Automate SharePoint Document Libraries Management using Flow, Azure Functions and SharePoint CSOM

30th of January, 2018 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been working on a client requirement to automate SharePoint library management via scripts to implement a document lifecycle with many document libraries that have custom content types and requires regular housekeeping for ownership and permissions.
Solution overview
To provide a seamless user experience, we decided to do the following:

1. Create a document library template (.stp) with all the prerequisite folders and content types applied.

2. Create a list to store the data about entries for said libraries.… [Keep reading] “Automate SharePoint Document Libraries Management using Flow, Azure Functions and SharePoint CSOM”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 4: Triggers

30th of January, 2018 / / 7 Comments

scTriggers are the third type of server-side code in Cosmos DB. Triggers allow for logic to be run while an operation is running on a document. When a document is to be created, modified, or deleted, our custom logic can be executed – either before or after the operation takes place – allowing us to validate documents, transform documents, and even create secondary documents or perform other operations on the collection. As with stored procedures, this all takes place within the scope of an implicit transaction.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 4: Triggers”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 3: Stored Procedures

19th of January, 2018 / / 6 Comments

Stored procedures, the second type of server-side code that can run within Cosmos DB, provide the ability to execute blocks of functionality from inside the database engine. Typically we use stored procedures for discrete tasks that can be encapsulated within a single invocation. In this post, we will discuss some situations where stored procedures can be used and the actions and queries that they can perform. We’ll then start to work through the server-side API model, and look at how we can work with the incoming stored procedure invocation’s request and response as well as the Cosmos DB collection itself.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 3: Stored Procedures”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 2: User-Defined Functions

12th of January, 2018 / / No Comments

User-defined functions (UDFs) in Cosmos DB allow for simple calculations and computations to be performed on values, entities, and documents. In this post I will introduce UDFs, and then provide detailed steps to set up a basic UDF written in TypeScript. Many of these same steps will be applicable to stored procedures and triggers, which we’ll look at in future posts.

This is the second part of a series of blog posts on server-side development using Cosmos DB with TypeScript.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 2: User-Defined Functions”

Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 1: Introduction

5th of January, 2018 / / No Comments

Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database provided as part of Microsoft’s Azure platform. Designed for very high performance and scalability, Cosmos DB is rapidly becoming one of the default data storage options I recommend for new green-field applications and microservices. It is a fairly opinionated database, with some guidelines that you need to follow to take full advantage of its scalability and performance, but it also provides a number of features to enable sophisticated and powerful applications to be built on top of its engine.… [Keep reading] “Cosmos DB Server-Side Programming with TypeScript – Part 1: Introduction”

Azure AD Domain Services

4th of December, 2017 / / No Comments

I recently had what I thought was a rather unique requirement from a customer.
The requirement was to build Azure IaaS virtual machines and have them joined to a managed domain, while also being able to authenticate to the virtual machines using Azure AD credentials.
The answer is Azure AD Domain Services!
Azure AD Domain Services provides managed domain services such as domain join, group policy and Kerberos/NTLM authentication without the need for you to deploy and  manage domain controllers in the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Domain Services”

Exchange Online & Splunk – Automating the solution

13th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

NOTES FROM THE FIELD:

I have recently been consulting on, what I think is a pretty cool engagement to integrate some Office365 mailbox data into the Splunk reporting platform.
I initially thought about using a .csv export methodology however through trial & error (more error than trial if I’m being honest), and realising that this method still required some manual interaction, I decided to embark on finding a fully automated solution.
The final solution comprises the below components:

  • Splunk HTTP event collector
    • Splunk hostname
    • Token from HTTP event collector config page
  • Azure automation account
    • Azure Run As Account
    • Azure Runbook
    • Exchange Online credentials (registered to Azure automation account

I’m not going to run through the creation of the automation account, or required credentials as these had already been created, however there is a great guide to configuring the solution I have used for this customer at  https://www.splunk.com/blog/2017/10/05/splunking-microsoft-cloud-data-part-3.html… [Keep reading] “Exchange Online & Splunk – Automating the solution”