Sharepoint App Connection Question

[rharkness]

I'm trying to establish an app connection to sharepoint.  The client is telling me that we have to use the Client Credentials method because the "Authorization Code Grant" method is requiring tennat authentication and at this point and time they aren't wanting to jump through the administrative hoops to get a service account approved and granted.

Our issue is how do we get the strings out of the cer and pfx files to put into the Certificate and Private Key fields?

[Bhagya_pola]

Hi @rharkness 
Have you gone through this documentation on how to establish a SharePoint connection using Client Credentials

Workato connectors - SharePoint | Workato Docs

[rharkness]

Yes, that was the website being consulted when I was working with the client's sharepoint person.  It wasn't very helpful

[Bhagya_pola]

Okay, try doing it in this way

🔹1. Register the App in Azure 

• Head to https://portal.azure.com and in left menu you can find Microsoft Entra ID, choose that.

• under manage you can see App registrations → click New registration

• Give it a name

• Leave redirect URI empty (client credentials don’t need it)

• Click Register

2. Add API Permissions

• After registration, go to API permissions ( in left menu you can find it)

• Click Add a permission → choose Microsoft Graph

• Choose Application permissions

• Add Sites.Read.All or Sites.ReadWrite.All depending on your needs

• Click Grant admin consent so these permissions are actually active

3. Upload or Use a Certificate

• Go to Certificates & secrets → under Certificates, click Upload certificate

• Upload the .cer file you have

• You’ll now see a thumbprint

• If you're using .pfx instead (which includes the private key too), see next step 

4. Extract Certificate & Private Key from .pfx (for Workato Connection)

If Workato is asking for certificate and private key, and all you’ve got is a .pfx file, you can extract both using

Use Windows Certificate Manager

1. Double-click your .pfx file → Import it into Current User

2. Open certmgr.msc (Windows Key + R → type certmgr.msc)

3. Find your cert under Personal → Certificates

4. Right-click it → All Tasks → Export

   • Export without private key → choose .cer (Base64 X.509)

   • Export with private key → choose .pfx or .pem format

5. Once exported, open both files in Notepad/Notepad++ to grab:

   • The certificate → starts with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

   • The private key → starts with -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----

These are the strings you'll copy-paste into Workato's connector fields.

5. Create the Connection in Workato

• Go to the SharePoint connector in Workato

• Choose Authentication: Client Credentials (Certificate)

• Fill in:

  • Client ID (from Azure)

  • Tenant ID (from Azure)

  • Certificate = contents of your .crt

  • Private Key = from .pfx or exported .pem

  • SharePoint Site Name or URL

Click Save and run a test — if everything above was done right, you should be connected.