Moving a Discussion from a Discussion Board to another?

Question

I have a SharePoint 2010 Discussion Board and it has many Discussions. Would like to move a discussion from the discussion board to another in the same location (under same site collection).

I managed to move the discussion and changed the author of the discussion from System Account to corresponding user account however could not change the author/editor for the replies

I have used the below PS script to do this.

[void][reflection.assembly]::Loadwithpartialname("Microsoft.SharePoint")
$spsite=[Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite]("https://Teamssite/")
$spweb = $spsite.openWeb()

$spList = $spweb.Lists["Discussion Board"]
$spItem = $spList.GetItemById(273)

$spUser = $spweb.EnsureUser("myDomain\Userx")
$spItem["Author"]=$spUser
$spItem["Editor"]=$spUser
$spItem.SystemUpdate()

$query=new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPQuery
$spFolder = $spItem.Folder;
$query.Query = "";
$query.Folder = $spFolder;
$query.RowLimit = 1;
$spReplies = $spList.GetItems($Query);
$spReply = $spReplies[0]
$spReply["Author"] =$spUser
$spReply["Editor"] =$spUser
$spReply.SystemUpdate()

Still, It is showing the System Account for the replies. What am I missing? Is there any other way of doing it?

Answer 1

I am a bit puzzled with your script so I decide to find another way :)

Discussion board is tricky to deal with. Discussion are folders and Messages are items inside folders (very simple explanation). Best way to migrate one Discussion from source to destination list is to recreate new Discussion on destination list and then to recreate all Messages inside it.

So here is script that will do the job:

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

$web = Get-SPWeb "http://TeamSite"
$sourceList = $web.GetList("http://TeamSite/Lists/source/")
$destinationList = $web.GetList("http://TeamSite/Lists/destination/")

#Get desired discussion by Name (or use some other identifier eg. ID)
$sourceDiscussion = $sourceList.Folders | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq "My cool subject"}

#Add new discussion to destination list
$destinationDiscussion = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility]::CreateNewDiscussion($destinationList.Items, $sourceDiscussion.Title)
#Copy basic field values (you can copy some custom fields if needed)
$destinationDiscussion["Body"] = $sourceDiscussion["Body"]
$destinationDiscussion["Author"] = $sourceDiscussion["Author"]
$destinationDiscussion["Editor"] = $sourceDiscussion["Editor"]
$destinationDiscussion["Modified"] = $sourceDiscussion["Modified"]
$destinationDiscussion["Created"] = $sourceDiscussion["Created"]
#Add discussion
$destinationDiscussion.SystemUpdate($false)

#Get all discussion messages (maybe there is better way to get it but this works)
$caml='<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name="ParentFolderId" /><Value Type="Integer">{0}</Value></Eq></Where>' -f $sourceDiscussion.ID
$query = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPQuery
$query.Query = $caml
$query.ViewAttributes = "Scope='Recursive'";
$sourceMessages = $sourceList.GetItems($query)

foreach ($sourceMessage in $sourceMessages) {
    #Add new message to discussion
    $destinationMessage = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility]::CreateNewDiscussionReply($destinationDiscussion)
    #Copy basic field values (you can copy some custom fields if needed)
    $destinationMessage["Body"] = $sourceMessage["Body"]
    $destinationMessage["TrimmedBody"] = $sourceMessage["TrimmedBody"]
    $destinationMessage["Author"] = $sourceMessage["Author"]
    $destinationMessage["Editor"] = $sourceMessage["Editor"]
    $destinationMessage["Modified"] = $sourceMessage["Modified"]
    $destinationMessage["Created"] = $sourceMessage["Created"]
    #Add message
    $destinationMessage.SystemUpdate($false)
}

As you can see this script migrates original users and dates to destination.

Answer 2

Thanks for the post, I have tweaked the script a bit to loop through all discussion items in a discussion board and move them to a new list.

    # Migration of a discussion forum to a new list
    # to overcome commenting issue caused by Meta-Vis 
    # Migration

    #Region Load SharePoint Snapin
    $ver = $host | select version
    if ($ver.Version.Major -gt 1)  {$Host.Runspace.ThreadOptions = "ReuseThread"}
    Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    #EndRegion

    $webURL = "http://yoursiteurl"
    $sourceList = "https://sourcelisturl"
    $destList = "https://destinationlisturl"

    # Do not edit below this line
    $web = Get-SPWeb $webURL
    $sourceList = $web.GetList($sourceList)
    $destinationList = $web.GetList($destList)

    $sourceListItems = $sourceList.Folders

    foreach($item in $sourceListItems)
    {
        write-host $item['ID']
        #Get desired discussion by ID (or use some other identifier eg. ID)
        $sourceDiscussion = $sourceList.Folders | Where-Object {$_.ID -eq $item['ID']}

        #Add new discussion to destination list
        $destinationDiscussion = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility]::CreateNewDiscussion($destinationList.Items, $sourceDiscussion.Title)
        #Copy basic field values (you can copy some custom fields if needed)
        $destinationDiscussion["Body"] = $sourceDiscussion["Body"]
        $destinationDiscussion["Author"] = $sourceDiscussion["Author"]
        $destinationDiscussion["Editor"] = $sourceDiscussion["Editor"]
        $destinationDiscussion["Modified"] = $sourceDiscussion["Modified"]
        $destinationDiscussion["Created"] = $sourceDiscussion["Created"]
        #Add discussion
        $destinationDiscussion.SystemUpdate($false)

        #Get all discussion messages (maybe there is better way to get it but this works)
        $caml='<Where><Eq><FieldRef Name="ParentFolderId" /><Value Type="Integer">{0}</Value></Eq></Where>' -f $sourceDiscussion.ID
        $query = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPQuery
        $query.Query = $caml
        $query.ViewAttributes = "Scope='Recursive'";
        $sourceMessages = $sourceList.GetItems($query)

        foreach ($sourceMessage in $sourceMessages) {
            #Add new message to discussion
            $destinationMessage = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility]::CreateNewDiscussionReply($destinationDiscussion)
            #Copy basic field values (you can copy some custom fields if needed)
            $destinationMessage["Body"] = $sourceMessage["Body"]
            $destinationMessage["TrimmedBody"] = $sourceMessage["TrimmedBody"]
            $destinationMessage["Author"] = $sourceMessage["Author"]
            $destinationMessage["Editor"] = $sourceMessage["Editor"]
            $destinationMessage["Modified"] = $sourceMessage["Modified"]
            $destinationMessage["Created"] = $sourceMessage["Created"]
            #Add message
            $destinationMessage.SystemUpdate($false)

        }

    }