In this article, we will discuss ,how to use PowerShell cmdlets for managing Help Collections SharePoint.

SharePoint help collection is not configured with SharePoint Configuration, This needs to manually configured.SharePoint Help Files(.Cab) installed on the hive folder with SharePoint Installation but not configured by default. In order to configure it we have to run the PowerShell commands.

when users click on the Help button  on their site collection, they get the following error

” Unfortunately, Help Seems to be broken,There aren’t any help collections in the current language for the site you’re using.”

Even if go to Site settings > Site administration > Help Settings will get this

Clearly Help collection is broken and now it is SharePoint Admins responsibility to fix the broken Help Collection.

S0lution :

In order to fix the broken help collection, following activities needs to be done.

Check the CAB files exist
Get the Current Help File Status
Install the Help File(s)
Testing

Check Help Files :

Logon the SharePoint Server and browse to the hive folder.

Go to “C:\program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\16\HCCab”

In this folder, make sure you see cab files for 14 & 15.

If you have multiple language packs then check each language folder i.e English is 1033

• Log on the server with farm admin account
• Open PowerShell windows (Run as Administrator)
• Run the Get-sphelpcollection command

you can see nothing return even command completed successfully

Install Help files :

install all the available help,run the command with all options

• Log on the server with farm admin account
• Open PowerShell (Run as Administrator) and run Install-SPHelpCollection – All

This command will install the help files available in the hive folder.
Wait for 5 minutes to completely install it, if you have multiple language packs install then even wait little more.
Now run Get-SpHelpCollection and you will get something like this.

Test it at both locations via site settings as well as from the browsing the Site collection.

Go to Site collection > Site settings > help Settings and you will see this option

Now if you click on the “?” (help button) on the top suite bar, you will get this pop up

Uninstall :

As we noticed, we have 2010 help files also installed, we have to uninstall one by one.

• Log on the server with farm admin account
• Open PowerShell ( Run as administrator) and run this command
• Uninstall-SpHelpCollection –Name “OSSEndUser.1033.12”

Conclusion :

In this session we learned how to fix the broken Help Collection.

Keep reading and learning.

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: 14 hive, 15-hive, cab-file, get-sphelpcollection, help-file, powershell script, powershell-command, SharePoint 2016, sharepoint-help, SharePoint2016