ngSydney, Office Add-ins and lots of AngularJS

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I went to my first ngSydney meetup on Wednesday night, and presented a short session on Office-Addin with AngularJS (I also throw in Graph API) and ran over my allocated time to 40 minutes.

I probably should have asked for 1hr.

Presentation

Here is the PowerPoint presentation.  Presentation: office-addin yo ngSydney

Also, check out all the examples on http://dev.office.com/

Updates

Graph API has Excel endpoints "coming soon".  These REST endpoints will let your app reach inside a workbook/worksheet/range/cell and pull/push stuff in and out like JSON goodness.

https://graph.microsoft.io/en-us/docs/api-reference/beta/resources/excel

Unfortunately, no Word REST API yet.

Clarifications

As I rushed through the demo some things perhaps wasn't as clear as I could explain.

1. There were two libraries/APIs - the Microsoft Graph REST API lets you talk to services across Office and eventually Microsoft space.  You need to register an Azure App so Graph knows what permissions you are after.  Your users need to authenticate and grant permission to your app to use the services that it is asking for.

2. The Office.js within a Office Add-In lets you talk to the current document, or mail within the Office App.  You need to register/deploy the manifest.xml file with your Office 365, or through network share or group policy for Desktop Apps.  The manifest describes what sort of permissions you are seeking on the current document, usually there is only Read or ReadWrite.

You can use Office.js and Graph API together as it was in my demo, or separately.

3. The 'app' I was running in the iframe for both Office 365 or Word 2013 is running out of https://localhost/ - I didn't stop to show this.

4. Authentication piece of the puzzle moves forward as well - next on the line is Progressive Permissions where an app can request more permissions on the spot and the user will be asked to allow additional permissions (write) on the go.

5. Office Addin is available in: Office 2013/2016, Office for Mac, Office for iOS.  Not yet available on Office for Android.  It also runs in Office Online (SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Docs.com) and within both Exchange Online (business) and Outlook.com (consumer).

Had a few awesome quotes:



Update on SharePoint and Office Development - 2016 Feb edition

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We rotate through different topics and presenters in the Sydney SharePoint user group.  But I finally got my turn to present a developer topic, and I wanted to do a quick primer on all things Office Developer related.

This turned out to be a REALLY complex talk.  I wanted to cover ALL the cool new stuff in Office Dev.  But as it turns out every month (and now, every week) new things come out. 

I ended up with:

  • Brief Introduction to dev.office.com
  • Brief Introduction to PnP
  • Where we have been with SharePoint Add-Ins
  • Where we are going with Office Addins: 
  • NEW API: Microsoft Graph API
  • NEW AUTH: OAuth 2.0 and ADAL(js)
  • NEW TOOLS: New tools with Node, NPM, and Yeoman Generator (YO OFFICE)
  • Build a demo Office Addin that talks to both SharePoint Online and Microsoft Graph
  • Run on web and desktop

The presentation clocked in at 1 hour and 20mins - I started a bit earlier.  And kind of flopped off at the end as I run out of steam after the demo :-O

Then we gave out all the swag from dev.office.com so all is happy faces.

The PowerPoint presentation is here:

2015 February Presentation - Update on SharePoint and Office Development

 

Demo Fail

So at the end, the Office Add-In didn't load from the App Catalog on my desktop.  I went home and got it to work, here are screenshots to proof it.

Oh NO - no apps

Add SharePoint App catalog to trust center

 

Here it is.  The same addin working on desktop - talking to Microsoft Graph and showing Group Conversations

 

Publishing UserCustomActionConfigPage on GitHub

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I wrote previously about the Simplest way to add script to your SharePoint and SharePoint Online.

Although this is a simple, stand-alone page, it is something I can see being updated going forward, and with some minor prodding from Marc Anderson, I moved forward my plans to put it out there publically.

It also means I can now just link to that one place, and as I make updates to the page, people won't be going to the old version 1. 

It's here on GitHub.  https://github.com/johnnliu/UserCustomActionsConfigPage 

I still have a few more articles on branding that I wanted to write under this banner and I think Marc is going to link it up with requirejs. 

 

Creating Multiple Custom Email-Alias Addresses with one Outlook account

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Update thank you to Johannes in the comments.  This is called Email Sub-Addressing.

I was catching up with my brother, and he showed me a pretty cool trick with gmail.

If you mail [email protected] (not his real email address) with mark-liu+test@gmail.com - the email would arrive at his inbox.

Not to be outdone, I tested this with Outlook, and sure enough.  If you mail: john-liu+test a outlook dot com they'd arrive in my personal mailbox.  You can do anything after the + character.  +spam, +newspaper, +test1 etc etc.

I have no idea what this feature is called - for Gmail it seems to be called "Creating Multiple Custom Email Addresses with one Gmail account".  May be this is called Email-Alias? 

So this is just a short blog about an Outlook version of this feature.  This works for Hotmail as well.

What is this good for?

  • Test throw away emails, e.g. testing your registration process code
  • Spam emails and figuring out where they came from
  • Easy to set up filter rule to get rid of emails you don't want
  • You should definitely have a john-liu+spam alias for signing up to newsletters.

Notes

  • Doesn't work for Exchange or Office 365 email addresses.

Thank you MS for MVP 2016

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As I still see myself a newcomer in the SharePoint community compared to our many elders, I still hold my breath every year come Jan 02 when my MVP gets renewed.  I'm told "if they weren't going to renew you they'll break it to you early" I hope so.  I'm still holding my breath anyways.

I received my Microsoft MVP award for the 3rd year on the morning of the 2nd.  I wanted to say a big thank you to the community and Microsoft.  Cheers for Team Office and Friends!

2016 is the year where Microsoft tweaks the MVP award system - for IT Pros and Developer MVPs, it is no longer based directly on specific product, but on the product group.  Instead of SharePoint, I am now Office Servers and Services.  I think this is a good thing, in that I was already contributing in different areas - I love Sway, and love love Power BI, at the same time I want to see SharePoint's Sites even more embedded within Office Add-Ins.  Where will SharePoint go in 2016?  Will it end up on HoloLens?  Wow who knows.

But know this, SharePoint is not going away not by a long shot.  This is the year where I think we will see that MS is serious about SharePoint, and not just a service, but also a platform.  Trust me, I'm a dev...  A hopeful dev.

And as Microsoft moves forward with single purpose: unifying Azure, Windows, Office and Bing engine, as well as advancing the devices with IOT, Xbox, Surface and Band, I have this uncanny grin as I imagine what we could build, not in 5 years' time, but this year, in 2016!

Loving the ecosystem, loving the possibilities and loving the community.

/omg2016gonnabeawesome