a document library

When you use Visual Studio’s recorder on a file upload to a SharePoint document library, you will get a test that needs some tweaking before its usable.

Firstly it doesn’t take into account where on your test machine the file is stored. The next time you run the test, it will fail because it can’t find the file to upload.

Secondly I like to make this a generic test that can upload any file to any site/library regardless if we’re running on an agent or on the local development machine.

In this post we will take a look at the structure of the test, then we’ll know how to tweak these tests in the future:

Request 1: GET https://root/sites/yoursite/_layouts/15/Upload.aspx

The first requests retrieves SharePoint’s file-upload dialog.

QueryString Parameters

Parameter Value Url encode
ListId The GUID of the library to upload to. In format {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx} No
RootFolder The ServerRelativePath to upload to. Eg /sites/yoursite/yourlibrary/yourfolder/anotherfolder Yes
IsDlg Set this to 1. No

Extraction rules

The only thing we need to do with the response is to extract all the hidden form fields in the response because the next request needs to POST them back to the server.

Extract Hidden Fields
Property Value
Context Parameter Name 1
Html Decode True
Required True

Request 2: POST https://root/sites/yoursite/_layouts/15/UploadEx.aspx

The second requests uploads the file from the test PC into the correct library/folder.

QueryString Parameters

Parameter Meaning Url encode
Same as previous request Same as previous request Same as previous request

Form Post Parameters

This request POSTs a lot of the extracted form parameters from the previous request back to the server. The complete list of parameters is in the following image. There are a few interesting ones in there though.

Screenshot of form post fields for request 2

Interesting form post parameters
Parameter Value Explanation
__EVENTTARGET ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$ctl03$RptControls$btnOK I’m not sure if this is needed. I just send it.
ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$UploadDocumentSection$ctl05$OverwriteSingle on Determines whether the user/test placed a check in the “Overwrite existing files” checkbox.
ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$ctl04$ctl01$uploadLocation /<yourfolder>/ Determines into which folder the file will be uploaded.
ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$VersionCommentSection$ctl01$CheckInComment The text of the user’s check in comment.
File Upload Parameter
Property Value
Content Type This is the Mime Type for the file that’s being uploaded. Take a look at freeformatter.com for a list of commont types. For .docx you can use application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
File Name The path of the document on the machine running the test.
File Upload Name The name of the file as it should appear in the library/folder. Do not include folder names
Generate Unique Name Set to True if you want the test framework to automatically insert a unique value into the name of the uploaded file. This value will not be stored in the test context, so if you want unique names AND you also need to remember that name, then you must generate the unique part of the name yourself before sending this request.
Name ctl00$PlaceHolderMain$UploadDocumentSection$ctl05$InputFile
URL Encode True
Use Guids Determines what the format of the unique part of the filename will be. Its only relevant is Generate Unique Name is set to True

Extraction rules

One the file has been uploaded into the library, SharePoint wants the user to provide values for the various meta-data fields. In order to achieve this, SharePoint assigns the uploaded file a temporary ID, communicates it back to the browser and expects requests 3 and 4 to complete the meta-data input process. If you don’t do this properly, then the uploaded file will remain checked out. The ID is hidden in a bit of JavaScript that looks like this 

window.location.href = 'https:\u002f\u002f......\u002fEditForm.aspx?
Mode=Upload\u0026
CheckInComment=
\u0026ID=HERE IS THE ID YOU NEED
\u0026RootFolder=\...
\u0026IsDlg=1';
Extract Text: The following extraction rule retrieves the ID of the uploaded file
Property Value
Context Parameter Name UploadEx_ID
Ends With \u0026
Extract Random Match False
Html Decode True
Ignore Case False
Index 0
Required True
Search in Headers False
Starts With \u0026ID=
Use Regular Expression False

Request 3: GET https://root/sites/yoursite/yourlibrary/Forms/EditForm.aspx


This GET request retrieves the HTML form that users use to edit the metadata on the uploaded file.

QueryString Parameters

Parameter Value Url encode
Mode Upload No
CheckInComments The user’s comment for the check-in. Yes
ID The value of context parameter UploadEx_ID we extracted on previous requests No
RootFolder See request 1 See request 1
IsDlg See request 1 See request 1

Extraction rules


This request has a lot of extraction rules on its response that retrieve information that needs to be POST’ed in the next request.

Extract Text: The following extraction rule retrieves owsHiddenVersion
Property Value
Context Parameter Name OWSHiddenVersion_0
Ends With ,
Extract Random Match False
Html Decode True
Ignore Case False
Index 0
Required False
Search in Headers False
Starts With {“owshiddenversion”:
Use Regular Expression False
Extract Text: The following extraction rule retrieves the ContentTypeId of the first content type in the dropdown list on the form
Property Value
Context Parameter Name ContentType_0
Ends With “
Extract Random Match False
Html Decode True
Ignore Case False
Index 0
Required False
Search in Headers False
Starts With “ItemContentTypeId”:”
Use Regular Expression False
Extract Regular Expression: Extracts the GUID for the ContentType drop down list on the form
Property Value
Context Parameter Name CONTROL_GUID0
Html Decode True
Ignore Case False
Index 0
Regular Expression _g_([0-9a-fA-F]{8}_[0-9a-fA-F]{4}_[0-9a-fA-F]{4}_[0-9a-fA-F]{4}_[0-9a-fA-F]{12})_ctl
Required True
Use Groups True
Extract Hidden Fields
Property Value
Context Parameter Name 1
Html Decode True
Required True

Request 4: POST https://root/sites/yoursite/yourlibrary/Forms/EditForm.aspx

QueryString Parameters

Parameter Value Url encode
Same as previous request Same as prevous request Same as prevous request

Form Post Parameters


Most of the form post parameters are the usual hidden fields extracted from the previous step:

Screenshot showing all the form post parameters of request 4

Interesting form post parameters
Parameter Value Explanation
__EVENTTARGET ctl00$ctl43$g_{{CONTROL_GUID0}}$ctl00$ctl02$ctl00$toolBarTbl$RightRptControls$ctl00$ctl00$diidIOSaveItem I’m not sure if this is needed. I just send it.
ctl00$ctl43$g_{{CONTROL_GUID0}}$ctl00$ctl02$ctl00$ctl01$ctl00$ContentTypeChoice Value of context parameter ContentType_0 The value of this parameter determines which of the possible content types the user/test chose from the drop-down list.
ctl00$ctl43$g_{{CONTROL_GUID0}}$ctl00$ctl02$ctl00$ctl06$ctl00$owshiddenversion Value of context parameter OWSHiddenVersion_0 SharePoint needs this value to detect conflicting changes to the SPListITem that represents this file.