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SharePoint Login as a Different User

What the hell Microsoft? Why did you decide to remove the ability for a user to logon as a different user in SharePoint 2013? It was there in 2010, but this feature is not there in 2013.

Microsoft's recommendation is to right-click on Internet Explorer and then select run-as and then enter your username and password. This is not a good option for most users and in our environment it is not practical. So to get this functionality back, we will create a SharePoint feature that is deployed at the farm level. There are some sites out there that detail this but there is one problem with all of them, they do not redirect the user back to the same site where they did the logout / login function. I have included the specific code to solve the problem but I am not including the details on how to create the feature. Once the feature is created add an empty element to the project and paste in the code below. The LogoffAndLogin() javascript function will get the current subsite and pass it in as a parameter to then allow the logoff webservice to redirect the user back to the original page after login.

  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  2. <Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  3.   <CustomAction
  4.     Id="LoginScript"
  5.     ScriptBlock="function LogoffAndLogin(){ if (typeof SP != 'undefined') { 	var siteCollUrl = '';SP.SOD.executeFunc('SP.js', 'SP.ClientContext', function(){var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();var site = clientContext.get_site();clientContext.load(site);clientContext.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, function(){siteCollUrl = site.get_url();var fullURL = siteCollUrl + '/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true&amp;amp;Source=' + siteCollUrl; window.location = fullURL;}))})} else { alert('An error occurred during the logoff process, please try again.');}};"
  6.     Location="ScriptLink">
  7.   </CustomAction>
  8.   <CustomAction
  9.     Id="LogInAsUser"
  10.     GroupId="PersonalActions"
  11.     Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu"
  12.     Sequence="998"
  13.     Title="Sign in as a Different User"
  14.     Description="Sign Out and Login as a Different User">
  15.     <UrlAction Url="javascript:LogoffAndLogin();"/>
  16.   </CustomAction>
  17. </Elements>

I have the code all in one line and I realize that it might be a bit difficult to follow. I have included the code broken out as multiple lines to help you follow what is going on.

  1. LogoffAndLogin(){ 
  2. 	if (typeof SP != 'undefined') { 	
  3. 		var siteCollUrl = '';
  4. 		SP.SOD.executeFunc('SP.js', 'SP.ClientContext', function(){
  5. 			var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext.get_current();
  6. 			var site = clientContext.get_site();
  7. 			clientContext.load(site);
  8. 			clientContext.executeQueryAsync(Function.createDelegate(this, function(){
  9. 				siteCollUrl = site.get_url();
  10. 				var fullURL = siteCollUrl + '/_layouts/closeConnection.aspx?loginasanotheruser=true&amp;amp;Source=' + siteCollUrl;
  11. 				window.location = fullURL;
  12. 			}))
  13. 		})
  14. 	} 
  15. 	else { 
  16. 		alert('An error occurred during the logoff process, please try again.');
  17. 	}
  18. };

This has worked well in our environment. This is a stupid problem that MS created, but this solution should work well to solve it. Good luck !!



Tag: 
C#
SharePoint