Many of you have probably been wondering how to create sample data and populate SharePoint. Whether you need sample data for testing purposes or demos, we’ve come up with a tool that can help generate mock SharePoint data in just a few minutes. Now let’s discuss Acceleratio.SPDG it a bit further.

When developing and testing tools for SharePoint, it’s always good to have your SharePoint stocked with proper demo content. This can be done manually, by entering mock data into your SharePoint, but creating all the users, fake web applications, sites, and site collections can take a lot of time.

Furthermore, it will be hard to successfully use all the SharePoint features in order to test out their capabilities fully or simulate specific scenarios.

How to generate sample content and populate SharePoint?

To avoid manually creating a mock SharePoint environment or banging your head against the wall coming up with a PowerShell script, try generating sample data with Acceleratio.SPDG.

Acceleratio.SPDG is an open-source tool designed to generate mock data for SharePoint. The tool can be used to populate SharePoint On-Premises or SharePoint Online.

You can create data to test SharePoint and to simulate and recreate specific scenarios in which you use multiple SharePoint features. It can also help you create SharePoint or SharePoint-related demos. For example, I use it to showcase and conduct demos for SPDocKit, our SharePoint administration tool. In a few quick steps, I use SPDG to set up an entire SharePoint structure and fill it with demo data.

For instance, if you want to test document versioning and you need some documents with versioning enabled, SPDG can create them for you. Fake names and data are provided quickly, so why bother creating content the hard way?

How does Acceleratio.SPDG work?

SPDG uses random names from the .csv files stored in the directory. Based on that data it generates user names, web applications, site collections and other SharePoint content.

SPDG can generate the following SharePoint demo and sample data:

• Active Directory or Azure Directory
• Web applications
• Site collections
• Subsites, lists, folders, items and documents
• Content Types, site columns, views
• Customized SharePoint groups
• Unique permissions

Just define the various parameters or load previously saved parameters. Once SPDG generates the content, you can browse the sample sites and documents.

I have to note that SPDG does not support SharePoint 2007.

For more input on Acceleratio.SPDG, vist our GitHub page where you can download the tool.