Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 10 Aug 2022

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Outlook add-in API update: REST decommission and Mailbox 1.12 scope

Description

In this 16-minute Developer-focused demo, Juan Balmori shares updates since February regarding Outlook v2.0 REST API decommission. Mailbox v1.12 adds two big event-based features: Smart Alerts (onMessageSend and onAppointmentSend) and New Compose events (onMessageCompose and onAppointmentOrganizer). The features are available in preview for Windows and Outlook on the web. Q&A at end of demo addresses when you can still use the REST API, solution for mobile, and using REST in OnPrem. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Office Add-ins community call – August 2022, recorded on August 10, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Juan Balmori, Principal Product Manager (Microsoft) | @juaneloBalmor

Supporting documents
• Participate - REST API Add-in verification request | aka.ms/RESTCheck
• Documentation - Add-ins for Outlook Mobile | https://docs.microsoft.com/office/dev/add-ins/outlook/outlook-mobile-addins
• Article - On-Premises Architectural Requirements for the REST API | https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/on-premises-architectural-requirements-for-the-rest-api/ba-p/605609

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/m365/community

A

Hello, uh this is juan valmorti. Here I have an outlook update for you guys. I want to talk about two things here in the last few minutes of the call. uh One thing that I want to share with you is the mailbox 1.12 scope defined. So basically, that's the next release of luke allen's apis, and then I want to give you an update, we're getting a lot of questions about the rest.

A

The commission and you know, I want to make sure that you guys know the latest here as well as answering a few of your questions. So your many questions by the way, all right so mail example, the release of mailbox 1.12, is imminent.

A

uh I just want to make sure that you guys are aware of what's coming in that scope, so, basically mailbox 1.12 is going to be around two big features. Now that we're gonna be including in 1.12 the first one is smart alerts. We have been talking about this in many sessions actually a couple of months ago. We have some here doing a demo of one example of smarter letters.

A

I'm going to give you, for example, here, but tomorrow is the first big item that is included in mailbox 1.12 and the second one is we're going to have new, auto run events. You know those. We have two new compose events today back in mailbox 1.12, we shipped you know the autorun events that you could. Actually you know run code when a message is composed, but we shipped back then on new compose message or a new appointment organizer.

A

That event only was triggered when you created a brand new email or when you were replying or forwarding a message, but, for example, if you, if you started the composition of a message and you closed, you know your compo, your compose experience, you get a draft, no a draft email stored in your mailbox and then the problem with that event is that when you reopen the item again from drafts, the event was not triggered.

A

No, that's why we call it on new message: well we're going to have a couple of events shipped as part of 1.12 that are going to be dealing the draft case and all that you can use them to to add code when, when you know when when a draft is opened, but evidently you know the big, the big feature really is smart alerts. We were able to squeeze. You know a couple of more events here, but smart alerts for those of you who haven't heard it.

A

It's basically part of event based also it's an event that actually gets triggered when a user clicks send on an email or an appointment. um This is a very common pattern in a very requested pattern in outlook. You know because many things happen when people send emails. No, so you want to add some logic to validate content to verify. You know that that, for example, you're including an agenda in an appointment, that's you know properly classifying content.

A

There are millions of scenarios here. No, so we have on message sent and on appointments and events, um and by the way, this is something that we ship previously we're, making a few changes. uh We were not allowing send the item sent for some of you know that we should long time ago on items and events and that we are not allowing addings that are implementing that event in the store for many reasons. But the main reason is that the ad isn't available. Then the the user cannot send emails.

A

No, so that was a very hard kind of a way of blocking the send off an email and that's why we decided to ship this. It's really an improvement of that feature that you can now split.

A

You know if you want to handle the event on message center for messages or appointments and, of course we will never not allow users from sending emails. So if your admin is unavailable, they will have an option to to send it, though uh the news here is that you know the feature is in preview in windows and now it's also available in in oa.

A

So if you go to outlook web and look for the web, um you're going to be able to use this feature and the other good news is that they will be accepted in the store, so just to show you quickly what you can do here now.

A

Let me show you one more slide here now that what's key, you need to modify, modify the manifest of your outlook, adding to indicate that you will support the message send or an appointment send, and basically it's the same as the other launch events, you type the name of the event and then the handler that it's going to be called in your code when that event happens now, one one thing that is different specifically for these two events is that you can have a mode, as you can see, there's another attribute on the xml that you can choose the mode you want to be blocking emails.

A

No, and basically you have three options here. We have prompt user, prompt user is the scenario where you want to to give a recommendation to the user. You are blocking the send of the email, because you want to provide that recommendation and basically what this means is that we are going to provide a send anyway option.

A

So you're going to be able to say, for example, hey. I would recommend you to have, for example, an agenda item. Let me show you a quick demo here of how this works.

A

If I create a new appointment- and let's say that I am sending this blank appointment right here, but when I click on send my you know my event, it's very fast, but it's going to get triggered and it's going to say, hey this email is blank. Do you want to add an agenda item? As you can see, I have two options here. I can click done, send and add the agenda or you know I can just send anyway. It's just that's just a recommendation in this case.

A

This is using the prompt user option right and then we have soft block and sub block. That's the mode you want to use when you want a mandatory change. So it's basically something that it's so important that the user needs to change it, that you wouldn't allow them to kind of send the email.

A

So there will not be a send any way option. It would just be like go back and fix the email and set it again. So in some scenarios this makes sense. No uh one exception to this is the if your add-in isn't available, for whatever reason we cannot reach your add-in, then the user will be able to send anyway, and I want to show you one. This is super important behavior, because this is different from what we how we previously used to work with the old event.

A

So let's say for a second that I have this email right here and then this one, this demo is actually simulating that the the add-in is not reachable. No, so when I click on send, what's going to happen, is that you know we're going to try to you know, run your code, but the other is unavailable. So what's going to happen here is that we are going to be showing you this dialogue right and we're going to give you an acknowledgement that we cannot reach.

A

You know you're, adding and then basically you can choose to send anyway, so that is kind of essential for us to allow addings to be shipped to the store.

A

If you are using either prompt user soft block, your add-in is going to be allowed in the store and there's a third option, which is block that behaves exactly as their items and event we ship a long time ago. You know that it's like this is mandatory changes and they are so amanda that are so important that the block of the email that, even if, if the item is not available, it's okay, you know to not send the email. This is also some extreme situations that could happen, but right so that is coming in mailbox.

A

1.12. The release is eminent again and you can try today in if you were using these items in preview in windows. Now you can also do it in the innova. uh You can try all this as well right. So that's going to be the mailbox 1.12 scope and we are going to give you more updates of the release uh very soon.

A

Now, let's go switch gears here to the commission outlook the rest api, the commission that we're going to have now the context here for all of the I've been talking about this a lot in the last months. I'm gonna give you updates every time I can, but basically for those of you who don't know you know back in february, we were sharing that in november 30th 2022, you know the rest api team.

A

You know the the guys who own the outlook rest endpoint uh it's going to be decommissioned right, so this impacts both exchange online and exchange on prem as well. If you are in a hybrid environment, so you are in a mixture of on-prem and the cloud as well: 100 on-prem, uh it's not using rest, so it doesn't have rest services. No, the scenarios impact that I'm putting here are called snippets.

A

If you have a code snippet that looks like this well, basically, when you are creating uh you're using the rest, url property uh and you're, particularly using the b2 api endpoint, that's basically uh it's gonna stop working eventually, you know so that is super important. uh Obviously we want people to be moving to the graph api, so the latest here is that we have good news to share.

A

We already told you uh months ago that you know we're gonna, be granting exceptions to add-ins, because right now we don't have a good story to to be moving to the graph and that basically means that until office 2019, which is where basically, when we ship after office train, I think we ship the support for a single sign-on.

A

So the idea is that all outlook add-ins, who are using the rest api we're going to be granted an exception to keep using the rest api until end of extended support of 2019, which basically means end of around october 14th of 2025 right and then the news here is that uh what right now we are working with the rest team and actually found a way to identify the traffic? That is coming from outlook audience, so this is we're currently testing.

A

It remember that we were creating this allow list of app ids that we were going to be allowing to get exceptions.

A

But now the approach has changed a little bit and basically, what we're trying to do here is to automatically detect the traffic coming from outlook add-ins, and, if that's the case, then all add-ins are going to be are going to be allowed even after the november 20, the november, the commission date until end of support of 2019., so basically you'll have from now until 2025.

A

You know to to move your ad into the graph and we're going to be providing more api so that that's simpler right now, if you submit it, I back in february, I was submitting this form that you can use to actually go and send us your details about your admins in case you want to validate you know, or if you want to add your admin, your id to our list. If you have to use this form, we have contacted everybody who has sent so far.

A

I have contacted personally all the persons who have submitted this case and I actually asking for now for some fiddler traces on calling the rest apis. So if you want to participate in the validation, please make sure to you know to to answer this survey. If you already did it, and I already contacted you, it's no need to send it again.

A

You know, but if this is news to you, uh please send me, send me communicate with me through this form, and then I will. I will contact you and you know you know verify that you are covered um and then well. Obviously, the advice here is move to the graph move to the graph motor. That graph is going to be the future eventually.

A

So please, please share any issues you find either. If it's a graph scope, we haven't been identifying any scope issues which, which means that basically, everything that you have in the in the rest, endpoint is available in the graph api, uh so e, and if you also have non-functional issues like, for example, if the perf is not good enough or significantly slower than rest, we want to know about it. So let's make sure to contact our team and and chat about it right. So that's the news, uh so I think it's good news for everybody.

A

The summary in a nutshell, is that we're gonna grant exceptions for everybody until october, 14 2025.. So that's good. Now many of you are sending a lot of questions so david. I am adding here some of the those questions uh using a bit of the time here. Basically quickly is that uh when the outlook rest api is decommissioned, where will be the programmatic way to confirm that the adding you know uh okay, so people are asking: how are they going to be able to check you know if their spi is no longer available?

A

And the answer to this question is that you, I mean, uh there's an api, that you need to call, and you look at my slides previous slide here. You know you get a get callback token. This is the this is the api that you you need to use in order to get a rest, api compatible token.

A

uh One of the options that is accepted by this api is rest equals. True, that's what makes the api to return a token that it's going to be compatible with the rest api endpoint, so basically, if you're, using this syntax and you're requesting a rest token we're going to fail that call. So this this call is not going to be uh you're no longer going to be able to obtain that token, and hence call the endpoint right.

A

That's going to be the way to check it, so officecontextmail.dressurl most probably is going to be an empty property. Remember that every time you see a property in office.js, it means that was initialized and you loaded the item. So it's going to be initialized as empty as well right right, so I answered that question solution for mobile mobile. You know mobile, we have the problem because in mobile we cannot. We don't have a very good alternative for the rest apis because you cannot call ews.

A

So the recommendation that we have been giving for folks who are who have outlook adams in mobile is to basically move the server calls to a server and then from the server you know communicate with the graph. That is in general, the approach no right. Now we don't have a good answer on get callback tokens, so we, as part of when you have some more time to to to offer a solution here and my team is going to be working on trying to get an alternative to get callback token.

A

You know so that you can at least use cws no, but but again here that workaround, unfortunately, it's gonna be moved to the server from the server make the call uh examples on how to use the outlook add-ins as an alternative of rest. Yes, of course, we we haven't yet have a sample for this, but the idea is that we're going to have a sample showing you know the server-side approach that I was uh sharing with you more mobile questions. How can we get documentation on guidance to update mobile addresses that work boss, jurisdiction?

A

We are going to have the documentation like guidance. um I really talk about this. A little bit. You know get access token for the graph isn't available. Yes, so that's why we are. We are advising people to move. You know to the um to the server those calls while we create a more creative solution on the clients right, okay, to get it and get attachment.

A

These are apis that we're planning to also have in mobile, so maybe with the javascript directly you're going to be able to fix this and finally using resting on prem there's somebody that is saying that you know exchange 2016, yes, so rest apis are available in on-prem if you're in a hybrid configuration. So if you're in a hybrid configuration the same applies, you know it's going to be the commission on november november 22nd this year, and I think those are all the questions that I have like.

A

Hopefully I will I will give giving more updates every month on this. So if you have additional questions, please let us know send your questions and hopefully we can answer them uh in the next community called. So I think that's that's my content for for today, david. Thank you.

B

Thanks swan, it was uh great to see the update on the what's happening with the decommission. Imagine folks would be very happy about that.