Access Target Audience with REST API - The field or property 'Audience' does not exist

Question

Resorting to asking a question on here as I cant seem to find anyone else who is trying to access the Target Audiences field with the REST API.

If I try and pull out all the items in my list using:

/_api/lists/getbytitle('xxxx')/items

The definition returned doesnt contain the Target Audiences field, even though its part of the content type associated with my list and I've added an item to the list and populated this field. If I try and grab this specific field:

/_api/lists/getbytitle('xxxx')/items?$select=Audience

It says The field or property 'Audience' does not exist. Even though it is there on the content type and list.

I chucked in a quick bit of server side code on page load and I can get the field using server side code:

SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Web;
        SPList list = web.Lists.TryGetList(xxxx);
        if (list != null)
        {
            foreach (SPListItem item in list.Items)
            {
                var audiences = item["Target Audiences"];
            }
        }

But does anyone know why it isnt accessible with client side code? I'm creating a custom admin screen for a list which has a Target Audience field so I need to be able to pull the value back and set the value as well, but it's like the client side doesnt think it exists, when it clearly does and can be accessed on the server side

Answer 1

It is not supported by REST api, you need caml query to pull items based on Target Audience. However you can use caml based REST call to get items based on Target Audiences. Here i am providing an example where i am making a REST call to get items based on current user Targeted Items. REST calls has the following inabilty.

1.Inability to filter items based on user fields where user is added through a group, rather than directly, e.g. AssignedTo=[Me] combined with a SharePoint group.

2.Inability to filter items based on multivalued taxonomy fields.

var caml = "<View><Query><Where><Or><Eq><FieldRef Name='AssignedTo' /><Value Type='Integer'><UserID/></Value></Eq><Membership Type='CurrentUserGroups'><FieldRef Name='AssignedTo' /> </Membership></Or></Where></Query></View>";

var endpoint = "/_api/web/lists/GetByTitle('" 
    + listName + "')/GetItems";
var requestData = { "query" :
       {"__metadata": 
          { "type": "SP.CamlQuery" }
          , "ViewXml": caml
       }
    };
return jQuery.ajax({
    url: endpoint,
    method: "POST",
    data: requestData,
    headers: {
        "X-RequestDigest": $("#__REQUESTDIGEST").val(),
        "Accept": "application/json; odata=verbose",
        "Content-Type": "application/json; odata=verbose"
    }
});
/* end of code */

Answer 2

Not so much an answer to the original problem but I dont believe its possible to do what I was trying to do (access Target Audience on the client side).

So if anyone else has this problem avoid the headache of trying to figure it out and do it server side (which is what I did in the end). I changed my REST API calls to custom web service calls.

To then render my items with Audience Targetting taken into account, if you aren't aware (as I wasnt) you use the AudienceLoader:

AudienceLoader audienceLoader = AudienceLoader.GetAudienceLoader();

            foreach (SPListItem item in listItems)
            {
                string audienceFieldValue = (string)item["Target Audiences"];

                if (AudienceManager.IsCurrentUserInAudienceOf(audienceLoader, audienceFieldValue, true))
                {
                }
             }

I stole this from another stack overflow I believe.

If anyone does ever come across a Target Audience solution client side I'd be interested though.