Microsoft 365 Community SharePoint, 8 Apr 2021

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From YouTube: Viva Connections Desktop and Extensibility

Description

In this 18-minute Developer-focused demo, Vesa Juvonen positions Microsoft Viva as a suite of products. One product - Viva Connections is an integrated experience with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint backed by Microsoft security, privacy, and compliance. Viva Connections is extensible – create/use existing extensions and web parts using SPFx. Customers/Partners determine what capabilities specifically to make available in their Viva Connections implementation (UX). The Worldwide roll out of Viva Connections capabilities will occur over months - a journey. This demo is taken from the SharePoint Framework community call recorded on April 8, 2021.

Demo Presenter: Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft) | @vesajuvonen

Supporting materials:
• Website - Microsoft Viva Connections | https://aka.ms/VivaConnections
• Blog Post - Install Viva Connections today | https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-viva-blog/install-viva-connections-today/ba-p/2245410
• Look book - SharePoint look book | https://lookbook.microsoft.com/
• Documentation - Embedding modern SharePoint pages in Microsoft Teams as personal apps (preview) | https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/features/embed-pages-to-teams

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 Related on viva connections desktop and extensibility, now to be clear, and we do have a special topic on next tuesday on our monthly community, around weaver connections desktop where we're going to go in more detail on the on the value proposition, how to set it up, how to configure that and all of that today, and we can only focus on the extensibility or that's the main topic of today, but again, you'll understand how the system hopefully works better and what are the options to extend and change? What's visible in the weaver connections desktop?

A

And what does it mean in practice? That's really the objective of today as well. Now before we go there, I wanted to actually show some updated, slides related on our overall message, but viva connections and viva microsoft, viva in general, is a really really big thing uh in our pipeline, so it is considered as a new kind of an application, even though it's kind of a combination of the sharepoint and microsoft teams. So if we think about the accessibility in the microsoft, diva and especially microsoft, web connections, in this case, we talk about sharepoint framework.

A

So the sharepoint framework, even though it's called sharepoint, is not only for sharepoint. It is also for microsoft, viva connections and and, of course, for the microsoft teams and we're investing heavily on the story that you can reuse the same component in multiple different areas. We know that there are some improvements still to be done here and there, and all of that is being addressed.

A

Of course, um in general, sharepoint framework has been surprisingly uh successful, um so we haven't actually talked about how successful, um except pretty recently, we started saying well right now, uh sharepoint framework is being used by tens of millions of end users um using third-party components every single month, so tens of millions of end users are using third-party components built with sharepoint framework every single month, and that's a pretty mind-blowingly big number, considering that there are two well, I think jeff deeper said in ignite that there's as an example in sharepoint online there's, 200 million end users.

A

Of course, that number has already moved forward because ignite was like a month ago. The numbers are just leaping forward all the time, but there's the shipment framework has been adapted. Super super well uh throughout the historical things and, and the growth is just phenomenal now as part of this transition, then we were introducing microsoft, fifa and just to be clear on on explaining also what is microsoft viva?

A

It is basically a set of products, so microfiber is kind of a product suit or I'm not for marketing, so I'm not super sure how they actually position this, but from a simplification perspective, it's a suit of products which are part of a larger brand, which is then the microsoft viva for now there's four of the different applications which all have their own licensing and usability story. Some of them are free, like viva connections. Desktop, is completely free and there's no license invocation as part of their sharepoint and teams license.

A

Some of them, like viva topics, has a specific license for a monthly usage based on a user again, if you're interested on the course details have a look on the on the documentation for the microsoft viva topics, naomi manipeni was actually doing a great demo and coverage on that one, including licensing discussion in the last monthly communicable for sharepoint.

A

But today we wanted to talk about the connections and connections is really about the fact that we are combining the best of both both worlds truly from a microsoft team center sharepoint online perspective, so we're making that sharepoint online integrated, more natively within teams. We have supported certain level of this kind of integration. In the past, I've even created two videos related on that one in youtube's, which are which have like ten thousand views or thousands and thousands of viewers. It's pretty cool, and but the vma connections takes that to another level.

A

So there's an additional level of integration and improved experience when we do this matching between a sharepoint, online and microsoft teams and what it actually means is that we are having basically a custom branded application created, we're going to talk about the future and and all of that stuff in the in the pretty soon as well. But right now you can create a custom printed app.

A

uh You can actually have an access to your global assets and navigational assets and information directly uh to from this uh custom printed app icons and when you click it you'll see the global navigation right now that by the way, isn't working for most of the tenants, because uh at the moment the app our deployment is in hold because of random issues, which I can't go to a more detailed, but that will continue pretty pretty soon. I think the app bar is now out roughly in 10 worldwide.

A

So that's the reason why I haven't actually seen that functionality yet demonstrated that much and supports internet search. So when you're searching something in the microsoft teams uh that actually is available from the intranet, the search bar accessing the internet search as well, and when you press enter, you will be redirected to your enterprise search ux based on your tenant settings. You also have a full screen now support with the header navigation, actually as a footer navigation, with contextual actions to support collaboration.

A

So in the past, when you embedded a sharepoint online site in teams, navigation was gone. There was additional, let's say, adjustments or additional inconveniences related on that experience and that all of that has been addressed with the vivo connection desktop release, and the key point here to understand is that you, as a customer or if you're a partner, you are the one who designs what's available in this ux, so we as a microsoft, we do not dictate any of this capabilities.

A

You are the one who designs, for example, applications based on this experience and then you surface those as individual personal applications um in the inside of the microsoft tips. So we're truly getting the story integrated and you can expect in the future that this is getting much better and better and better. So this is only a start. What we're seeing right now how to get started on this journey uh is that you create a sharepoint online communication site with your preferred design and content. Again, you decide what is there this?

A

We don't dictate what has to be in there or what's available in the site, even though most of our marketing material always showing the same picture. So don't get fooled on that you are, you are in control of defining what's visible in the viva connection, desktop you can use any sharepoint framework, extensibility options, so basically you can use any custom web parts any out of the box with parts any sharepoint, favorite header or footer extensions in that design as well.

A

So again, you are responsible for designing what's available inside of this field, so full control for the best possible experience. You will set that side as a home site in the tenant not needed necessarily, but that gives you the global navigation support when you click the icon in the left, navigation and the global navigation should be enabled as well again right now that capability isn't yet working worldwide because it's not fully rolled out, but that's going to be at rest relatively soon.

A

After all of that has been done, you create a viva, desktop app solution and right now this is done using a sharepoint online powershell script, bmp, powershell or cli for microsoft, 365, so three options. They all result exactly the similar kind of a manifest solution and a solution file which it then can deploy to the microsoft teams, deployment and control that to be visible using the ad policies. So, basically, you can see that for all of the employees in your company, whenever they open up microsoft, themes, your own contoso lit where whatever adventure work.

A

Whatever is your company name. Application is visible in the top left corner and from there there's the corporate communicational stuff, which is typical scenario, but there could be much more. There could be alternative experiences again after the design, after the innovation of the customer and you as a partner.

A

Now what are those extensibility options? I just want to make sure that we are super clear. You have full control set 25 times, but it's super clear and super important that you understand you control, what's included in the vivo connection, experience and again, technically, you can have multiple experiences, but there's always the one primary one. The primary story is basically that you said there was one side currently as a home site in a tenant, and then you expose that as a viva connection desktop experience.

A

But technically you can have multiple experiences exposed, so there's no limitation of how many applications are being exposed. So you can have additional ones as well. You can use all of the same out-of-the-box custom, sharepoint framework, web parts or other books or custom sharepoint framework weapons as normal and sharepoint online.

A

So technically it is your sharepoint online portal which we're integrating directly in the inside of the microsoft teams, and you can extend the experience you're, also using sharepoint framework extensions, like header and footer extensions, we're going to show a quick demo on that one today, just to show off that is actually truly possible and obviously in the larger scale. This means that the same component, which can be then exposed individual connections in a sharepoint or in the microsoft themes as a web part as a tab or a personal application.

A

So again we have this power or flexibility of one implementation, and then we can expose the same piece of information into multiple locations so that the end user can access the information which is relevant for him or her or him in the in the most convenient way, which is really really cool.

A

Now, there's a good question from her wind uh viva connections. Only work with teams can we have an independent job on site without using teams absolutely so this just to be super clear. What you're seeing here is sharepoint communication site which can be accessed directly using a browser or then we bundle that as a microsoft, viva connection application, it's just a matter of creating and surfacing that the existing sharepoint communication site inside of microsoft themes in a more polished way and right now, when we're doing this, we need to do this using a powershell script.

A

We are creating this manifest file. All of that is getting much more polished uh as part of this journey. I'm going to talk about slightly the future journey, but I can't talk about too much and we're going to talk about in general, more next tuesday. In the monthly community call now, let's actually have a quick demo on this one, I'm not going to spend too much time on the demo, but making sure that everybody understands what's possible.

A

So, first of all, the announcement of reboot connection desktop came last week. The reason why I explicitly calling it vivo connections desktop is that it's not really the full viva connections, experience which we exposed and released last wednesday and from social media. We actually saw people reacting like well. Is it?

A

Is this only the thing there's so much more past and marketing marketing moment on the on the february, and people might have actually got slightly disappointed, but it's actually much more than this, so there will be additional releases, additional capabilities, additional options uh during summer time frame, and I think the next big conference, where we're gonna demo and talk about things, is the microsoft build happening on 25th to 27th of may uh as a virtual conference, which I that's a free conference as well, so you can actually get more insights on what's happening now.

A

What does it actually then mean in practice? So in the past we already had a way of embedding a sharepoint portal experience inside of microsoft teams and what it actually means mint is that we're gonna take a sharepoint site.

A

You just assign a sharepoint site and you were able to surface this one in teams and in this case I've just created a a random sharepoint site using the lookbook site, and let me actually quickly just show that one just making sure that everybody is 100 aware of this, and we are going to actually do a refresh of this designs as well, pretty soon more aligned to vivo connections. But from here you can easily surface example portals and sites and experiences.

A

And then, in my case, what I've done here is that I provisioned the landing template. And then I added a few custom web parts on the side. Just to demonstrate that you can design and adjust this any way you want. It doesn't have to be a route site by the way it can be any other site as well. So I'm just using a roadside for a convenience perspective in this case, uh but it doesn't have to be a root sign, so a super important thing as well, but I have a customary customer experience in here.

A

I have a few custom web parts and we want to surface this inside of the microsoft teams using viva connection way now in the past, as a preview capability like that, we actually released this guidance already more than almost a year ago, from june to uh 25 to last year where, when you exposed the portal inside of the microsoft teams, you noticed that you were able to do that, but the experience wasn't really optimal.

A

There wasn't a navigation in top and all of that stuff, and and yes, you could bundle things, but it wasn't really an optimal experience and viva connections. Desktop is really taking additional steps. Moving this experience, more aligned and more forward.

A

So here is what I've done in this particular environment, where you can actually see now that exactly the same sharepoint online portal being surfaced as a viva connections, application and experience in the microsoft teams, and it also works. Obviously, in the desktop, so you can absolutely use the desktop experience in mobile. There are things which we still need to adjust and improve and I'll talk about that one. It's a bit slightly uh after the demo as well, but here we can see aviva, desktop connections and a few things to notice. There's a custom web port.

A

I could, of course I can adjust what's visible in here and a good point to notice as well, that I have a custom folder, which is actually all the time floating on the page. So in my case, if I scroll down, you can see that the folder is all the time visible in the here, I'm not going to zoom in just well. Let's see if I can actually get the experience slightly better wrong direction.

A

Here we go so now. You can actually see that the left, uh sorry, the footer on the page- is visible all the time, so I'm basically creating this kind of a shim where the information is available and the folder which is on the page. If I go back in here, you can see the same folder in the sharepoint online page. It's actually being exposed in the same way in the viva connections, desktop experience by the way, if I would use this exactly the same color for this folder, that would start looking really cool anyway.

A

Something to consider maybe in your design and experience. But again you can design and dissipate any way. You want any layouts any adjustments. You can come in the sharepoint site. You can do the modifications in here and the same modification of course, are then visible in the microsoft team site. So it is just a normal sharepoint portal page, which is which you can adjust anyway as needed.

A

So as an example that says something super classic on leads example and republish that one and let's go back in the team site, I will have a look on the leads as a personal application, which, of course, the same implementation works as a personal application, but now what I've done is that I've actually exposed a sharepoint framework solution natively as part of the viva connections desktop as long as they cloud, and there inside of that page, is a custom spfx report on double dot. Spf expect parts using microsoft.

A

Graph behind of the scenes um securely surfacing information, but this way we can design whatever experience is we want to design, including all of the spfx extensibility, which we have available now we're running out of time, just going to be in point uh for for the teams extensibility all of those metrics and those are going to be updated as part of this one as well. So these do count in the future as an experience for the team's extensibility and then as a quick summary for the next steps just to be super clear.

A

This is just a first step of the journey and there's going to be a more native experience to adjust and configure the viva viva desktop, connect, connect with a connections desktop and and the viva connections in general and from the marketing materials. You can actually also see that there's some sort of mobile experience being shown in a lot of these materials and that's something which we haven't yet talked about uh openly.

A

But that gives you an indication where we're also investing in the future so that we're gonna be more investments and more extensibility points more component types, more adjustments which are targeted for a better configuration or better user experience options across multiple different devices. So all of this is coming and more around the options, more details on the schedules, and all of that is going to be released in microsoft, belt 2021.

A

Now I'm going to close up this one patrick. If you don't mind, it's just easier this way, because I have the slides here and just a quick reminder for next tuesday we do have a getting started with microsoft, viva desktop. This is more feature pm owning, not the extensibility rather the positioning. What does it do? How do you set it up? What are the options on configuration? What are the administrative options and all of that are going to be covered by dishonest and and pratik, who are the pms, who are actually responsible of creating microsoft?

A

Vivo desktop, so they are the ones who actually started working on this one quite a few months ago or years ago already and been working as the primary contact. Persons between the microsoft teams and odsp, which is one driver and sharepoint and they're, going to do a 40 minute special session on next tuesday at 8 am pacific time.