Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 13 Jul 2022

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From YouTube: Microsoft Outlook Add-ins updates - REST decommission, shared folder support, and item multi-select

Description

In this 17-minute Developer-focused demo, Juan Balmori and Victoria Iannotti deliver details on latest Outlook add-in news. 1) REST Decommission update - APIs impacted, key dates for add-ins using REST and Microsoft Graph calls plus issues reporting; 2) Support for Shared Folders - Delegates and Shared Mailbox in Exchange OnPrem is in beta! (win32 16.0.15505.20000), and 3) Support for Item Multi-Select - for example, select 3 e-mails and retrieve information from all three simultaneously. (Beta for Item Multi-Select coming soon). This PnP Community demo is taken from the Office Add-ins community call – July 2022, recorded on July 13, 2022.

Demo Presenters
• Juan Balmori - Principal Product Manager (Microsoft) | @juaneloBalmor
• Victoria Iannotti - Software Engineer (Microsoft)

Supporting documents
• Article - Office Add-ins community call – February 9, 2022 | https://pnp.github.io/blog/office-add-ins-community-call/office-add-ins-community-call-february-9-2022/
• Verification Form - REST API Add-in verification request | aka.ms/RESTcheck

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

So hello, everyone- this is juan balmori. Here I am with victoria yanori and we are actually going to talk about three topics. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about the rest, the commission update.

A

I also want to talk about support for shared folders in exchange on pram and then finally, we're going to share some new feature that we are about to ship to beta item multi-select.

A

So let's get started so I want to talk first about the rest, the commission, where we are, as you know, just to set up some context. Hopefully, if you're an autocad developer back in february or and even earlier, we we've been sharing that you know the the red outlook. Rest v2 endpoint is going to get decommissioned in november 30th this year.

A

So uh this is a big impact for exchange online and exchange on prime and hybrid, and, if your adding is using the rest apis and the delegate scenarios using the rest apis, it might get impacted, meaning it might not work well, it might impact it in the long term. I would say just for reference, I'm, including here some sample code, that you can see on how uh you know how you can so if you have a code that is calling the get callback token with. That is rest. True.

A

That means that you are getting a rest compatible token, that you can actually use them to execute a few allowed rest operations.

A

Basically, these are this is the inventory of apis impacted and the potential. You know what what's going to happen at some point when this goes down right, what I shared. Basically, these are basically all the apis that are related to rest operations. uh What I shared last time is that uh you know that we we were able to grant exceptions, so the idea here is that we don't have a good replacement story for rest uh using the idea.

A

Obviously, the idea, of course, in the first place, is that folks instead use the graph api instead of the rest services.

A

However, uh it was not until we shipped our single sign-on capability that you know this is kind of a suitable replacement in terms of the experience that you can have, because you don't have to pop any dialogues to the user and so on and so forth. So, basically, uh the idea here is that all add-ins that are using rest apis before that the commission date are going to be granted an exception. You know to keep using the rest api until 2019 goes out of mainland, so of extended support, which is october, 14 2025..

A

uh So that's the deal that we are working on and that we are executing on the plan of record right now. So the idea, then the second idea is that addings that were created after that the commission date will not be able to use the rest service after november 2022 and I'm here adding a star and a story that is saying that this might change. No, so we are we're having a few discussions with the some of you actually about. You know some challenges that you guys are facing around moving to graph.

A

So uh there's I don't want to over promise here, but there are a few discussions that maybe we will allow all add-ins, even after a commission date, but with that. But what still going to be true is that after 2019, you know it's going to go out. uh Evidently what I want to do is to buy some more time for you guys, so that you can actually have. You know, move your ad into to to use the graph api, but you do it in a way that you don't lose.

A

You know you don't pay in the experience. No, um basically, what we are doing right now is that we are collected the way that we are gonna do this, although we are planning to to identify those audience is by getting the ids, so we basically are working on trying to get the traffic and try to identify. You know that you know a rest call is coming from an add-in.

A

uh You know to enforce this potential policy. No, and that's why, a few months ago I actually shared a link here, uh nkms.dresscheck that you can actually submit your add-in, your adding ids. You know the id that I'm talking about here is the alien id that is in the manifest, and I have seen a few of you sending it. To be honest, I I was expecting more volume here, but I haven't received that much requests. I have approached some of some of you regarding this.

A

Evidently I'm planning to send an email to everybody, not just to make sure that you are aware that we received your uh your id, but if you have an add-in that is using the rest, api and I'll look at interesting rest api. Please go here and set it up that we are aware of it. So that's.

B

A

We are right now. I also want to share a few issues that I have seen from some of you have been reporting. You know a few situations that are not ideal like, for example, uh in some cases, the rest api is is faster than the graph api, specifically on on loading attachments. I think some of you found that you know the graph api is very, very slow compared to the rest api.

A

The graph api is aware of all these potential issues and they're working to to make it better they're they're solving this, this problems as a p1.

A

My goal about sharing these issues with you is that, if you're experiencing similar conditions or if you're, seeing that the performance is not the same anything that it's kind of you know impacting the experience of your alien, please please, please make sure to approach. If my email is here, send me an email I want to hear about it, and- and I want to work with the graph team in order to solve those issues right.

A

So if you have any issues with the graph, please let me know the other thing here is that in terms of capabilities, so in terms of the api I haven't heard so far so far any rest api that doesn't have an equivalent in the graph so functional wise. I think we should be. You know we should be we we are actually so far.

A

I haven't heard anything against that, so I think that functionality wise, I think we should be okay, but we could have performance issues and obviously that's also an issue, because that impacts the experience of the allen. So next one is authentication, so you know authentication and david is going to talk a little bit about this more later, uh but we have found that our the pattern that we are you know suggesting you guys to be following for authentication- is to have like a middle and a middle tier to be routing.

A

The graph calls you know, and this evidently is also doing some performance issues this you need to do if you're authenticating with sso, as you will see later, that the performance is not great. The team is also working in in improving this significantly, but we're expecting this to be available later in the year.

A

So that is another factor that that is causing us to to think and about. You know expanding a little bit the exceptions that we are going to grant. You know, uh I think we need a bit more time. I haven't had the last word again here, but this is, I mean: do you have problems like, for example, mobile?

A

If you have an ad in mobile, that is not supporting single mobile today, it doesn't support single sign-on, so you will require to do a msal or an auth redirect flow to support graph calls, which is not an ideal experience right compared to what you can do with rest so online. So this is in track. We are getting requests we're getting uh issues from from some of you.

A

The call to action here is, if you are experiencing anything that is preventing your audience, have a great experience. Please, please contact us we're here to help.

A

I will pause a little bit because I I see a few interesting well at least one interesting question uh about the javascript api method of generating a graph api token uh by ryan. Yes, I I have been this is not that simple to do. It was our original goal to have an api like this.

A

I think the auf team, our authentication pm- is working very closely with the identity team and we're gonna have are working on a on a new new way of authenticating and doing the authentication on the single sign-on in a way that it's more similar to what we have today, but we, you will still require to do that.

A

You will still regard to use that api to do this, so we're not planning right now to to release something that can get you a graph compatible token, although it's under on discussions, I cannot guarantee that's going to happen at this point, all right, so moving on that was my first topic.

A

Second, topic is share folder, so many of you have been asking me about. You know shared folder support, share folders by the way something share. Folder support is something that we shipped a couple of years ago, actually or three years ago, but the problem is that it was only working in exchange online. It was not working in exchange on prem, so just for context share folders is this ability that you can actually in the manifest?

A

As you can see in this picture, you can add uh supports your folder flag to your to your add-ins and basically, what this means is that anyone who has another installed and has access to either a shared folder it meaning that it's a delegate or someone delegated actual access to to my calendar or to my inbox.

A

You know the add-in is going to be available. It's going to be kind of visible for that user.

A

It is also true in preview right now for shared mailbox scenario, so this flag only enables the add-ins again in exchange online, but we have received a lot of feedback from you that it would be very good to have it also in on-prem. So basically, that's what we're doing so. This is in beta right now. If you install the latest beta- and that is available- which is the build that you see in the screen right there, you will be able to enable shared folders in exchange of prime right.

A

So the contraction here is, please go ahead, install it try it in exchange, 2016 2019 should work, and if you have any issue, you see that this is not working. As you expect. Please go and open an issue here in our issues here now. Obviously you know in 100 on prem environments, we don't have the rest apis available, so shared folders has the share. Folder feature has some rest api support for getting. You know the uh information about the owner of that folder and making making calls on behalf of that user.

A

So evidently that's not going to work because 100 on-prem doesn't have rest apis, but if you're in a hybrid environment, meaning you have kind of a mixture of on-prem and cloud that should work. So, let's check it out and there's your feedback help us ship, uh something that is going to be useful for you right, okay, graph, compatible. There are a bunch of questions here for events and stuff um compatible tokens. I'm gonna find passing a little bit to see if there are any relevant questions here. Public folders are basically shared.

A

Mailboxes folders ah gary is asking about share mailboxes uh share. Mailboxes is supported right now in beta as well in win32 uh that we are working also to support it in in or not web access and in yeah I'll. Look for the mac right now, it's in preview, so this this beta program should also have support for shared mailboxes right.

A

Okay. Moving on my last object here is around either multi-select. So, basically, today, if you're, adding add-ins, have you know, affinity with just one item they are providing. You know they can activate and have associated with a single item.

A

If you are selecting multiple items in the explorer view you know, add-ins are suddenly disabled right. So uh basically, what what's going to happen in enough? This is not yet available, not even in beta, but I just want to give you some kind of uh good news that this is coming right and but what I mean by this is that you know in the manifest at some point in the future, you're going to be able to add a supports multi-select element as part of your action, so every adding command that shows up in the ribbon.

A

For instance, you're going to be able to say, hey this, this command supports item multi-select and in order to explain you more detail how this is going to work, I invited victoria yanori, who is uh who is actually the developer of this feature and she's doing her internship here at microsoft, with us and she's working on this so victoria? If you want, you can actually share your screen and show us how this will work.

B

Thank you one I'll just share my screen now.

A

Yes, this will work. Thank.

B

Think you should be able to see, so I just want to start off by demonstrating the current behavior that we have. This is just a dummy mailbox that I have opened up and just populated with some emails.

B

So currently, if I select one email we can see on my upper ribbon, everything is enabled and I can perform all actions if I go ahead and select two emails, the current behavior is what you just saw here with viva insights, so one email, it's enabled two or more, is disabled. However, this test add-in that I've implemented here has this multi-select feature enabled so in the manifest like one just showed at the action level, there is the element for multi-select and what we can do with this.

B

I'm just going to show there's two main parts: one is the api and the second is the event. So right now I have this item opened and I'm going to go ahead and select multiple emails, so I'll select three and I can actually retrieve their information.

B

So what's coming back here is a collection of item id the subject. The item type so item type is uh here, is a message and there's also item mode, because we are in read mode. So these are the four pieces of information that are being returned now and later on. This will be extended to offer even more functionality and what we can also do is register for an event. There is a new event: that's created selection changed and what this does? Let me just clear the screen I'll register.

B

For this event, whenever my multi selection changes, I get a selection changed event. So now we can keep track of when this happens and there will also be a upper limit on multi-selection. So if you select too many emails, the add-in will be disabled and there's some exploration that will be done to see what is the the best number and which will lead to a better performance.

B

One is there anything else, you'd like me to show.

A

Oh, I think uh thank you very much victoria. I think it's very straightforward. I think in general it's a very simple concept. You know I I do something really I'm sad that we weren't able to do it before for you guys, but now it's on the works it's coming, and you know uh one of the things that we're going to be doing in the future around ultimately select is that we are so right now what we did. What api that victoria showed you, it's only giving you the id of the items that are selected.

A

So basically the idea is that once you have access to the ids, then you can call services the graph, for instance, and actually do additional operations on those items like, for example, getting the attachments, and you know uh whatever operations, you need to do what we are planning to do in subsequent releases.

A

So I think right now we're doing that kind of the bare minimum that you guys need to enable multi-select, but in the future we're going to provide richer api. So, for example, at the office.js layer level, you can actually use all the apis that we have today for items and you don't have to call services in order to you know to interact with the with the items that are currently selected.

A

So it's also coming soon for outlook on the web as well. So thank you very much victoria for sharing sharing that demo, and hopefully people like it here and again.

A

Eventually in one of these calls I will I will let you know that this is in beta and we're we're shooting for end of summer around september this year later, you know to have a beta program for this, and then you can actually play with it and give us your feedback as always all right, and with that I think that's what I wanted to cover for outlook today david. Thank you very much.

C

Thank you juan thank you, victoria. It was great to see all the new functionality and development and stuff coming out for folks. It's very cool to see.