50 Limitations of SharePoint Sandboxed Solutions

  1. Deployment at site collection level (No Web Application-scoped Features or Farm-scoped Features). So, If you have 100 site collections, then you have to deploy the same sandbox solution to 100 site collections.
  2. No SPSecurity – Therefore no Elevated Privileges
  3. You can’t use SPSite object to get other site collections. (But you can use it to get the current site as : SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
  4. Visual webparts are not supported (But you can use the “Visual Studio 200 SharePoint Power Tools” to get this functionality)
  5. cannot call to the network resources. E.g. You cannot read/write to a database on the server (But you can use Silverlight)
  6. Only “No code” workflows allowed. No Visual studio workflows (But the workflows without classes that are imported and edited in Visual studio will work!)
  7. No support for System.IO, Therefore you Cannot read/write to the file system.(But you can use Web Services hosted in your on-premises and call from workflow)
  8. HideCustomAction, CustomActionGroup are not allowed. But you can use
  9. Remember, Resource Usage Quotas/Limits applied on Sandboxed solutions https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615462.aspx
  10. No Feature stapling supported.
  11. Can’t write to registry (But you can read)
  12. Limited Server Object Model MSDN: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615454.aspx
  13. Can’t set cookies in the sandbox. Use jQuery plugin instead https://plugins.jquery.com/project/cookie
  14. No call to external WCF/web services such as HTTP calls (But we can use AJAX)
  15. Content Type Binding is not supported
  16. No support for custom Timer jobs
  17. Can’t use SharePoint mapped folders such as _layouts
  18. Can’t export a Sandboxed Web Part
  19. Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls and Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages Namespaces are not available. So you have no access to CssRegistration class, But you can use: tag for style sheets!
  20. Managed Metadata – No programmatic access to the taxonomy object model.
  21. No ADO.NET support!
  22. No support for SPUtility.SendEmail, So you can’t Send Mails using this class.
  23. No caching support
  24. No Custom HTTP Modules
  25. No developer dashboard
  26. No Site Definition
  27. Can’t use controls for delegation
  28. No Business Connectivity Services support
  29. No Localization support
  30. No SPWebConfigModification usage
  31. Most of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration are disabled
  32. No Document converters
  33. No User Control support.
  34. NO Custom service applications
  35. SharePoint web controls (such as SPTreeView) are not supported
  36. ClientScriptManager is not available – No access to ScriptManager.
  37. Can’t access the event viewer for logging
  38. No PropertyBags of SharePoint Object model is accessible,( But you can use SPWeb.AllProperties or custom list to store settings)
  39. No GAC Deployment – Your solutions will be stored in the content database. Can’t deploy assemblies to GAC and Cannot call assemblies deployed out of Global Assembly Cache
  40. CustomPropertyToolPart not supported
  41. Can’t create application pages or site pages with code behind
  42. No Server-side redirects, such as Response.Redirect, Server.Transfer, SPUtility.Redirect.
  43. Can’t access some of the enterprise services like UserProfile, Search
  44. Can’t access dlls from BIN and resources files(.resx)
  45. Can’t access code that is not marked to allow partially trusted callers
  46. Can’t access Cache object.
  47. HttpRequest.Files collection will not contain anything
  48. Only SPLimitedWebPartManager is available.
  49. SharePoint Web controls (namespace SharePoint.WebControls) are not available,
  50. Last but not least: site Template Binding is not supported.

Salaudeen Rajack

Salaudeen Rajack - Information Technology Expert with Two-decades of hands-on experience, specializing in SharePoint, PowerShell, Microsoft 365, and related products. He has held various positions including SharePoint Architect, Administrator, Developer and consultant, has helped many organizations to implement and optimize SharePoint solutions. Known for his deep technical expertise, He's passionate about sharing the knowledge and insights to help others, through the real-world articles!

14 thoughts on “50 Limitations of SharePoint Sandboxed Solutions

  • I am unable to export more than 2000 records to excel from SharePoint external list. External list has 5000 records but only 2000 records getting exported to excel.

    Any help on this would be highly appreciated.

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
    • This is because of the throttling limit on External List. Use Set-SPBusinessDataCatalogThrottleConfig to increase the limit.

      Reply
    • Hi Salaudeen,
      Thanks for your response.
      Already increased the BCS throttling limit and able see 5000 records in my external list but unable to export to excel. Only 2000 records getting export to excel.
      Is there any settings needs to change to export all the 5000 records to excel. please let me know if you know the solution for this issue.

      Thanks in advance.
      Regards,
      Girish.

      Reply
  • can we take xml file from Form Library using CSOM in C# in Sandbox Solution?

    Reply
  • Any one else experience frustration while converting a solution package to a sandboxed solution package. It’s been quite a challenge for me because I have to look for work arounds to doing things like adding a web part to a page, programmatically adding an event receiver, and programattically editing the properties of a field.

    Reply
  • very good and easy to understand…

    Reply
  • and what is allowed ? nothing. It is end of sharepoint developers. Shit of microsoft

    Reply
  • Cool Brief of limitations.. thanks

    Reply
  • Very good article!

    Reply
  • Cannot use FullTextSQLQuery

    Reply
  • Very helpful.

    https://blog.mmasood.com

    Reply
  • Wow! Nice compilation

    Reply

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