We are happy to announce availability of SharePoint Client Side Object Model (CSOM) assemblies as NuGet packages for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2016. Previously we have shipped CSOM only as seperate installer packages (msi’s), but wanted to ensure that you can use exactly the same assemblies also using NuGet packages. You can find these packages from the NuGet gallery with specific id’s for SharePoint 2013 and 2016 versions.

• SharePoint 2013 CSOM NuGet package – Microsoft.SharePoint2013.CSOM
• SharePoint 2016 CSOm NuGet package –  Microsoft.SharePoint2016.CSOM

These packages contain exactly the same versions of the assemblies as the msi packages to avoid version conflicts. We are also committed to update these NuGet packages in the same time as any updates for the msi packages. This means that it does not really matter which option you want to use in our deployments. Key advantage of having these assemblies as NuGet packages is to have possibility to reference them as NuGet in your Visual Studio solutions without any external dependencies. Versions of the CSOM assemblies are as follows, which also aligns with the previously released msi packages.

• SharePoint 2013 CSOM – April 2015 CU
• SharePoint 2016 CSOM – SP2016 RTM version

We would be looking for your feedback and input around these packages, so that they are valuable for you. Right now, NuGet packages only contain .NET 4.5 version of the assemblies for simplicity perspective, but please let us know if this is not optimal for you by using the comments in this blog post or by using Microsoft Tech Community (SharePoint Developer Group). Since CSOM assemblies have dependency on the server side version, we are not looking to update these NuGet packages frequently, rather only when there’s a major release and we would need to reset a CSOM baseline for the on-premise deployments.

Notice that since each CSOM version is targeted for specific environment and you might run into issues, if you use wrong CSOM version for your target environment. This is because of the server side dependencies of the APIs. CSOM versioning model and dependency to your target environment is clarified in following blog post – Using correct Client Side Object Model (CSOM) version for SharePoint customizations. 

If you are targeting SharePoint Online as your platform, you should be using specific NuGet package for that with an id of ‘Microsoft.SharePointOnline.CSOM‘. You can read more details on latest capabilities for the SharePoint Online from the SharePoint Online CSOM September 2016 release notes (latest monthly release).

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Vesa Juvonen, Senior Program Manager, OneDrive-SharePoint Engineering, Microsoft – 19th of October 2016