Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 10 Sep 2020

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From YouTube: Building a licensing solution for SharePoint Framework solutions

Description

In this 10-minute Developer - focused demo, Abhishek Purohit – shows viewers how to think about and create a simple license management system to manage SPFx add-ins and extensions sold in Microsoft AppSource. Consider licensing options - use your own licensing management tool, use a 3rd party app or use AppSource. From your app, add code to call a SAAS web API and to inform the user if they or their tenant has a license for your app else prompt to license. This PnP Community demo is taken from the SharePoint Framework and JavaScript Special Interest Group (SIG) – Bi-weekly sync call recorded on September 10, 2020.

Demo Presenter: Abhishek Purohit (Microsoft) | @abpuro

Supporting materials:
• Repo - office-add-in-saas-monetization-sample | http://github.com/officedev/office-add-in-saas-monetization-sample
• Documentation - How to create a SaaS offer in the commercial marketplace | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/marketplace/partner-center-portal/create-new-saas-offer
• Documentation - Submit your Office solution to Microsoft AppSource via Partner Center | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/store/use-partner-center-to-submit-to-appsource

Learn more:
• Learn more about the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community at: http://aka.ms/m365pnp
• Visit the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community YouTube channel: https://aka.ms/m365pnp-videos

A

So this is about monetizing, your add-ins, with uh the app source or the azure marketplace, and uh so before I start about the demo and everything I just wanted, everyone to know what's changing so uh basically, in earlier around january, the seller dashboard has was integrated with partner center.

A

So if you wanted to upload your sharepoint framework solutions uh or teams add-ins, so you need to go to the partner center and from the partner center, you would be able to upload it so because of which uh the earlier licensing model, uh by which we used to uh do the licensing for the provider hosted add-in and for the office add-in was retired so because of which what happened result was that all the paid add-ins were actually converted into the free add-ins.

A

So now you will be only able to upload the free add-ins, but then you would also have an option that it includes the payment options in the add-in itself. So now one of the biggest question with my partners is that how do I implement the licensing in my add-in? So customer can actually purchase it correct.

A

So here the answer is either you can use your own licensing tool or third-party application, but I would recommend you to use appsource where you would be able to create a sas offering and then link it with your sharepoint framework solutions or other solutions. Also, so, let's quickly look at the architecture around how the architecture would actually be. So anything you that you see in blue is owned by microsoft, correct so now earlier uh we just had office 365 and office add-in or, I would say, sharepoint solutions.

A

That would be that you can download from the app source correct and then it finally works, and there was an api which was owned by microsoft. But now what would happen is because we have removed that uh capability of having the licensing framework.

A

You would need to also create a something called a sas offering okay, uh this might be confusing for people who might not have used microsoft, commercial marketplace, but sas offering is kind of a web application that gets hosted in the app source or azure marketplace.

A

So once you have the sas offering you might, you would also need something called uh the sas application or you could also call it something like admin portal.

A

I just do uh that demo uh quickly um after talking about this and um and now because we have this sharepoint solution, so this was only required for the sas offering. But why do I have included the api?

A

If someone would ask because sharepoint solutions or spfx sharepoint framework solutions are client-based solutions, so it would be much more easier if you have an api that can talk to microsoft, sas fulfillment, api, okay and then get you the information whether the current user is licensed or not, and then this api can also talk with the isp database, saying that, okay, if it was a site-based license or a seed-based license, if it is a seed-based license, you need to also add the users.

A

So all of this code has been developed by microsoft and the community already. uh This is something that I have not built, but uh this is something that I uh talk uh to my uh partners uh on the real-time basis, and I thought it would be interesting to talk about this.

A

Okay, so let's go to a quick demo over here, so I have this particular solution. I have this simple sas framework or solution over here which will just load in a minute.

A

Okay, so it um so, it would just display your name and then say that whether you have the license or not, okay, so now, because there is no test markup or app source, I am using the mock-up api of the fulfillment fulfillment and the mock app source. Also, so, let's suppose I went to appsource. I already have my sharepoint solution loaded, but it says you don't have a license, so you cannot perform any operations because you need the in-house purchase.

A

So I click on. I have the add-in. I click on purchase the sas offering that I have. I click on purchase.

A

Okay, so it would say that okay, this condos application that you have as a seed based or a site base. Let go over the site base site base means it can have unlimited uses. uh Anyone can access it, so I'll just click on purchase once I click on purchase.

A

It would actually get me to my this web application. Okay, so I'll just show you that so it would from the software when I purchased it. It will actually take me to the uh sas application itself. Now. One of the interesting thing to know about over here is that this is called the landing page. Okay and you can just click on buy.

A

Okay, so this is actually called a landing page. uh You would see that the app source or marketplace will actually throw you a kind of a token over here. That has to be used and that's why it's called a landing page. Once you go into the landing page and say uh get your information just like I, we have just included location, you can say once it's provisioned.

A

You would get back to this is the dashboard page, which is called in the microsoft commercial marketplace stuff. But now, if I go back.

A

What you would see is you do have a paid license: okay, and if we have also added some console values, so you would see that okay, it would give you the information that tenant has purchased the site license. uh Auto license assignment is disabled. These are all the licensing thing that isv can actually implement.

A

Okay, so this is one of the site-based license, but if I go back, if I click on cancel- and I go to my app source to change my plan- and I say I want a seed based plan- and I say number of so- it would just update it.

A

And if I go back over here, it would say yet that you don't have a license, because I have not added the user, but over here you would see that the tenant has purchased the license user current user does has does not have a license, but you have a five license available, so that is a small demo on how you can actually build uh on the sharepoint framework code of site. If I go uh yes, it's simple, a very simple thing: we have created up our aed uh client, uh so sorry yeah.

A

So there is a sas web api client that we have created. That will, just if you can see over here, um give me a second. It would just go to the sas client and do a post of the values that it has sent like properties.

A

uh If you see over here is the value of the sas web api url, and it would check with the client whether it has the information or not whether current user, by sending up the configuration value, it would say that whether the current op current user has license or not or whether the tenant has purchased the license or not on the web api end, because this is a huge code.

A

You would see the first thing that I showed you was the landing page: okay, so the landing pages from where the app source actually uh sends you to a particular application that, with a particular token, so you take up the token and then you send it to the fulfillment api and the fulfillment api will do the job for you and then a simple home controller or the dashboard controller. Where you manage up your license, so I would actually recommend you to go to uh this particular sample, uh which is office.

A

Dev uh office add-in, sas monetization, and we have all the deployment steps all the monetization code sample, which is already available. uh Try it. We have it all for sharepoint, hosted provider, hosted uh spfx solutions, also for outlook word and excel. uh There are a few more coming up, so you can uh try out the code and uh see how it all works.

A

So um that is a small thing and then let's go by the click links. So you need to understand about the marketplace. uh So you need to understand about the sas offerings that are there and how do you create one, and then how do you use a part center to submit an application to app source? So these? I would believe these are few of the readings that you might that you might want to learn about.

A

So that was it from my end,.

B

Right very cool, and it's a great topic, especially with uh apps in the store now uh licensing, is something I think more and more developers are going to be considering and the solutions they.

A