Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow – Part 1 – Architecture

10th of August, 2018 / / 3 Comments

In one of my previous blog here,  I have discussed about creating Office 365 groups using Azure Function and Flow. The same process could be used also to provision Modern Team sites in SharePoint Online because Modern Team Sites are Office 365 groups too. However, if you are creating a Complex Modern Team Site with lots of Libraries, Content types, Termstore associated columns etc. it will challenging to do it with a single Azure Function.… [Keep reading] “Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow – Part 1 – Architecture”

Avoiding Cosmos DB Bill Shock with Azure Functions

24th of July, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Cosmos DB is a fantastic database service for many different types of applications. But it can also be quite expensive, especially if you have a number of instances of your database to maintain. For example, in some enterprise development teams you may need to have dev, test, UAT, staging, and production instances of your application and its components. Assuming you’re following best practices and keeping these isolated from each other, that means you’re running at least five Cosmos DB collections.… [Keep reading] “Avoiding Cosmos DB Bill Shock with Azure Functions”

Set up a Microsoft Graph App for Office 365 and SharePoint Online management to use in Azure Functions, Flow, .Net solutions and much more

4th of May, 2018 / / No Comments

Microsoft Graph API can be used to connect and manage the Office 365 SaaS platforms such as SharePoint Online, Office 365 Groups, One Drive, OneNote, Azure AD, Teams (in beta) and much more.
A Graph app is an Azure AD app that has privileges (with provided permissions) to authenticate and then execute operations when using PowerShell, Azure Functions, Flow, Office Online CSOM, SharePoint Online and many other tools.
It is quite easy to set up a graph app, below is a brief preview of the process.… [Keep reading] “Set up a Microsoft Graph App for Office 365 and SharePoint Online management to use in Azure Functions, Flow, .Net solutions and much more”

Protecting Application Credentials when implementing Modular Azure Functions with Microsoft Flow

23rd of April, 2018 / / 1 Comment

This weekend I was attempting to rework some older Azure Automation tasks I wrote some time ago that were a combination of PowerShell scripts and Azure (PowerShell Functions). I was looking to leverage Microsoft Flow so that I could have them handy as ‘Buttons’ in the Microsoft Flow mobile app.
Quite quickly I realized that Microsoft Flow didn’t have the capability to perform some of the automation I required, so I handed that off to an Azure Function.… [Keep reading] “Protecting Application Credentials when implementing Modular Azure Functions with Microsoft Flow”

How to quickly copy Azure Functions between Azure Tenants and implement 'Run From Zip'

17th of April, 2018 / / 3 Comments

As mentioned in this post yesterday I needed to copy a bunch of Azure WebApps and Functions from one Tenant to another. With anything cloud based, things move fast. Some of the methods I found were too onerous and more complex than they needed to be. There is of course the Backup option as well for Azure Functions. This does require a storage account associated with the Function App Plan. My Functions didn’t have the need for storage and the plan tier they were on meant that wasn’t a prerequisite. … [Keep reading] “How to quickly copy Azure Functions between Azure Tenants and implement 'Run From Zip'”

Evaluating the migration of Azure Functions to Microsoft Flow – Twitter IoT Integration

5th of April, 2018 / / No Comments

Introduction

Almost 18 months ago I wrote this post on integrating Twitter with Azure Functions to Tweet IoT data. A derivative of that solution has been successfully running for about the same period. Azure Functions have been bullet proof for me.
After recently implementing Microsoft Flow as detailed in my Teenager Notification Device post here I started looking at a number of the Azure Functions I have running and looked at what would be better suited to being implemented with Flow.… [Keep reading] “Evaluating the migration of Azure Functions to Microsoft Flow – Twitter IoT Integration”

Create Modern Pages and update metadata using SPFx Extensions, SP PnP JS and Azure Functions

13th of March, 2018 / / 3 Comments

Modern Site Pages (Site Page content type) have a constraint to associate custom metadata with it. In other words, the “Site Page” content type cannot have other site columns added to it as can be seen below.
SitePageContentTypeMissing
On another note, even though we can create a child content types from Site Page content type, the New Site page creation (screenshot below) process doesn’t associate the new content type when the Page is created. So, the fields from the child content type couldn’t be associated.… [Keep reading] “Create Modern Pages and update metadata using SPFx Extensions, SP PnP JS and Azure Functions”

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”

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”