Single-Page Applications (SPAs) in SharePoint Using SPServices

Marc D Anderson

Who Is Marc?

• Co-Founder and President of Sympraxis Consulting LLC, located in the Boston suburb of Newton, MA, USA. Sympraxis focuses on enabling collaboration throughout the enterprise using the SharePoint application platform.• Over 30 years of experience in technology professional services and software development. Over a wide-ranging career in consulting as well as line manager positions, Marc has proven himself as a problem solver and leader who can solve difficult technology problems for organizations across a wide variety of industries and organization sizes.

• Awarded Microsoft MVP for SharePoint Server 2011-2014

Contact InformationEmail marc.anderson@sympraxisconsulting.

comTwitter @sympmarc

Blog http://sympmarc.com

SPServices http://spservices.codeplex.com

SPXSLT http://spxslt.codeplex.com

Books http://sympmarc.com/books

The Middle Tier Manifesto

http://bit.ly/middletier

Session Overview

• Single-page applications (SPAs) are nothing new on the Web. However, like Responsive Web Design (RWD), SPAs have gained favor as a way to enable real work with an improved user experience (UX). SPAs first started popping up regularly in creative contexts on public Web sites. These sites have been out there for a while and are becoming more prevalent.

• Since the idea with SPAs is that one need not leave the single page to accomplish some high percentage of the tasks at hand, it’s a great concept to apply in a SharePoint context. The days where a clunky postback-ridden application was acceptable is fading into the rear view mirror. It’s all about Getting Work Done as effectively and painlessly as possible. We’ll look at an SPA example taken from Marc’s popular blog series on building SPAs in SharePoint and discuss successful approaches and pitfalls in doing so.

What is a Single Page Application (SPA)?

A single-page application (SPA), also known as single-page interface (SPI), is a web application or web site that fits on a single web page with the goal of providing a more fluid user experience akin to a desktop application.

Definition from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_page_application

Why Single Page Applications?

• Get everything done in one place

• Fluid user experience

• Fewer page loads

What SPA Do You Know Best?

What is an SPA in SharePoint?

• Take over the entire screen

What is an SPA in SharePoint?

• Take over the main content area

What is an SPA in SharePoint?

• Take over a single Web Part (or act as one)

Examples of SPAs in SharePoint

• Full screen• Provider Hosted Apps

• Main Content Area• List views• Forms

• Web Parts• App Parts• Quick survey• Workflow actions brought into a list view

Tools We Can Use to Create an SPA

• JavaScript• Lets us create behaviors, actions, and effects

• Data Access with AJAX• Fetch data from external sources (XML, JSON, HTML, etc.)

• Additional Libraries• jQuery• SPServices• CSOM• Graphing tools

Popular SPA Frameworks

Pros and Cons of SPServices for SPAs

• Pros• Lightweight compared to other frameworks• Cross version compatibility for SharePoint 2007-2013• Good community support• Can be used in tandem with heavier frameworks (data access layer)

• Cons• SOAP Web Services are deprecated as of SharePoint 2013• Doesn’t offer as much as heavier frameworks

Demo