Dealing with multiple PnP SharePoint connections

In this article we go through adding another PnP SharePoint connection to our script. It covers how to do that and how not to do that and why.

Imagine we have a PowerShell script to upload a file to a specific SharePoint site. It's pretty simple - we can use Connect-PnPOnline and then Add-PnPFile.

But at some point, our script gets popular and someone else is coming to us. They are asking to upload the same file to another SharePoint site. Then things start to be interesting.

In the article, we'll go through the steps and issues of dealing with multiple PnP connections. Ready? Let's go then!

Prerequisites

For this tutorial we'll need to have:

Access to Microsoft 365
Two SharePoint sites
PowerShell with PnP module installed

Preparing our testing space

First, let's prepare variables and connect to the first site. We'll upload the file to see if it works fine

powershell

$uploadFilePath = 'C:\temp\aaaa.txt'
if (-not (Test-Path $uploadFilePath)) { Get-Random | Out-File $uploadFilePath}

# Sites data
$firstSiteUrl = 'https://rob234435.sharepoint.com/sites/TestSite'
$firstSiteFolderPath = 'Shared Documents'
$secondSiteUrl = 'https://rob234435.sharepoint.com/sites/AnotherSite'
$secondSiteFolderPath = 'Shared Documents'

# Action
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $firstSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive
$localFileName = Split-Path $uploadFilePath -Leaf
$randomFileName = $localFileName.Replace($localFileName.Split('.')[0], [string](Get-Random))
Add-PnPFile -path $uploadFilePath -Folder $firstSiteFolderPath -NewFileName $randomFileName

Adding another connection

Let's now add the other connection. If we do it the same way as the first one:

powershell

Connect-PnPOnline -Url $secondSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive

We'll now be able to operate only on the second site. We can check it by either uploading the file or using Get-PnPSite cmdlet:

powershell

$randomFileName = $localFileName.Replace($localFileName.Split('.')[0], [string](Get-Random))
Add-PnPFile -path $uploadFilePath -Folder $firstSiteFolderPath -NewFileName $randomFileName

Get-PnPSite | Select-Object Url

Get-PnPSite will return the second site:

Return from the cmdlet showing only the second site

Inspecting the connections

If we search the PnP cmdlet list, we'll find something that can help: Get-PnPConnection. Let's check what it returns:

Return from Get-PnPConnection cmdlet showing only the second site

There is only one connection returned. We cannot find the first connection at all.

Tip
If you use Connect-PnPOnline twice, the second connection will always take over. It might cause errors, that are difficult to trace if we are not aware of that.

Disconnecting

Let's see if disconnecting the last session can help. We will first disconnect and then try to see if the previous connection is still available:

powershell

Disconnect-PnPOnline
Get-PnPConnection

What we get in return doesn't help:

Return from Get-PnPConnection showing an error

Returning connection

In the Connect-PnPOnline documentation, we'll find the solution to our problem. It's the ReturnConnection parameter.

The parameter gives us an object that we can save to a variable. Afterward, we can pass the variable using the Connection parameter:

powershell

$firstConnection  = Connect-PnPOnline -Url $firstSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive -ReturnConnection
$secondConnection = Connect-PnPOnline -Url $secondSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive -ReturnConnection

# Check the connection
Get-PnPConnection -Connection $firstConnection
Get-PnPConnection -Connection $secondConnection

And we get both sites in return:

Return from Get-PnPConnection showing both sites

Now we can incorporate the parameters we found into our script:

powershell

# File data
$uploadFilePath = 'C:\temp\aaaa.txt'
if (-not (Test-Path $uploadFilePath)) { Get-Random | Out-File $uploadFilePath }

# Sites data
$firstSiteUrl = 'https://rob234435.sharepoint.com/sites/TestSite'
$firstSiteFolderPath = 'Shared Documents'
$secondSiteUrl = 'https://rob234435.sharepoint.com/sites/AnotherSite'
$secondSiteFolderPath = 'Shared Documents'

# Connection
$firstConnection = Connect-PnPOnline -Url $firstSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive -ReturnConnection
$secondConnection = Connect-PnPOnline -Url $secondSiteUrl -LaunchBrowser -Interactive -ReturnConnection

# Processing file data
$localFileName = Split-Path $uploadFilePath -Leaf
$randomFileName = $localFileName.Replace($localFileName.Split('.')[0], [string](Get-Random))

# Uploading
Add-PnPFile -path $uploadFilePath -Folder $firstSiteFolderPath -NewFileName $randomFileName -Connection $firstConnection
Add-PnPFile -path $uploadFilePath -Folder $secondSiteFolderPath -NewFileName $randomFileName -Connection $secondConnection

As a result, the file is uploaded to both sites:

Result from the script showing the same file uploaded to both sites

Summary

In this article, we covered the topic of adding an additional SharePoint connection using the PnP module. We've tested what happens if we do this incorrectly. Later, we discovered what is the correct way to do this.