Programmatically assign rights in sharepoint online

Question

I'm working with custom templates in Sharepoint online and I want to assign groups to lists automatically when a subsite is created. What I did:

• Created a template in Visual Studio
• Added an Event Receiver to the last Feature
• Filled the featureactivated method with the script below

What should happen is that when a subsite is created, the featureactivated method will fire and the specified groups will get assigned with their rights to a list.

    public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
    {
      using (SPSite site = properties.Feature.Parent as SPSite)
      {
        SPWeb web = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent;

        try
        {
          SPList internalNotes = web.Lists.TryGetList("Internal Notes");
          SPList externalNotes = web.Lists.TryGetList("Notes");

          SPGroup headOfArtists = web.SiteGroups.GetByName("Head of Production");
          SPGroup stageDesigners = web.SiteGroups.GetByName("Logistics Manager");

          web.BreakRoleInheritance(true);

          Tools.GroupHandler.addGroupToSPWeb(web, SPRoleType.Editor, headOfArtists);
          Tools.GroupHandler.addGroupToSPWeb(web, SPRoleType.Reader, stageDesigners);

          internalNotes.BreakRoleInheritance(true);
          externalNotes.BreakRoleInheritance(true);

          Tools.GroupHandler.addGroupToSPList(web, SPRoleType.Reader, headOfArtists, externalNotes);
          Tools.GroupHandler.removeGroupFromList(web, stageDesigners, externalNotes);

        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
          logger.LogError("Failed to add rights", e);
        }
      }

The GroupHandler class is a static class which looks like this:

public static class GroupHandler
  {
    public static void addGroupToSPWeb(SPWeb web, SPRoleType roleType, SPGroup group)
    {
      try
      {
        SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment((SPPrincipal)group);
        SPRoleDefinition roleDefinitionRead = web.RoleDefinitions.GetByType(roleType);
        roleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(roleDefinitionRead);
        web.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment);
      }
      catch (Exception e)
      {
        logger.LogError("Failed to add rights", e);
      }
}

public static void addGroupToSPList(SPWeb web, SPRoleType roleType, SPGroup group, SPList list)
{
  try
  {
    SPRoleAssignment roleAssignment = new SPRoleAssignment((SPPrincipal)group);
    SPRoleDefinition roleDefinitionRead = web.RoleDefinitions.GetByType(roleType);

    roleAssignment.RoleDefinitionBindings.Add(roleDefinitionRead);
    //list.RoleAssignments.Remove(group);
    list.RoleAssignments.Add(roleAssignment);
  }
  catch (Exception e)
  {
     logger.LogError("Failed to add rights", e);
  }
}

public static void removeGroupFromList(SPWeb web, SPGroup group, SPList list)
{
  try
  {
    list.RoleAssignments.Remove(group);
  }
  catch (Exception e)
  {
     logger.LogError("Failed to add rights", e);
  }
}
}

The Problem
When I create a subsite with the template that contains this event receiver, the event receiver just throws away the groups I want to assign to a specific list (in the example above "Head of Production and "Logistics Manager". I can't debug anything because it's Sharepoint online and everything worked fine in my Sandbox Solutions test environment.

Answer 1

My recommendation would be to not use a Sandboxed Solution with Managed Code but to use a SharePoint App Model project to do this either as SharePoint Hosted or Provider Hosted...mainly because the approach you are using is deprecated and can't be debugged like you've stated. Provider Hosted maybe an easier jump as you can use Managed Code CSOM here in an MVC or Web Forms project to do this. You can then very easily use a Remote Event Reciever and debug into it. In the Office AMS samples on codeplex, there is a sample project that shows how to use an Remote Event Receiver and also debug it live leveraging a Azure Service Bus approach in Visual Studio 2013 http://officeams.codeplex.com/. Also in that code samples download there is an example of managing security in the App Model too, so you should be good to go.