Microsoft 365 Community Microsoft Graph, 11 May 2023

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From YouTube: Latest on the Microsoft Graph Connectors

Description

In this 10-minute developer focused demo, Rajdeep Chanda delivers a brief introduction to Microsoft Search & Graph connectors, latest GA and Preview releases from Graph connectors, content through Cloud SSA to Graph connectors (cloud hybrid search), and the availability of Graph connectors in Teams mobile and iOS devices. Viewers’ opinions on Cloud SSA and on how Teams content can be brought into Microsoft Search from Teams mobile devices is requested. Link to survey below.

This PnP Community demo is taken from the weekly Microsoft 365 Platform Community call recorded on April 4, 2023.

Demo Presenter
• Rajdeep Chanda (Microsoft)

Supporting materials
• Survey - Cloud SSA | https://forms.office.com/r/FQs5XaMrmG

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

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A

From the Microsoft graph, connectors team and I'm joined by Mahesh from the team as well, so today we are going to talk a little bit about Microsoft graph, connectors and some latest updates, and we also would like to discuss with you and gather some insights around Cloud SSA and teams, content in Microsoft search. So for those of you who may not be familiar with Microsoft search and graph connectors, we are going to do a brief introduction and then we'll move on with the other agenda right. So, first of all what is Microsoft search?

A

It's an intelligent search for your workplace. It helps you bring knowledge and expertise, that's spread across your workplace into one single place and the data is secure and private and you get a consistent search experience across all Microsoft 365 services, so, whether you search on SharePoint, whether you search on Bing, will search on Windows search box. So everywhere you get a consistent search experience via Microsoft search. Now, how does graph connectors play a role in Microsoft search? Initially, all your first party content, like your PowerPoint word, excel Outlook teams, data.

A

Everything is already there in Microsoft graph, but let's say you have other content as well. That's where Microsoft graph connectors come in um so essentially think of a modern organization. So in a modern organization you would have tons and tons of data that spread across some file storage, some sales and CRM data, HR data- or you may have some on-prem data sources.

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So what we see is that average large organizations have 15 to 20, plus systems and employees spend roughly 20 of their time, searching and gathering this information so uh like discovering this information itself across, so many systems is difficult, let alone analyzing and then using it.

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So this is the graph connectors come into the picture and using graph connectors you can actually bring in the content of all these data sources that are spread across your organization into Microsoft graph, where your first party content that we talked about that that's the Microsoft content already is residing, and on top of this you can build or leverage different experiences that are being built. So the primary one that we are talking about today is Microsoft search.

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But apart from that, other experiences like Viva topics, security and compliance people, experiences recommendations feeds these are also going to come in the future, and some of these are already in preview. So if you would like to know more about this or talk about this with us, so feel free to reach out, and we can see how we can help you out here so moving on from graph connectors. So we want to share a few updates for those of you who have already used or are using graph connectors.

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So the graph connectors SDK is now generally available. So the graph connectors SDK is essentially an SDK which helps you create custom connectors for which Microsoft or our partners do not have any connectors available. It helps you bring in content from your custom data sources easily using a framework that's provided by Microsoft. Apart from that, the out of the box connector, that's developed by Microsoft, which is the Ado Wiki connector, is also now generally available for you to use.

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Connector results are now available on Bing all tab, so earlier connected results were only available in your search or the custom verticals that we that you are creating for each of your data sources. Now these connected results are also are available. Apart from the work tab in your all tab as well. So earlier we had some limitations around how much content you can bring in from each of your data sources.

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So over there we have made really good progress and we have increased the each connection limit that you create from for your data sources to more than 5 million items in each connections, and the number of connections that you can create at a tenant level has gone up from 10 to 30.. So if any of you have high scale requirements of bringing in items, please reach out to us and we can work together and figure out how we can support you.

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Apart from that, connector content is now available in teams mobile for iOS and are coming on other platforms as well. Very soon, we have also rolled out an improved connector analytics experience which helps you analyze. Much more data shows more graphs, more reports for you to use easily download and analyze and see what's going on in the search space in your organization. So these are some of the experiences that are generally available.

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As of now it's available for everyone, and you can use so interleaving experience which, essentially, when you search it, brings in the content and Inter leaves, according to the relevance between your first party Microsoft results and your third party connector results together in search in the all time. That's called interleaving and it's currently in preview.

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So if any of you is interested in having this experiences, previewing it and trying it out, please do reach out to us so I'll move on from the from this discussion to hand it off to Mahesh for a brief discussion on cloud SSA and graph connectors mesh. Would you like to take over.

B

Hey thanks, rajdeep yeah, so a quick recap around Cloud SSA, so Cloud SSA, as you know, is an existing mechanism to get third party data into SharePoint search. It will allow users across on-prem search, canvas and SharePoint online canvases to access the hybrid search index. However, it will need some significant resources to keep it running and does not truly help the customer to move away from on-prem SharePoint server form.

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So if you already have on-prem SharePoint server Farm, you still have to keep a lot of it still running in order to run a cloud SSA and also, if you have to ingest any new kind of content, there is a significant amount of investment in building that connector using the PCS Services.

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So that's a quick recap around what cloud SSA is I wanted to take a stab on how graph connectors are a better option, so graph connectors is a great way, as Rajiv already told, to bring in on-prem and third-party content, which is difficult in some ways with Cloud SSA. So now we have got great support for both cloud and on-prem content, including on-prem file, shares and in terms of experiences. Microsoft search is the key experience and okay interleaving is in preview, as well as a lot of relevance.

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Tuning options are available with graph connectors and obviously okay, all uh the graph connectors content get to participate in the new experiences like Viva topics, gentillion Discovery, like recommendations in office, feed and e-discovery, and so that is going to go even better, okay, okay, in times to come, whereas for cloud SSA, it will be difficult to give parity on these experiences.

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Following that, with uh on the content side, we have got great out of the box and partner built connector support for over 150 data sources. Now and as Rajiv already mentioned, we recently went uh live with the graph connectors SDK, which enables anyone to quickly develop new connectors for a line of business data sources or any application.

B

You would like to sort of plug into the search it uses less on-prem resources and infra, which makes it easier to manage and graph connectors get the continuous upgrades and Improvement which make it a very sustainable choice for anyone to maintain over a longer period of time. Yeah so I think what the yes or the message that we want to get is that graph connectors are a better emerging solution to bring in any non SharePoint non-native content into search and other experiences.

B

Yeah and I would like to share quick survey link for getting some feedback on. How are you or your customers using Docker, Cloud SSA in your landscape? So please do share your feedback on that Quick Change of gear.

B

So we wanted to briefly get your views on how teams content can be brought into Microsoft search, so graph connectors are now available in teams Mobile in iOS devices and custom verticals, more devices and better experience. Support is going to follow very soon and at the same time there is a growing content base within teams apps, where users are continuously creating and sharing more content.

B

So it's getting richer by the day, so I would like to know your views and Via inputs if your organization or your customers would like to search for this team sap content in Microsoft search. If yes, please feel free to use the same survey form that I shared earlier, and we would like to know on how best these teams apps can participate. Okay, what options you would like around them to! Let them participate into search, okay, and we would like to see how graph connectors can help in that Journey.

B

Thank you. Thank.

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B

Everyone excellent thank you very cheap and thank you. Team uh really good input. Let's fill in the form.

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