SharePoint Online: Export-Import Site Collection Term Store using PowerShell
Requirement: Export and Import Site Collection Term Store Groups between SharePoint Online Sites.
PowerShell to Export-Import Site Collection Term Groups in SharePoint Online
Managed metadata created in the tenant term store can be accessed from any SharePoint Online site in the Office 365 tenant. However, Term sets created locally in a site collection are limited within its site collection and can’t be accessed beyond its site collection boundary. As there are no ways to export local term sets from a site collection, we can use the PowerShell script to copy-paste term groups in SharePoint Online.
Export Site Collection Term Groups using PowerShell
Set the parameters w.r.t your environment and run the script to export a site collection terms groups to an XML file.
#Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing"
$FilePath = "C:\Temp\TermGroup.xml"
#Connect to Site
Connect-PnPOnline $SiteURL -Interactive
#Export Site Collection's Term Groups to XML
Export-PnPTermGroupToXml -Out $FilePath -Identity "{sitecollectiontermgroupname}"
The exported XML file would look like this:
<pnp:TermGroups xmlns:pnp="https://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2020/02/ProvisioningSchema">
<pnp:TermGroup Name="{sitecollectiontermgroupname}" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Description="" SiteCollectionTermGroup="true" UpdateBehavior="Overwrite">
<pnp:TermSets>
<pnp:TermSet Name="Classification" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Description="" IsOpenForTermCreation="true" />
<pnp:TermSet Name="Project Classification" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Description="" IsOpenForTermCreation="true">
<pnp:Terms>
<pnp:Term Name="Development" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="1fbcc5b0-9ee7-4016-8e90-4dc29df0e602">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Finance" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="0540c6bf-d766-4629-9092-0533d1ebfbb7">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="HR" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="e59e7042-8395-4dba-9d40-7b07af110307">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Infrastructure" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="d31ff7c3-29a6-438c-b751-b28758a767ed">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="IT" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="5d92346c-45e9-4113-89d7-63c88cdf2680">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Management" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="d48797a4-9055-4d39-b78d-e45178b571b2">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Marketing" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="395ce170-a53b-4e0a-9a63-caa444e5b73e">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Operations" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="2c1ac652-aeb3-4418-8014-f834858713d9">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="Warehouse" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="85ca4a71-0c6c-4974-89a1-ad413f19e251">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
</pnp:Terms>
</pnp:TermSet>
<pnp:TermSet Name="Regions" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Description="" IsOpenForTermCreation="true">
<pnp:Terms>
<pnp:Term Name="APAC" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="dadcb21f-1e86-413c-8e58-71dd899d9ac7">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="EMEA" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="77ea30de-778f-467a-a639-029cddc89ea2">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="MENA" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="f561a115-9261-4f5e-8c64-312ea7cf05e9">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
<pnp:Term Name="NA" ID="00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000" Owner="i:0#.f|membership|salaudeen@crescent.com" Description="" SourceTermId="956a35a9-4765-4824-ad56-2dbaf9abf075">
<pnp:Terms />
</pnp:Term>
</pnp:Terms>
</pnp:TermSet>
</pnp:TermSets>
</pnp:TermGroup>
</pnp:TermGroups>
Import Site Collection Term Groups
Once we have the term groups XML ready, we can import it to any other site collection.
#Parameters
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Sales"
$FilePath = "C:\Temp\TermGroup.xml"
#Connect to Site
Connect-PnPOnline $SiteURL -Interactive
#Import Term Group from XML file
Import-PnPTermGroupFromXml -Path $FilePath
Similarly, you can export-import any term group from the term store between tenants! E.g.
Get-PnPTermGroup -Identity "PMO" | Export-PnPTermGroupToXml -Out "C:\Temp\TG.xml"
