Author: Bob German

YouTube Grand Opening

~ Bob German ~ Leave a comment

I’m thrilled to announce that in addition to this blog, I’ve started creating short YouTube videos on Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Azure development. At first I was going to put everything on my own YouTube channel, but I’m thrilled that I was invited instead to post them on the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices channel. I consider it an honor, and it’s a great opportunity to reach nearly 16,000 SharePoint and M365 developers!

I’ll list my videos across all channels on the Videos page in this blog.

Here’s a video to get you started!

Continue reading →

Building Microsoft Teams apps with SharePoint Pages – Part 2, Build your Own

~ Bob German ~ 1 Comment

This is Part 2 of a 2-part series which will show you how to make Teams applications using modern SharePoint pages. It’s not about the SharePoint Framework, which is a great option, but one that requires coding. This is the easy approach: if you can edit a SharePoint page, format a list, or make a Power App, you can make a Teams app.

Of course there are built-in tabs to allow adding a SharePoint page or PowerApp to Teams, but there are a number of advantages to building a proper Teams app:

  • You can distribute and manage it centrally in the Tenant App Catalog
  • Users can install it by name – no need to configure a website or Power Apps tab
  • You can use app policies to set permission and target the app to the users who need it, and optionally pin it to the Teams sidebar
  • You can be a hero for building a cool app (nobody has to know how easy it was!)

PART 1 – Introduces the Get Started app and explains Teams Tab principles

PART 2 (this article) – Shows how to use Teams App Studio and a new Tab Configuration web part to build your own static and configurable tabs

NOTE: This article has been updated to resolve issues where SharePoint pages were not displayed, especially in the desktop client. If you built apps using the original article, please update your solution using these instructions. Thanks!

App Studio

Github was a good way to share the Get Started app, so anyone can get a copy and adapt it to their needs. But if you’re starting a new app, especially a simple one based on SharePoint pages, you might like to skip the JSON and go to a tool called App Studio.

App studio is itself a Teams app (how meta!) – and it includes a great manifest editor. You can install apps right from App Studio for testing, and then export the app package for installing into the tenant App Catalog.

Here are the installation instructions.

Begin by selecting the Manifest Editor tab and create a new manifest. The editor will open, where you can enter the app details.

SPTabAppStudio001

Scroll through all the details and fill them in; details about each entry are in the manifest schema. Continue reading →

Building Microsoft Teams apps with SharePoint Pages – Part 1, Get Started

~ Bob German ~ 9 Comments

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series which will show you how to make Teams applications using modern SharePoint pages. It’s not about the SharePoint Framework, which is a great option, but one that requires coding. This is the easy approach: if you can edit a SharePoint page, format a list, or make a Power App, you can make a Teams app.

Of course there are built-in tabs to allow adding a SharePoint page or PowerApp to Teams, but there are a number of advantages to building a proper Teams app:

  • You can distribute and manage it centrally in the Tenant App Catalog
  • Users can install it by name – no need to configure a website or Power Apps tab
  • You can use app policies to set permission and target the app to the users who need it, and optionally pin it to the Teams sidebar
  • You can be a hero for building a cool app (nobody has to know how easy it was!)

PART 1 (this article) – Introduces the Get Started app and explains Teams Tab principles

PART 2 – Shows how to use Teams App Studio and a new Tab Configuration web part to build your own static and configurable tabs

NOTE: This article has been updated to resolve issues where SharePoint pages were not displayed, especially in the desktop client. If you built apps using the original article, please update your solution using these instructions. Thanks!

Any SharePoint page can be a Teams Application

At events around the world lately, Karuana Gatimu has demonstrated a Get Started application that displays the Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways portal right in Microsoft Teams. Users who are new to M365 and need a little instruction can click on the app and gain access to a rich training portal.

LearningPathwaysInTeamsThe Learning Pathways training portal is right at the top of the Teams sidebar

Continue reading →

Deep Linking to a SharePoint Framework Tab in Microsoft Teams

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay
~ Bob German ~ Leave a comment

This is part 3 of a 3-part article series about building a “360 degree view” mashup for Microsoft Teams using the SharePoint Framework and React. The articles are:

  1. Part 1: 360 Degree Collaboration in Microsoft Teams
    This article introduces the 360 Degree pattern for collaborative applications, and explains a the workings of a sample solution based on SharePoint Framework and React
  2. Part 2: Working with Teams Content from an SPFx Tab
    This article explains how to access Team and channel content, such as the shared calendar and conversation, from a SharePoint Framework tab in Teams
  3. Part 3: Deep linking to a SharePoint Framework tab (this article)
    This article explains how to create a deep link that opens a Team, Channel, and tab, and passes information to your SharePoint Framework tab so you can display specific information

The series is based on a sample Teams tab written in SharePoint Framework which displays a mashup of information about customer visits.

What is a deep link?

In the world of web applications, a deep link is a link that not only selects a web page but also passes data to an application running on that page. For example, a link could open an Excel spreadsheet in a particular Team, rather than opening Teams and Excel in separate pages.

Continue reading →

Working with Teams Content from an SPFx Tab

~ Bob German ~ Leave a comment

This is part 2 of a 3-part article series about building a “360 degree view” mashup for Microsoft Teams using the SharePoint Framework and React. The articles are:

  1. Part 1: 360 Degree Collaboration in Microsoft Teams
    This article introduces the 360 Degree pattern for collaborative applications, and explains a the workings of a sample solution based on SharePoint Framework and React
  2. Part 2: Working with Teams Content from an SPFx Tab (this article)
    This article explains how to access Team and channel content, such as the shared calendar and conversation, from a SharePoint Framework tab in Teams
  3. Part 3: Deep linking to a SharePoint Framework tab
    This article explains how to create a deep link that opens a Team, Channel, and tab, and passes information to your SharePoint Framework tab so you can display specific information

The series is based on a sample Teams tab written in SharePoint Framework which displays a mashup of information about customer visits.

Getting from the Tab to the Team, and beyond

As you may have heard, the great new way to write custom tabs for Microsoft Teams is to use the SharePoint Framework. One big SharePoint Framework web part makes a tab, and SharePoint takes care of hosting, single sign-on, configuration, and more.

To get started, follow this tutorial. It’s a great start, but it might leave you wondering how to interact with the Team your tab is running in, like read the meeting calendar or post a message. This article will explain how you can do that and also unlock the entire Office 365 Group from your code.

Continue reading →

360 Degree Collaboration in Microsoft Teams

~ Bob German ~ 1 Comment

This is part 1 of a 3-part article series about building a “360 degree view” mashup for Microsoft Teams using the SharePoint Framework and React. The articles are:

  1. Part 1: 360 Degree Collaboration in Microsoft Teams (This article)
    This article introduces the 360 Degree pattern for collaborative applications, and explains a the workings of a sample solution based on SharePoint Framework and React
  2. Part 2: Working with Teams Content from an SPFx Tab
    This article explains how to access Team and channel content, such as the shared calendar and conversation, from a SharePoint Framework tab in Teams
  3. Part 3: Deep linking to a SharePoint Framework tab
    This article explains how to create a deep link that opens a Team, Channel, and tab, and passes information to your SharePoint Framework tab so you can display specific information

The series is based on a sample Teams tab written in SharePoint Framework which displays a mashup of information about customer visits. The Teams tab allows users to see one another’s schedules, and then brings together all the information needed for each visit. The same approach could be used for any kind of mash-up. Users can see at a glance what customer visits are approaching for each team member; when a visit is selected, the solution displays:

  • customer information (from the Northwind database OData service)
  • documents (from SharePoint)
  • recent transactions (mock)
  • a map (Bing maps)
  • current weather (Open Weather Map)
  • photos (from SharePoint)
  • a text box for sending messages to the Teams channel with deep links back to the selected visit

Continue reading →

Provisioning Teams with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow Part 5: A Change in Direction

~ Bob German ~ 1 Comment

It’s only been a few weeks since I published the 4-part blog series on Teams provisioning, and already I’ve learned a lot. So here is part 5 of the 4-part series, which will explore early learning and begin to discuss future directions for the project.

  1. Solution Overview
  2. Installing the solution
  3. Building a Flow for the solution
  4. Looking at the code
  5. A Change in Direction (this post)

ALSO – the code has moved to an official PnP repository! Please update your links accordingly.

Continue reading →

Provisioning Teams with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow Part 4: Looking at the Code

~ Bob German ~ 5 Comments

This is the another article in a blog series explaining a new open source solution (located here) for provisioning Microsoft Teams. The solution is based on Azure Functions which communicate with Microsoft Flow (or really anything) using Azure queues. This allows a Flow, PowerApps, or Logic Apps developer to use whatever logic they wish and, when a Team is to be created, queue a message to an Azure Function which will do the work.

This is Part 4 of the series, which reviews some key areas of the Azure Functions code as well as the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Template which provisions it.

  1. Solution Overview
  2. Installing the solution
  3. Building a Flow for the solution
  4. Looking at the code (this post)
  5. A Change in Direction

Continue reading →

Provisioning Teams with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow Part 3: Writing the Flow

~ Bob German ~ 6 Comments

This is part of a blog series explaining a new open source solution (located here) for provisioning Microsoft Teams. The solution is based on Azure Functions which communicate with Microsoft Flow (or really anything) using Azure queues. This allows a Flow, PowerApps, or Logic Apps developer to use whatever logic they wish and, when a Team is to be created, queue a message to an Azure Function which will do the work.

This is Part 3 of the series:

  1. Solution Overview
  2. Installing the solution
  3. Building a Flow for the solution (this post)
  4. Looking at the code
  5. A Change in Direction

Continue reading →