Microsoft 365 Community Microsoft Teams, 4 May 2021

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From YouTube: Considerations for creating Online Meetings with Microsoft Graph

Description

In this 18-minute developer-focused demo, Fabian Williams from the Microsoft Graph team delivers a straight-forward decision criterion for creating an Online Meeting using the Calendar Events API or the Cloud Communications API (Microsoft Teams) based on specific meeting requirements. Step through 7 questions to ask yourself when to use what method. The decision is largely based on the need for a rich integrated Microsoft client (Outlook/Teams) experience or 3rd party application integration that also includes Microsoft chat integration. Includes Q&A. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Microsoft Graph community call – May 2021, recorded on May 4, 2021.

Demo Presenter - Fabian Williams (Microsoft) | @fabianwilliams

Supporting documents:
• Documentation - Calendar API | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/event?view=graph-rest-1.0
• Documentation - Cloud Communications API | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/application-post-onlinemeetings?view=graph-rest-1.0&tabs=http
• Documentation - Choose an API in Microsoft Graph to create and join online meetings | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/choose-online-meeting-api
• Documentation - Microsoft Graph throttling guidance | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling
• Documentation - Exchange Online limits | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/exchange-online-service-description/exchange-online-limits
• Documentation - Cloud Communications service limits | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling#cloud-communication-service-limits

Stay connected:
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/microsoft365dev
• YouTube - https://aka.ms/M365DevYouTube
• Microsoft 365 Developer Blog - https://aka.ms/M365DevBlog
• Microsoft 365 PnP Blog - https://aka.ms/m365pnp/community/blog

A

So everyone uh thank you, for you know, jumping on the call today. In fact, a lot of what philippe mentioned today actually plays um well into into the conversations that we're planning to have. One of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation with you all is because here at microsoft, we, you know, hear from a lot of partners and customers.

A

You know some degree of confusion as to whether or not to use one of these methods of creating an online meeting over the other. Should they be using the going to the canon, the events api and using the calendar, should they be using um the cloud communications via teams.

A

So what I'd like to do today is actually clear up and speak to both of these first of all, to ensure that we have a good understanding of what they're for how they're used and also you know when to use what, which is reason why it's termed that way so yeah as part of the conversation when you're trying to create an online meeting, one of the options is the calendar events api and what that will give you. If you are creating.

A

um You know such an object is to get instant visibility into your microsoft outlook calendar. So if this is important to you, where you want to ensure that that online meeting that you're creating is visible inside that person's outlook calendar, um you know you get that the ability to update and manage the online meeting experience in outlook is another. One. You'll see me talk about this a little bit later.

A

When we talk about the meeting lobby and attendees may join in person or online or over the internet or very darling, so there's different modalities of how a person can join. um You know this meeting and obviously, if you have rich, you know the rich client features, if you're inside microsoft teams or if team, therapist, microsoft, microsoft outlook. These are areas where you know where you can get. You know the full enrich. You know feature so.

B

If you're looking at this in terms of what this can.

A

Be done or you the app developer, are creating this from the api. There's a couple other things that you actually get as well, too um you're able to inspect. I mean using the allowed online meeting provider property to see what type of meetings that you can create, and um you are also let's say that you're you're you're targeting um you know the api endpoint, slash events and you're looking at them to see. What's there.

A

If you look at the is online meeting, you can visually inspect that to see if it is on online needed or not and thereby convert something that was not an online meeting to an online meeting. um You basically see that at the bottom right in terms of that screenshot being called out, you know, slash events, um slash the event id and then setting that flag from what was previously false to true and then also creating an online meeting provider. So you know that's one approach there.

A

You know to go into what philippe mentioned before, there's a permission model set for this and yeah. This one is pretty simple: it is basically calendar.read write for both delegated and application permission. So um you know one set of permissions, that's required and it flows better or not you're doing direct access as philippe. You know, you know, termed it or, if you're using delegated, where you require that users consent. So pretty easy.

A

You know to understand the another scenario if you're creating um you know online meeting is to basically use the online communications api, the cloud commission's api, but this one you know the real demarcation or the questions you're asking is that if you need a richer flexibility, if you need better integration into third-party applications, so the key questions are not directly tied to microsoft. Outlook.

A

If you wanted to do this, for instance, if you had, you know something inside a you know, google account or if it's inside another application like a service now or something else, and you wanted to basically have an online meeting, then you know this is something that is given is given and granted to you. So basically, it is completely decoupled from outlook calendar. You know, so it doesn't does not create one an event for you.

A

um It also one of the really cool things is that, as we are working in a distributed fashion with people all over the country all over the world- and um you know people speak different languages other than english- you can actually create as a part of that meeting experience- and you know language based- you know information, so it comes up in in the person's native language rather than in english, or rather than something else, and one of the real cool features that I actually do like is the ability to spawn a meeting from a microsoft chat, pretty cool again, if you're doing this from the context of you know, looking at the api there's some things to call out what else do you get for free video teleconferencing is done inherently through the video teleconference property.

A

This one does require that you have the licenses for it as well. You see me call it a little bit later on and um you're able to really manage attendance at a granular level in terms of one of the ones being. You know whether this attendee you know can can bypass the lobby and other ambulance security. You know security enablement that you can do around the user. So really you know you can really.

A

You know target that end user experience for that online meeting and, as I mentioned before, you can associate a meeting with an online chat. The one for here, though, again to philly's point. Before I heard a ton of stuff, he was seen around the application access policy.

A

You can see here that you know for the delegated permission, you need online meetings, dot read write, but for the application permission it's online meeting dot read write at all with a little asterisk they're saying that you know the administrator would need to basically create an app policy for your app in order to run and run in that modality. So if you're, using app permission other than delegated permission, there's additional steps that are required.

A

um You know the docs clearly pointed out and you'll see a link to that reference in in my last screen, but here's one example that you know that touch on something that philippe mentioned before.

A

So you know, as I was putting together this this deck and because, as I mentioned before, this is something that you know the team here in the the customer partner experiences team that I'm a part of here all the time. These are questions that I get or questions that I would sometimes post back and I think I feel like mentioning you got to interrogate people. That's asking. Why do you need this or why does it happen that?

A

So I typically would ask these questions and I encourage you to ask yourself these questions in order to get the answer. So if one of you want to call here come back to me later on, I I will purposefully pull this slide up, but you know quite quite simply, if um you know if you need to integrate- and I think you some of these are like if I were to quiz you at the end- you've already gotten some of the information before.

A

But if you need to integrate with a calendar item, I think it's pretty clear. We talked about that before. If you need to go into microsoft outlook, what api would be using. So read all of the stuff and look at the very bottom. You can see clearly see it's the calendar api and in order to do that, because the cloud api is fully decoupled, so pretty self-explanatory.

A

uh I don't think there's anything else here that I wanted to touch on. I know you're reading the slide, as I'm going one of the things to call out, though I didn't want to create a visual aid for you, the fact that it is tied directly to outlook this is exactly what an experience would be. So if you're in outlook or oah- and you click on the item. This is what you're going to see coming up a little bit of a call out here.

A

You see this little thing right here says meeting options we'll get to that a little bit later on when I, when I made a call, but this is one of the examples where you it's not something that's directly tied to the api, but if you wanted to manage the lobby per se, which is what this gives you, it does allow you for to be able to do that manually.

A

If you were to use the cloud communications api, as I mentioned before you are, then you know looking at a scenario where you are trying to integrate into other third-party experiences.

A

So when there is a third-party sas app, whether it's something inside like a google, if you're inviting people from the outside- and you want to be able to shove it there, then you know if that is the case, and you want to ensure the same consistent experience, whether or not the person has outlook or not, but basically you know throw that online meeting to somewhere, where they're going to get it, then this is the job for you and that's how it would basically manifest itself this one here is an example of the control.

A

Do you need to revert from an online meeting and basically so imagine a scenario if you had an online meeting and you wanted to basically go back from an online meeting to a non-online meeting, could you do that? The answer is notable another one is.

A

If you need language based- and I think I touched on this before- do you need to manage language-based information, then the answer is no, if you're using a calendar api but as I mentioned before, because the cloud communications api is, you know very nuanced: it's very, very granular you're able to do that and you manage that experience by actually modifying one of the um optional http headers. In order to be able to set. You know it's uh either ian for english, yes, espanol, fr, french and so on and so forth.

A

If you are- and this is the other one now a little bit it's unhidden, but if do you need to join by internet voiceover ip or by dial up that's what the question is being asked right here and you know the answer is yes to both on this one right. So, whether or not you're using the calendar api or the cloud com, communications, api, you're able to join.

A

um You know by by all this means, you can definitely see the conference id and phone number on the calendar api you're, going to see in the total number and toll-free number on the cloud con option as well. Also with the id that's provided.

A

Do you need to integrate video conferencing, all your video capabilities, this one here, um the one thing to call it is certainly not supported inside the events api- and you heard me mention before someone in passing that it is available in the cloud coms, but you do need to have you know a cloud video interrupt license user in order to see that and basically have the id inside there to basically have that video conference capabilities.

A

The next one is: do you need to create an online meeting that refers to a chat? I think so it's pretty much self-explanatory. We're talking, chat, we're talking, teams right, we're talking! You know, groups we're, definitely not talking calendar and events. So for this one under the calendar api, it is not supported. However, if you are doing this inside on the cloud coms as long as you have the chat id, you can basically create a meeting surround in the chat. So it has some context in terms of what you're going to be discussing this one.

A

Where do you need to manage a meeting inside the lobby and that's the reason why I mentioned before that this one's a little bit tricky? It is unsupported in events api. However, if you were to create online meeting using the calendar events api, it would have a link inside microsoft outlook for meeting options, and if you click on that link for meeting options, you will be able to affect changes there. If you are using the cloud comp api.

A

I think I mentioned before also in the larger narrative, where I said that you know you have very granular control over the you end user experiences. You know you so basically it is a property that you can affect, and you can. You can really be really granular and nuanced with that, if you were to click um the meeting lobby, link inside microsoft, outlook, for instance. This is the visual that you basically would get. You know these are some of the options that are available to you.

A

Okay, so I believe I'm coming up on the last slide right now. This is basically just some resources for you a lot of what I say right here again. The reason for this is because, depending on what you're searching for, especially if you don't know what you're searching for, sometimes it can be difficult to find it even sometimes, if you know what you're searching for, because you may find it in in essence, two different locations, but if you're trying to create an online meeting, you may find it in canada.

A

You may find in events, there's actually a good blog about choosing the api one which you actually took a lot of this content from without I formatted it here in a more simpler ask in a questions format. Some of these guidance is going to be here and again. You'll get this link in my deck afterwards, but as you're doing all of these items as well. One of the things that I hear from our partners and customers also is around.

A

um You know: hey we're we're creating an app to do x, y and z, and um you know we're we're trying to spin up an online meeting, and you know it's going to be.

A

You know thousands, potentially thousands of people in attendees or hundreds of people in attendees and we're doing this and we're having some issues understand as well, that you know the throttling guidance does apply here as well, so be mindful of the terms of use, be mindful of the endpoints and the throttling islands and understand that throttling comes in several different flavors as well too, when you're working with a microsoft graph. Your first api stop is basically the graph and the graph itself has guidances. It has a lot of things for you.

A

It helps you with for, if you're using the sdk for one thing it helps you in your 429, which is your throttling. So you know, I encourage the use of the sdk for that purposes, but if you're rolling it on your own as well and you're, hammering the api, you could get some 429. So you need to handle that by the guidance that are here.

A

However, you know there is, if you do a endpoint, and you do a question mark what, if I'm behind it, it'll, actually show you the back-end api that we are also going against as well too. If you wanted to get a little bit more understanding of that, but I say that to say this: we are also calling the back-end services and the back-end services may also have limits as well too.

A

So I think just as philippe mentioned before, there is a there's, an intersection that could happen around what we have in terms of our throttling guidance, but also the back-end services as well as it relates to microsoft graph, because these have independent limits. I also call that out here, there's exchange online limits that are here and also the cloud comp limit that are here as well too. So I.

B

Think that's all I had for you exactly.

A

So open it up for any questions that you may have ryan, um I can give you back for 14 minutes.

C

So we got a few minutes at the end for uh just open q, a and then wrap up, slides, but yep. All right well wait for anyone to put anything into the chat window or feel free to use the uh raised hand feature in teams. Thank you, fabian the great content. Here we do get a lot of questions on which api should I use, or what are different scenarios so great to cover this in a more broad detail.

C

Thank you see some nice claps and cheers and hands on the window. Thank you for sharing those everyone.

A

Let me pose a question into the to the audience. How many people here have created online meetings and if so, which api did you target and what considerations were you thinking? I know that's a kind of open any question, but I like him that way. Allow me to learn from you as well. We have a bunch of people on this call. I'd love to hear your story.

A

Anyone would like to share. Is this brand spanking new? No one's ever created an alarm. I made it. Okay, gabrielle is use and face a couple of problems. Hopefully gabrielle. We cleared up some of those problems here today lane you have a question.

D

uh Yes, yeah, I'm I'm looking to do a a map with resources, exchanges, exchange resources which would be meeting rooms. How could I do that with graph? I I know how to access my own calendar, but does it mean the exchange meeting room has to get email address to make it work, maybe because resources doesn't seem to be available on graph.

A

Right, I'm not sure if meeting rooms is available. You know brian.

C

Yeah, so there's actually two ways that you can access like meeting rooms on graph. We have a specific places api. This is meant to treat a meeting room or other type of kind of resource, as a first-class citizen there's also a way to access it.

C

If you have, as you mentioned, like the email address for the meeting room, you can go through the calendars api and be able to go and see things like scheduling or calendar view or some types of things, so some of it will depend on what specifically you're doing, if it's just simply to add the room as an attendee. You know a resource to a meeting. There are apis to go and do that so that, when you do your sudden, the invite out basically create the event.

C

You can specify that location as this is what needs to be supplied in there. So do you give any details on what specifically you're trying to do? Oh.

D

I'm trying to do someone is doing a meeting and he wants to choose the right available uh meeting room because there would be a calendar showing up of all the meeting rooms and you can choose always time you, you see what I mean or yeah.

A

I think the places api would probably want to do because then you can query what's available and then once you get that information back, then you would supply the in your meeting creation in order to book that room along with the meeting. Under that scenario,.

C

Do you need to get a collection of users and meeting rooms to see what what the schedule would be, or is it just literally just for the the meeting room itself.

D

No it's just available or busy, so they they can choose the right time.

C

Oops it looks like a sub bb to it. So that's.

B

C

There's a actually do you want to share sub, since you put in there.

B

Yeah so there's a there's, an actual api that allows you to get the busy free schedule from a resource not just from a user but also from an actual resource that you're going to get from the places api. So that way you can. You can actually put that logic into your app and you're going to be able to do that. Okay, I will check.

D

All this, thank you.

C

Yes and then one other thing just to share the one that sub mentioned is the free busy api, there's also a fine meeting times api and there's a slight difference between what gets returned for each one. So one is, you know, give me a set of just like available options. The other one is, you know, find the open times, and then you can kind of work out which one that you want to schedule for so, and we've actually got a separate document. That tells you what should I use when?

C

Because there is kind of that uh the difference in what? What's the return on that.

D

And the extension to that would be to have a virtual agent to do that. You know you can say I want a meeting at this time and show you the the bot would show you the available rooms you know. Maybe I will do that in the future. Yesterday the box.

A

Framework would be very helpful there yeah.

D

Jeans, yeah would be great okay. Thank you. Thank you. Bruce.

B