Microsoft 365 Community Microsoft Teams, 15 Jun 2021

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From YouTube: Building a digital asset / document repository management app for Microsoft Teams

Description

In this 15-minute developer-focused demo, Sathya Raveendran and Arun Kumar Anaparthi introduce viewers to Document Manager – an asset management system sample app that makes use of Microsoft Teams platform capabilities to simplify searching, retrieving, sharing, contributing, and governing assets. Uses messaging extensions to find documents, task module to upload documents, Graph APIs, and creates awareness of / gains approvals on assets leveraging user specific views in Adaptive Cards. Stores documents awaiting approval in a staging folder in library. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Teams community call – June 2021, recorded on June 15, 2021.

Demo Presenters:
• Sathya Raveendran (Microsoft)
• Arun Kumar Anaparthi (Zen3 Infosolutions)

Supporting documents:
• Documentation - Messaging extensions – Search Commands | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/messaging-extensions/what-are-messaging-extensions#search-commands
• Documentation - User Specific Views | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/platform/task-modules-and-cards/cards/universal-actions-for-adaptive-cards/user-specific-views
• Repo - Document Manager | https://github.com/pnp/teams-dev-samples/tree/main/samples/msgext-bot-SPUploader

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

uh Thanks all for joining up this particular app sample that we are going to be discussing is something that I've heard from a lot of customers, a lot of partners out there and, interestingly enough, this is inspired based on an app that we have been using internally as well. The app is, we have named it as a document manager.

A

It's it's a repository or asset management system, uh the business problem or the the business case that we are working with is basically we have multiple teams working together, collaborating together and each of us create uh decks. We create uh different files, assets uh that are useful across everyone, but we create in silos and and and we have our own locations where we used to store it and we uh collab. We collaborated and brought it all together into a sharepoint library.

A

Still there is a need for an effective way for us to search those assets from within teams itself or within a place where we are working and having conversations. So there needs to be a way where we can effectively search and find these assets that are uploaded in this sharepoint document library. That's one business problem that we wanted to solve the second one.

A

Is uh it's good that if I can search and find an asset that I'm looking for, say I'm preparing for a uh customer meeting regarding adaptive cards, I wanted to have an adapter card pitch deck and I am able to search it and find it uh and I'm able to consume it myself. That's awesome! Now, next day, a colleague of mine wants to uh wants help on the same topic.

A

How do I easily share something that I have already known, a very good asset that I already know, and I want to share it and share the goodness with the rest of the folks in my team right. We want to have like an easy way to do that as well. That's the second business problem, or the second use case that we wanted to solve for. Oh, the third one, is uh more on the contributing back to the asset library.

A

So far we have been talking about this one huge repository of sharepoint document library, where we have all the assets that we have all been consuming the good resources for now. How do we contribute assets back to the library without leaving the context of where we are working?

A

uh How how do you make that particular process easier, because that's definitely a friction point for users right people create really good assets and they would want to contribute back to the community, but the friction point of making it easier for them will definitely increase the rate of contribution back to the asset library. So that's something that we really really wanted to solve and that's another business case that we have sold using this sample app.

A

The last part, while it is good for the entire community to contribute back to the asset repository that we have, there needs to be some checks and balances, some uh owner, a repository authority who would be able to go through these assets. uh Do a say: a quality check, review the assets to make sure it adheres to certain standards. A governance part comes into play. So how do you make sure this governance is made?

A

Easy is the last uh use case that we wanted to solve, for so these are the four principles around which this document management app is centered around and let's see how this app solves these business problems right now. uh Here is the way where we have. uh We have used, made use of messaging extensions and I'm sure you all know about messaging extensions, to uh search for an asset which is in the document library and share it easily with users.

A

So in this particular case you see there is one person who is on the left side of the screen sr and there is another person on the right side. Ob uh olo olo's account- and this is account my account over here.

A

So satya is asking olo if we have any assets on sales pitch that I can look at for an upcoming customer meeting and olo is able to quickly drop the messaging extension for the document manager and search for assets in this manner and able to share it as an adaptive card uh in the in the one-on-one chat itself and by nature of messaging extension. This would work in group chat. This will work and channel. uh uh It would work in any place wherever it is involved.

A

So by just bringing up a messaging extension, you have a way to query a backend, sharepoint document library. Imagine this happening without this app right. uh Olo would probably go to a sharepoint document. Library uh fetch through this official assets, uh copy a link of the document and then paste it back over here. All of that is slightly made uh easier in this particular process.

A

The next part, like I mentioned, is probably like the contributing back to the asset library or contributing back to the repository. That's what you see over here and what you have here is again a different user satya on the left side and olo on the right side. Satya has found basically like I found a particular asset, really useful. I have created that and I would really like to share it back to the depository again from the same messaging extension right.

A

You have an action comment where you'd be able to bring up a task module and have a set of like a preliminary fields that you want to fill in and upload an asset, basically like upload, a file that you want to share uh from within this task module and for the purpose of the sample. This is a very simple task: module that asks just for the name and a very short description, but you can make it uh even more.

A

uh Even more, you know elaborate, have more information metadata that you can get around this particular uh document and that can be used for routing it to the right person right. So after submitting what happens, as you can see, is after routing what happens is let me see yep, as you can see, uh once this document is submitted, you have an adaptive card, that's that gets posted on the right side, since this is a person who is uh approving the asset right. Olo broncos is someone who is an approver of this particular sharepoint document.

A

I believe this is the governance piece that we talked about. This particular person would be able to see, approve and reject buttons. Basically, has additional controls, a user specific views on an adaptive card, whereas for uh for the person who submitted the document, the same adaptive card just shows the view as an option. So in this way you you make use of a single channel and this view uh is different for based on the role or the user, who is seeing the adaptive cut, and this automatically happens as soon as the card is posted.

A

It refreshes understands who is viewing that particular card and changes based on the user, who is doing that particular card and allows extra special actions for that particular user? This is the user specific views that was uh recently released uh by adaptive card steam and was covered in build, and I think it was covered in the previous community calls as well. So I wouldn't go uh uh more in depth on that, but this is something that we have implemented in this sample.

A

App, that's up to you for uh taking up and using it in your own sample in your own apps with customers. Now, in the previous task module that he had seen you could uh you could actually fetch more detail around the metadata of a document and route it to different owners depending on the type of document? If it's uh around say a retail industry, it should go to one particular owner.

A

If it's in a professional service industry, it should go to another particular owner in this way, you could have this simple sample app extended and made more but more specific to particular business requirements and build on top of this now, the same way as the adaptive card has been submitted on both sides. The approval would also work in a very similar manner where this particular person, the approver, who has the approval rights, would be able to approve or reject the asset.

A

Definitely they would want to view the asset and go through the document before approving, so that can also be done directly from within teams, and once this document is approved, if you can see the card update, uh it will automatically refresh on both sides. So you can see the card is showing uproot on the olo side and for the person who has committed as well, and since this is being submitted in a channel where other users might also be present.

A

uh All of the users will also be able to see that this particular card has been approved and they would be able to consume the particular asset and they would be able to share it across with their colleagues if they found it useful. So this is a simple workflow of having a really good asset. That's been submitted back to the document library and having a governance angle also included into it.

A

In terms of implementation, I would request arun to walk through how we linked the messaging extension to uh to the sharepoint document library conceptually. This makes use of a staging folder in the sharepoint library, where an intermediary space is allocated for the documents which are current, which are under review and then once approved it. It goes through the final destination in the library which, from which it can be queried and shared across.

B

Before going to that such commands or a message extension, I just want to highlight why we implemented the temple concept of uploading, the files. So in our previous example, or in a previous sample for a b2c board, we have not implemented that approve file concept. So someone in the community asked how what is the security reason? How can they upload it? That's why no using adaptive card we implemented this approved concept.

B

So before uploading into my main folder, we created one staging folder in that, so whatever the staging folder available, that is all pending for approval, so once a program will approve it, then it will go to the main folder.

B

So I just want to highlight that, because in our my last sample you know b2c board, we have not implemented that functionality now coming back to the such commands. Are such dogs using a message? Extension uh as such, I said we have a two uh folders one is the stagings folder and another one is the approved folder. So once a prover approved that then automatically you know it will go to the main folder from that main folder using message: extensions uh such action commands we are able to.

B

We are able to search that particular doc from the document section from the folder section and we can able to share as adaptive card. So this is the document where we we used it for that searching for a message extension and for uploading and for uploading a dogs are for uploading.

B

Your files, like, as I explained in a in my previous example or a previous sample, we used a upload graph aps so using upload folder graph aps, we can able to upload the files and using this such message commands we can able to search the files and the sections also the text also using message extension such commands yeah.

A

Thanks aru, we, uh the user-specific views that is uh that I referred to earlier from adaptive cards, is available in this documentation. I will share it across. This is covered extensively in the last community call as well. So I wouldn't go deep into this. uh What uh one other part that didn't quite come out in the demo video, because we had sideways eight screens is. We have also made use of full width adaptive cuts, while it's small announcement, but still it's it's a very good, uh uh ui piece that I I really like about this.

A

uh Basically, if you have more than uh three buttons in an adaptive card right, it becomes, it can become crowded, so full with adaptive cards to the rescue and yeah and implementing this is extremely easy. You need to have an ms team's width full for an adaptive card in 1.2, and you would have a all the power of a full width adaptive card. So that's something that uh I wanted to highlight as well. Finally, uh just uh this is a sample app. That is a bare bones framework right.

A

This is not like a full-fledged app itself. This is something that you can potentially extend for. Use cases, scenarios in multiple different industries and that's what we have in the slide over here, and this is based on my interaction with customers across in different industries. I've gathered this. This definitely a list. You can use the sample app and extend it to for many other purposes as well. In a professional services industry, which is probably the most straightforward one uh we you can share assets like uh client proposals, templates pitch text between different teams.

A

If a particular person is preparing for a pitch for a particular customer in an industry, they would have uh you can. You can even have like tag based search in the messaging extension uh and and be able to search, say pitch, and it will pitch plus retail, and it will show like pitch documents for retail industry customers, so you can customize it in that manner. So it will be more useful for professional services, industry, customers in finance and banking.

A

Think of this, as a way where you can have a knowledge repository for brochures policy assets like banking products right like what kind of discounts like what kind of banking products that you can send to customers say insurance contracts, documents that relationship managers might want to quickly search, get and share it with the customer is something that you can build using this uh in healthcare, and this is a very interesting twist to what we built is- and this is something that I heard from a customer as well.

A

Doctors frequently search for information about drugs diseases to learn more about it and also share that information across other doctors who who comes for a second opinion. So this messaging extension need not be looked from the lens of an asset repository alone.

A

It can even serve as a repository for all this information around drugs and diseases sop documents- uh all of this can be customized in order to suit the healthcare industry use case as well- and this is a very interesting twist that I found very recently as well and cross industry- it's very similar to how you have in professional services, uh any kind of assets, any kind of like forms that you want to share across with different teammates different teams, something that you can make use of this particular sample app.

A

So it's up, it's you're only limited by your imagination on how you extend the sample app and make it as a full-fledged app that can be used for your own customers. That's all from my end, back to you versa. I will take answers on the chat.

C

Thank you, satya awesome, awesome stuff, and these samples are really really really powerful. They're well done well documented and awesome scenarios for.

B