SharePoint online JSON view formatting is a powerful feature that allows you to customize the look and feel of your SharePoint lists and libraries. In my previous article I explained how to apply JSON View formatting using SharePoint REST API. In this article, we will see how you can easily apply JSON view formatting to your SharePoint lists and libraries using PnP PowerShell from the command line.

The first step in applying SharePoint JSON view formatting using PnP PowerShell is to install PnP PowerShell module on your machine. To install PnP PowerShell, open a PowerShell console as an administrator and run the following command (or follow this article – Installing PnP PowerShell):

Install-Module PnP.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser

For this blog post, we will use below view formatting JSON as an example:

{
    "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
    "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}

If you use this view formatting JSON directly in below PnP PowerShell script, you may get errors like:

Set-PnPView: Name cannot begin with the ‘=’ character, hexadecimal value 0x3D.

OR

Set-PnPView: An error occurred while parsing EntityName.

To avoid such errors you have to use HTML/XML character encoding for JSON formatting operators like <, >, &&, etc.

Operator	Encoded character
<	&lt;
>	&gt;
&	&amp;

After HTML/XML character encoding, above view formatting JSON will be converted to this:

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
  "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}

Then you can use below PnP PowerShell script to apply JSON View formatting to your SharePoint online list:

# SharePoint online site URL
$siteUrl = "https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/SPConnect"

# Display name of SharePoint list
$listName = "Ganesh Sanap Blogs"

# Name of SharePoint list view
$viewName = "All Items"

# JSON to apply to view formatting
$jsonViewFormatting = @'
{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json",
  "additionalRowClass": "=if([$PublishDate] <= @now && [$IsPublished] == false, 'sp-field-severity--severeWarning', '')"
}
'@

# Connect to SharePoint online site
Connect-PnPOnline -Url $siteUrl -Interactive

# Apply JSON view formatting
Set-PnPView -List $listName -Identity $viewName -Values @{CustomFormatter = $jsonViewFormatting}

Where [$PublishDate] and [$IsPublished] are the internal names of your SharePoint columns.

Once you run above script successfully and navigate to SharePoint list view, you will see that new JSON view formatting is applied to your SharePoint online list view using PnP PowerShell:

Learn more

• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using SharePoint REST API
• SharePoint Online: Apply JSON View formatting using CLI for Microsoft 365
• SharePoint Online: Empty Recycle Bin using PnP PowerShell
• Change SharePoint Online List URL using PnP PowerShell
• Update SharePoint Page Banner Image using PnP PowerShell
• Add/Update image columns in SharePoint/Microsoft Lists using PnP PowerShell
• SharePoint Online: How to change the placeholder text in the search box
• Enable/Disable SharePoint Online List Comments using PnP PowerShell