Create a PowerApp from SharePoint list

14th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

In my last post we explored PowerApps and the associated development tools available like PowerApps desktop studio and PowerApps web studio. Without writing a single line of code we created our first basic three screen PowerApp and were able to perform CURD (create, update, read, delete) operations on our SharePoint data source.
In this, we will try an create a App from SharePoint list. we’ll create an app from a “Roster” SharePoint list.
First, we will see how PowerApps is integrated into SharePoint Online.… [Keep reading] “Create a PowerApp from SharePoint list”

Connect SharePoint Online and SQL Server On-Premises with BCS/SharePoint Apps using Hybrid Connection and WCF Services

13th of November, 2017 / / 2 Comments

SharePoint Online cannot directly connect to on-premises data sources such as SQL Server. A recommended approach is to use Hybrid with SharePoint 2013/2016 but adds an overhead of infrastructure and maintenance costs. Hence to overcome it, I am going to describe in this blog how to use the Azure PaaS workloads and connect to on-premises data sources using BCS.
Using Azure Hybrid Connection (refer this post) and BCS with Azure Web App hosting WCF endpoint, we can now expose on-premises SQL data to SharePoint Online and Cloud by external content types (ECTs) or SharePoint Hosted Apps.… [Keep reading] “Connect SharePoint Online and SQL Server On-Premises with BCS/SharePoint Apps using Hybrid Connection and WCF Services”

Building my first PowerApp, a basic roster, pulling data from SharePoint Online

7th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

What is PowerApps?

PowerApps is a set of services and apps, that enable power users to build line of business application rapidly. It can connect to the cloud services and data sources that we may be already using.

Why PowerApps?

PowerApps gives power user ability to quickly build apps that suit specific needs. They can share apps instantly with Team across the web, tablets, and mobile devices. To list down, few of the advantages of PowerApps are:

  • Simple and fast – capable of producing an app in minutes that pulls in data from Excel or a cloud service.

… [Keep reading] “Building my first PowerApp, a basic roster, pulling data from SharePoint Online”

Resolving “User not found” issue while assigning permissions using SharePoint CSOM

7th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

I was recently working on a SharePoint Online project where we were trying to automate library creation and provide required permissions on those libraries. We had an issue while modifying permissions with CSOM code on SharePoint libraries when the Created By user had left the company.
In this post I will outline the cause and the resolution as there was no online reference for resolving this error.
Issue: The CSOM code was throwing an error “User not found” even when creating a User object from web.EnsureUser()… [Keep reading] “Resolving “User not found” issue while assigning permissions using SharePoint CSOM”

Azure Functions Cold Start Workaround

4th of November, 2017 / / No Comments

Intro

I love Azure Functions. So much power for so little effort or cost. The only downside is that the consumption model that keeps the cost so dirt-cheap means that unless you are using your Function constantly (in which case, you might be better off with the non-consumption options anyway), you will often be hit with a long delay as your Function wakes up from hibernation.

So very cold…

This isn’t a big deal if you are dealing with a fire and forget queue trigger scenario, but if you have web app that is calling the HTTP trigger and you need to wait for the Function to do it’s job before responding with a 200 OK… that’s a long wait (well over 15 seconds in my experience with a PowerShell function that loads a bunch of modules).… [Keep reading] “Azure Functions Cold Start Workaround”

Global Navigation and Branding for Modern Site using SharePoint Framework Extensions

30th of October, 2017 / / 43 Comments

Last month at the Microsoft Ignite 2017, SharePoint Framework Extensions became GA. It gave us whole new capabilities how we can customize Modern Team sites and Communication sites.
Even though there are lots of PnP examples on SPFx extensions, while presenting at Office 365 Bootcamp, Melbourne and taking a hands-on lab, I realised not many people are aware of the new capabilities that SPFx extensions provide. One of the burning question we often get from clients, if we can have a custom header, footer and global navigation in the modern sites and the answer is YES.… [Keep reading] “Global Navigation and Branding for Modern Site using SharePoint Framework Extensions”

Use Azure Hybrid Connections to get on-premises data from SQL to SharePoint Online

18th of October, 2017 / / No Comments

Azure Hybrid Connections are an easier and less complicated way to connect cloud applications with on-premises SQL data. This provides great extensibility options for SharePoint Online such as,

  1. Provider Hosted Apps hosted in Azure
  2. Business Data Connectivity using WCF services hosted in Azure
  3. SharePoint Hosted Apps using BCS external sources.

In this blog, I will illustrate the steps to configure Azure Hybrid Connections. In a nutshell, the diagram below outlines the data flow in Hybrid connections.… [Keep reading] “Use Azure Hybrid Connections to get on-premises data from SQL to SharePoint Online”

Restoring deleted OneDrive sites in Office365

16th of October, 2017 / / 1 Comment

A customer has requested whether it was possible to restore a OneDrive site that had been deleted when the user’s account was marked for deletion in AD. After a bit of research, I was able to restore the site back and retrieved the files (luckily it was deleted less than 30 days ago).
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Integrating Yammer data within SharePoint web-part using REST API

29th of August, 2017 / / No Comments

Background

We were developing a SharePoint application for one of our client and have some web-parts that had to retrieve data from Yammer. As we were developing on SharePoint Online (SPO) using a popular SharePoint Framework (SPFx), so for the most part of our engagement we were developing using a client-side library named React to deliver what is required from us.
In order for us to integrate client’s Yammer data into our web-parts, we were using JavaScript SDK provided by Yammer.… [Keep reading] “Integrating Yammer data within SharePoint web-part using REST API”

SharePoint Online forecast storage requirements

10th of August, 2017 / / No Comments

Background

Office 365 users get quite a bit of storage on SharePoint Online for content, be it files, metadata, etc. But still to manage the storage and forecast as to when additional storage has to be added becomes a challenge with very limited analytics available in SharePoint Online. Since adding more storage cost money so adding before you actually require or a bit too late would not be ideal.
SharePoint Online provides two ways to track the storage one from the admin center and other one from within the site collection using Storage metrics.… [Keep reading] “SharePoint Online forecast storage requirements”