How to create a site in a sitecollection on a remote SPServer using C#

Question

I am currently trying to write a Dynamics CRM 2011 plugin that creates a new SharePoint 2010 site (within an existing site collection) for every account that is created. I have the code for creating a library, which uses the following methods:

private static ClientContext CreateSharePointConnection()
        {
            try
            {
                Uri spSiteUrl = new Uri(Constants.SharePointSiteName);
                using (ClientContext spcontext = new ClientContext(spSiteUrl))
                {
                    spcontext.Credentials
                        = new System.Net.NetworkCredential(Constants.UserName
                            , Constants.Password, Constants.DomainName);
                    return spcontext;
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new Exception("SharePointMethods.CreateSharePointConnection (General Exception: "
                    + ex.Message + ")");
            }
        }

private static void CreateDocumentLibrary(ClientContext _clientContext
            , string _documentLibraryName, string _documentLibraryDescription)
        {
            try
            {
                Web web = _clientContext.Web;
                _clientContext.Load(web);
                _clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
                ListCreationInformation lci = new ListCreationInformation();
                lci.Title = _documentLibraryName;
                lci.Description = _documentLibraryDescription;
                lci.TemplateType = 101;
                List newDocumentLibrary = web.Lists.Add(lci);
                newDocumentLibrary.ContentTypesEnabled = true;
                newDocumentLibrary.Update();
                _clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw new Exception("SharePointMethods.CreateDocumentLibrary('" + _documentLibraryName
                    + "') (General Exception: " + ex.Message + ")");
            }
        }

So I would like to write a method CreateSite instead of CreateDocumentLibrary. However, all examples I can find on the web for programmatically creating a Site are using SPSite, SPWeb, etc. Something like this:

private static void CreateSite(string _siteName, string _siteDescription)
{
    try
    {
        SPSite site = new SPSite(Constants.SharePointSiteName);
        SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
        SPWebCollection wc = web.Webs;
        string siteTemplate = web.WebTemplate;
        wc.Add(Constants.SharePointSiteName, _siteName, _siteDescription, 1043, siteTemplate, true, false);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw new Exception("SharePointMethods.CreateSite('" + _siteName
            + "') (General Exception: " + ex.Message + ")");
    }
}

However this is NOT a solution for my problem, because the SPSite, SPWeb, etc. only work on the local machine and I want to create a Site from a remote (in my case CRM) server. Anyone got an idea how to solve this.

PS: Code might still contain memory leaks, so please be carful when you use it for production purposes!

Answer 1

Web web = clientContext.Web;
var subWebInfo = new WebCreationInformation
{
    Description = "",
    Language = 1033,
    Title = "Sub Site",
    Url = "subsite",
    UseSamePermissionsAsParentSite = true,
    WebTemplate = "STS#0"
};
Web subWeb = web.Webs.Add(subWebInfo);
clientContext.Load(subWeb);
clientContext.ExecuteQuery();

Works also without specifying the WebTemplate. Out-of-the-box web templates: http://blogs.technet.com/b/praveenh/archive/2013/04/04/get-a-list-of-web-templates-and-ids-in-a-sharepoint-site.aspx

Using a custom template as {Guid}#TemplateName https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3240967/sharepoint-2010-create-site-from-code-using-custom-site-template

List available custom templates using CSOM: http://yeshagrawal.blogspot.in/2013/06/sharepoint-2013-get-all-site-templates.html

Language codes (if language packs are installed): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff463597.aspx

Answer 2

Another way is by using Meetings.asmx service

After you initialize a new instance of the service and set up the credentials you can call

XmlNode xnode= myService.CreateWorkspace("siteName", "siteTemplateName", culture, timeZoneInf);

Answer 3

Here's the complete code I used based on Naim's solution. Code is working, however, because this solution needs to edit the web.config this is not preferable for a CRM plugin:

private static void CreateSiteViaWebservice(string _siteName)
{
    try
    {
        using (MeetingsService.MeetingsSoapClient proxy = new MeetingsService.MeetingsSoapClient())
        {
            proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential
                = new System.Net.NetworkCredential(Constants.UserName
                    , Constants.Password, Constants.DomainName);
            proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel
                = System.Security.Principal.TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation;
            MeetingsService.TimeZoneInf tz = new MeetingsService.TimeZoneInf();
            tz.standardDate = new MeetingsService.SysTime();
            tz.daylightDate = new MeetingsService.SysTime();
            proxy.CreateWorkspace(_siteName, Constants.TemplateName, Constants.Lcid, tz);
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw new Exception("SharePointMethods.CreateSite('" + _siteName
            + "') (General Exception: " + ex.Message + ")");
    }
}