CMIS on SharePoint Online / Office 365
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10-12-2019 - |
Question
How to access a SharePoint Online server via CMIS?
The URL to the server is https://xyz.sharepoint.com but apparently the following CMIS URLs do not work:
https://xyz.sharepoint.com/_vti_bin/cmis/rest?getRepositories
https://xyz.sharepoint.com/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService.svc
This Microsoft document says "CMIS is not supported in SharePoint Online" but I am not sure the information is up-to-date. By the way, I am OK with third-party add-ons.
Is there any trick or third-party add-on/gateway or similar that would enable us to access SharePoint Online via CMIS?
Solution
Actually it seems that CMIS was half-implemented in Office365, but Microsoft voluntarily disabled it (URL broken after Microsoft reorganized their forums).
CMIS is a protocol for interoperability, and it seems like Microsoft wants to prevent interoperability for Office365, presumably to prevent locked-in customers from migrating to more open solutions like Alfresco.
Companies who want CMIS interoperability should stay away from Office365 and install SharePoint on-premise.
I asked Microsoft to implement CMIS in all SharePoint products, and it became the highest-voted idea on UserVoice. Facing that, Microsoft deleted it, showing that they still consider vendor lock-in as a feature rather than a bug. Let's not loose hope that Microsoft will one day become a bit more open, so please vote for the re-created idea.