Throughout the years I’ve done numerous presentations related to using PowerShell with SharePoint and through them all I’ve often found myself wanting more time so that I could share more details. Recently some friends of mine pointed me in the direction of Pluralsight and the opportunities they had for new authors – I saw this as a fantastic way to take many of the presentations I’ve done in the past and polish them up, add some details, and create a real course out of them. So with that I’m pleased to announce that my first Pluralsight course is now available: Using Windows PowerShell with SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013. The folks at Pluralsight were amazing to work with and going through the authoring process has given me a whole new level of respect for the existing authors and for Pluralsight as a company; they seem to be doing everything right and every Pluralsight employee I’ve interacted with exemplifies professionalism and dedication to the goal of producing a great product, and I am humbled by the acceptance of my course into their library.

So if you’re a developer or an administrator and you’re working with SharePoint then I strongly recommend you go through some or all of my course to help you better understand how to use PowerShell, and more specifically, how to use it with SharePoint. You can see the full course outline by following the previous link but I’ve gone ahead and included the course and module descriptions here for your direct reference:

Using Windows PowerShell with SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013

When it comes to administering and automating SharePoint 2010, 2013, and Office 365, there is no better tool than Windows PowerShell. After going through this course you’ll have the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive with PowerShell. In the first two modules you’ll get a jump start into PowerShell where you’ll learn everything from basic syntax to creating functions and scripts, all within the context of SharePoint. Next you’ll discover what’s new when it comes to using PowerShell V3 with SharePoint 2013. Administering SharePoint with PowerShell does not mean that you’re limited to what you can do directly on the server and in this course you’ll learn everything you need to know to manage your Farm remotely, whether you are using Office 365 or an on-premises installation. And finally, sometimes the out of the box cmdlets just aren’t enough so we’ll teach you how to create your own custom cmdlets that you can deploy to your SharePoint Farm. After completing this course you’ll be on your way to becoming a SharePoint superstar as you’ll have all the core knowledge you need to start administering and automating SharePoint using Windows PowerShell.

  1. Introduction to PowerShell for SharePoint

    This module focuses on the basics of Windows PowerShell, all with an emphasis on SharePoint. At the conclusion of this module, you should have enough basic knowledge to start working with SharePoint via the SharePoint Management Shell.

  2. Scripting with PowerShell & SharePoint

    This module builds on the foundations presented in the first module and gets beyond what is typically done in the console. During this module you’ll start by learning about conditional logic and looping and then move onto creating functions and scripts.

  3. PowerShell V3 + SharePoint 2013

    In this module you’ll learn about many of the new features offered by Windows PowerShell V3 with SharePoint 2013.

  4. PowerShell & Office 365

    In this module we’ll shift from SharePoint on-premises to SharePoint Online. You’ll learn how to connect to your SharePoint Online tenant and what you can and can’t do with the available SharePoint Online cmdlets.

  5. PowerShell Remoting

    In this module, we’ll switch gears back to on-premises SharePoint installations as we take a look at how you can use PowerShell from your client machine to remotely connect to and manage your on-premises SharePoint Farm.

  6. Creating Custom Cmdlets for SharePoint

    In this module you’ll learn how to extend the out of the box SharePoint cmdlets by creating your own custom cmdlets and PipeBind objects.

I already have some ideas for another course to essentially round out the PowerShell + SharePoint side of things – specifically I’m planning on creating a course that assumes you know PowerShell and now you need to learn how to better apply that knowledge to solve specific problems – so my plan for the next course will be to provide more solution focused education (at least, that’s the plan, I’ll have to see how this first course does before I commit to anything).

I hope that you find my course useful and please provide feedback (positive or negative) as I’m anxious to know what works and what doesn’t so that I can continue to improve and bring better and better stuff to the community.