How to Configure an Asset Library for SharePoint

Using unlicensed or non-on brand imagery on your SharePoint sites can result in copyright and trademark violations – it can also send your marketing team bananas!

In this article we’re going to look at how you can stay on-brand in your SharePoint Sites using Organisation Asset Libraries and something called a Content Delivery Network….

Asset libraries have to be manually created and this article provides a step-by-step ‘how to’ guide.

What are Organisational Asset Libraries and CDNs?

Organisational Asset Libraries provide centralised locations to store approved company images and document templates.  This can then be used in SharePoint where designers are adding images and in Microsoft Office when creating documents.

When dealing with files and images that everyone uses enterprise wide, it makes sense to make these as quick and efficient to access as possible.

There are two asset library types, one for storing images and one for storing Office Templates (more on setting up templates in another article). 

Asset library contents are ‘published’ using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN is an industry-wide concept (not just a Microsoft one) where a series of servers spread out in various locations are used to host content like images and videos. The idea being that content is ‘pulled from’ the nearest server, reducing the time it takes to access items.

There are two types of CDN, Public and Private.  Normally you would use a Private CDN, to only allow your enterprise users access. Just to confirm, it is a private CDN we will be setting up in this article.

See this article for more information on CDNs.

Now let’s get into it...

Planning

First off – be sure to involve your marketing team and get them to start curating licenced, on-brand imagery, icons and logos.

Once this service is set up they will be able to create folders that align with the different image types they have.

Setting it Up

Check You Have Appropriate Privileges (or Know Someone that Has)

You’ll need to be a SharePoint Administrator and also be your local PC administrator.  You’ll also need to allow PNP PowerShell on your tenant which needs Global Administrator rights.

If you don’t have these rights – find a colleague in the IT department that does and signpost this article!

Create the Asset Library SharePoint Site

The Asset libraries can be stored under a specific SharePoint Online site which is used to host the libraries.  This allows other sites to be renamed/moved without affecting the location of the assets. It also helps keep track of access rights.

As a SharePoint Admin, create a SharePoint Communication site.

Optionally change the front page to tell anyone that browses to the site what its purpose is.

Set the Site permissions.

1. Users that can change assets go in the Owners group
2. Everyone except external users go into the Visitors group.

Install PowerShell 7.3

At time of writing, you need version 7.2 or later, though its best to use 7.3 if possible.

To check which version of PowerShell you currently have installed on your PC just open up PowerShell and type $PSVersionTable. 

See this article for installing 7.3 if needed.

Install PnP

If you haven’t got PnP installed on your PC, first check the old legacy version is not already installed.

Get-Module SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline -ListAvailable | Select-Object Name,Version

If this command comes back with an old version then use this line to remove it:

Uninstall-Module SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline -Force -AllVersions

Install the latest version using this command:

Install-Module PnP.PowerShell

See this article for more detail on installing PnP.

Register PNP

If you have access to a Global Admin account, register PNP to allow it access to your Tenant by running the command:

Register-PnPManagementShellAccess

It will come up with a list of rights that need to be approved as per a normal Azure App registration.

If you need further information or need to pass on the Content confirmation to a Global Admin account refer them to to this article.

Connect to your Azure Tenant

Using PowerShell, connect to your Tenant….

Connect-PnPOnline -url https://YourTenant-admin.sharepoint.com -Interactive

Create CDNs if Needed

Check with your Azure team if CDNs have been already been created for your Tenant. If not, use these commands:

See if the Private CDN has been enabled:

Get-PnPTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Private

Then if needed, enable the private CDN using this command:

Set-PnPTenantCdnEnabled -CdnType Private -Enable $true

Create Site Libraries

Once you have set up the environment, you can create your Asset Libraries.

This example setups an asset library called logos, which is private to the Tenant.

Add-PnPOrgAssetsLibrary "https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/assets/logos" -CdnType Private -OrgAssetType "ImageDocumentLibrary"

It’s possible to add an image for each library if needed.

Test & Launch

It can take a while (anything from 1 hour to 24 hours) for the actions to complete, but you can then give your marketing team access to this Assets site and get them uploading imagery, creating folders or adding metadata as required.

Once ready, anyone that’s responsible for maintaining SharePoint content will have access to option to a location called ‘Your Organization‘ from which to obtain corporate images.

Finally, launch this service to all your SharePoint contributors.

Also, make sure your marketing team keeps the repository updated. To this end, it makes sense to set up a handy link to the Assets site from, say, their marketing Team site.