Microsoft 365 PnP Community – January 2022 update

Microsoft 365 PnP Community – January 2022 update

by | Jan 17, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

pnp-january-2022-update.png

 

Microsoft 365 Community (PnP) January 2021 update is out with a summary of the latest guidance, samples, and solutions from Microsoft or from the community for the community. This article is a summary of all the different areas and topics around the community work we do around Microsoft 365 ecosystem during the past month. Thank you for being part of this success.

 

Sharing is caring!

 

What is Microsoft 365 Community (PnP)

Microsoft 365 PnP is a nick-name for Microsoft 365 platform community activities coordinated by numerous teams inside of the Microsoft 365 engineering organizations. PnP is a community-driven open-source initiative where Microsoft and external community members are sharing their learning’s around implementation practices for Microsoft 365.

 

Topics vary from Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Teams, Power Platform, OneDrive and SharePoint. Active development and contributions happen in GitHub by providing contributions to the samples, reusable components, and documentation for different areas. PnP is owned and coordinated by Microsoft engineering, but this is work done by the community for the community.

 

 

The initiative is facilitated by Microsoft, but we have multiple community members as part of the PnP team (see team details in end of the article) and we are always looking to extend the PnP team with more community members. Notice that since this is open-source community initiative, so there’s no SLAs for the support for the samples provided through GitHub. Obviously, all officially released components and libraries are under official support from Microsoft.

 

Main resources around Microsoft 365 Community:

 

 

✍ Latest Dev Blog posts

Here are the latest blog posts and announcements around Microsoft 365 development topics from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blogs.

 

 

Latest community posts at https://aka.ms/m365pnp/community/blog

 

 

Community call recording blog posts:

 

 

Microsoft 365 Developer Podcasts

 

In the Microsoft 365 Developer Podcast, Jeremy Thake and Paul Schaeflein talk Microsoft 365 with fellow industry experts. The show formerly known as Office 365 Podcast is back! New episodes out soon!

blog

Microsoft 365 PnP Weekly Podcasts and vlogs

 

PnP Weekly is a recurrent podcast with visitors where Vesa and Waldek talk about the latest news and announcements in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint areas. 

 

 

Community Calls

There are numerous different community calls on different areas. All calls are being recorded and published either from Microsoft 365 Developer or Microsoft 365 Community (PnP) YouTube channels. Recordings are typically released within the following 24 hours after the call. You can find a detailed agenda and links to specific covered topics on blog post articles at the Microsoft 365 developer blog when the videos are published.

 

 

If you are interested in doing a live demo of your solution or sample in these calls, please do reach out to the PnP  Team members (contacts later in this post) and they are able to help with the right setup. These are great opportunities to gain visibility for example for existing MVPs, for community members who would like to be MVPs in the future or any community member who’d like to share some of their learnings.

 

Microsoft 365 Community (PnP) Ecosystem in GitHub

Most of the community driven repositories are in the PnP GitHub organization as samples are not product specifics as they can contain numerous different solutions or the solution works in multiple different applications.

 

  • Microsoft Graph Toolkit – Repository and project on Microsoft Graph Toolkit controls – welcomes community contributors
  • PnPjs – PnPjs Framework repository
  • CLI Microsoft 365 – Cross-OS command line interface to manage Office 365 tenant settings
  • generator-spfx – Open-source Yeoman generator which extends the out-of-the-box Yeoman generator for SharePoint with additional capabilities
  • generator-teams – Open-source Microsoft Teams Yeoman generator – Bots, Messaging Extensions, Tabs, Connectors, Outgoing Web hooks and more
  • teams-dev-samples – Microsoft Teams targeted samples from community and Microsoft engineering
  • script-samples – Scripting samples for automating operations in Microsoft 365 with PowerShell modules or CLIs
  • Sharing is Caring – Getting started on learning how to contribute and be active on the community from GitHub perspective.
  • pnpcore – The PnP Core SDK is an SDK designed to work against Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Graph API first approach
  • powershell –  PnP PowerShell module which is PowerShell Core module targeted for Microsoft 365
  • pnpframework – PnP Framework is a .Net Standard 2.0 library targeting Microsoft 365 containing the PnP Provisioning engine and a ton of other useful extensions
  • spfx-reference-scenarios – Samples for the Microsoft Teams and Viva Connections, implemented using SharePoint Framework
  • sp-dev-fx-aces – Samples on the Adaptive Card Extensions for Microsoft Viva
  • sp-dev-fx-webparts – Client-side web part samples from community and Microsoft engineering
  • sp-dev-fx-extensions – Samples and tutorial code around SharePoint Framework Extensions
  • sp-dev-fx-library-components – Samples and tutorial code around the SharePoint Framework library components
  • sp-starter-kit – Starter kit solution for SharePoint modern experiences
  • sp-dev-build-extensions – Different build extensions like gulp tasks and gulp plugins from the community and engineering around SharePoint development
  • sp-dev-solutions – Repository for more polished and fine-tuned reusable solutions build with SharePoint Framework
  • sp-dev-samples – Repository for other samples related on the SharePoint development topics – WebHooks etc.
  • sp-dev-fx-controls-react – Reusable content controls for SharePoint Framework solutions build with React
  • sp-dev-fx-property-controls – Reusable property pane controls to be used in web parts
  • list-formatting – Open-source community-driven repository for the column and view formatting JSON definitions
  • sp-dev-site-scripts – Open-source community-driven repository for community Site Designs and Site Scripts
  • sp-dev-modernization – Tooling and guidance around modernizing SharePoint from classic to modern
  • sp-power-platform-solutions – Solution and sample code for SharePoint Power Platform solutions
  • powerfx-samples – Samples that demonstrate different usage patterns for the Power Fx low-code programming language
  • powerapps-samples – Samples that demonstrate different usage patterns for Power Apps
  • powerautomate-samples – Samples that demonstrate different usage patterns for Power Automate
  • powerva-samples – Samples that demonstrate different usage patterns for Power Virtual Agents
  • AdaptiveCards-Templates – Samples on showcasing the art of possible with adaptive cards

 

All SharePoint specific repositories or services supported directly by Microsoft are located in the SharePoint GitHub organization

 

Classic PnP named repositories – older tooling

 

  • PnP-Tools – Tools and scripts targeted more for IT Pro’s and for on-premises for SP2013 and SP2016
  • PnP-Provisioning-Schema – PnP Provisioning engine schema repository

 

Repositories in the GitHub Microsoft Search organization controlled by the PnP initiative

 

 

Other related resources from GitHub

 

What’s supportability story around the community tooling and assets?

Following statements apply across all of the community lead and contributed samples and solutions, including samples, core component(s) and solutions, like SharePoint Starter Kit, yo teams or PnP PowerShell. All Microsoft released SDKs and tools are supported based on the specific tool policies.

 

  • PnP guidance and samples are created by Microsoft & by the Community
  • PnP guidance and samples are maintained by Microsoft & community
  • PnP uses supported and recommended techniques
  • PnP is an open-source initiative by the community – people who work on the initiative for the benefit of others, have their normal day job as well
  • PnP is NOT a product and therefore it’s not supported by Premier Support or other official support channels
  • PnP is supported in similar ways as other open source projects done by Microsoft with support from the community by the community
  • There are numerous partners that utilize PnP within their solutions for customers. Support for this is provided by the Partner. When PnP material is used in deployments, we recommend being clear with your customer/deployment owner on the support model

 

Please see the specifics on the supportability on the tool, SDK or  component repository or download page.

 

Microsoft 365 PnP team model

 

pnp-community-model.png

 

In April 2020 we announced our new Microsoft 365 PnP team model and grew the MVP team quite significantly. PnP model exists for having more efficient engagement between Microsoft engineering and community members. Let’s build things together. Your contributions and feedback is always welcome! During August, we also crew the team with 5 new members. PnP Team coordinates and leads the different open-source and community efforts we execute in the Microsoft 365 platform.

 

We welcome all community members to get involved on the community and open-source efforts. Your input do matter!

 

 

Got feedback, suggestions or ideas? – Please let us know. Everything we do in this program is for your benefit. Feedback and ideas are more than welcome so that we can adjust the process for benefitting you even more.

 

 

Microsoft 365 PnP Recognition Program

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We are excited to announce new community contributor program for all the active community members. Through this program you can get officially acknowledged with the a Credly badge around your work on our open-source and community channels. See more from

https://aka.ms/m365pnp-recognition. Thank you for being part of this journey with us.

 

⚙ Area-specific updates

These are different areas which are closely involved on the community work across the PnP initiative. Some are lead and coordinated by engineering organizations, some are coordinated by the community and MVPs.

 

Microsoft Graph Toolkit

graph-toolkit.jpg

 

Microsoft Graph Toolkit is engineering lead initiative, which works closely with the community on the open-source areas. The Microsoft Graph Toolkit is a collection of reusable, framework-agnostic web components and helpers for accessing and working with Microsoft Graph. The components are fully functional right of out of the box, with built in providers that authenticate with and fetch data from Microsoft Graph.

 

 

All the latest updates on the Microsoft Graph Toolkit is being presented in our bi-weekly Microsoft 365 Generic Dev community call, including the latest community contributors.

 

Microsoft 365 Community docs

 

community-dcos.png

 

Community docs model was announced in the April 2020 and it’s great to see the interest for community to help each other by providing new guidance on the non-dev areas. See more on the announcement from the SharePoint blog – Announcing the Microsoft 365 Community Docs. We do welcome contributions from the community – our objective is to build a valuable location for articles from Microsoft and community together.

 

New articles

 

 

Have ideas for articles or want to contribute yourself? – Get involved! Here are also some additional resources explaining the model more detailed.

 

 

SharePoint Framework development samples

 

spfx-gallery.png

These are the updated SharePoint Framework samples which are available from the different repositories.

 

 

How to find what’s relevant for you? Take advantage of our SharePoint Framework web part and extension sample galleries – also includes solutions which work in Microsoft Teams

 

 

Microsoft Teams community samples

 

teams-samples-promo.jpg

 

These are samples which have been contributed on the community samples since last summary. We do welcome all Microsoft Teams samples to this gallery. They can be implemented using in any technology.

 

  • Numerous adjustments on existing samples and solutions

 

If you are interested on Microsoft Teams samples, we have just released also new Microsoft Teams sample gallery. Contributions to Microsoft Teams samples is also more than welcome. This gallery already surfaces all Microsoft samples, Microsoft Teams app templates and community samples.

 

Power Platform samples

 

power-platform-samples.png

 

There was also numerous smaller updates on the different Power Platforms samples. See more details on available samples from following location

 

If you have any existing samples which you’d be willing to share with others – please submit a pull request or contact the PnP team members to get started on getting more closely involved on this initiative. Here to help.

 

Microsoft 365 Script Samples

 

script-gallery.png


We have released new Microsoft 365 Script Sample gallery within past month. We welcome all scripts on Microsoft 365 automation to this centralized repository, targeted to help to manage and automate day-to-day operations.

 

Here are the latest updates on the Script Samples

 

 

If you have any existing scripts which you’d be willing to share with others – please submit a pull request or contact the PnP team members to get started on getting more closely involved on this initiative. 

 

 

Independent Connectors Program

 

independent-connectors.png

 

Microsoft Power Platform comes with a huge variety of already built-in connectors and also provides you with the ability of creating your own custom connectors. As of July 2021, anyone can submit the connectors they built to Microsoft Power Platform so that they can be used by others as well. Previously, only API owners could publish their connectors. The Independent Publisher Connector Program’s mission is to bring the best together: the best people, connecting great ideas to data, apps, and flows. We want to make it easier for connector developers to collaborate on connectors.

 

For more information, you can watch this video on Publish a connector to the Publish a connector to the Power Platform with Independent Publisher Connector Program gram and check out Microsoft Power Platform Connectors on GitHub

 

These are the latest connectors: 

 

 

Sharing is Caring initiative

 

sharing-is-caring-promo-1024x576.png

 

The “Sharing Is Caring” imitative is targeted for learning the basics around making changes in Microsoft Docs, in GitHub, submitting pull requests to the PnP repositories and in GitHub in general. Take advantage of this instructor lead training for learning how to contribute to docs or to open-source solutions. Everyone is welcome to learn how to get started on contributing to open-source docs or code!

 

  • See more from the guidance documentation – including all upcoming instructor lead sessions which you can participate!

 

✍ Different Microsoft 365 related open-source initiatives build together with the community

See exact details on the latest updates from the specific open-source project release notes. You can also follow up on the project updates from our community calls. There are numerous active projects which are releasing new versions with the community even on weekly basis. Get involved!

 

  • Microsoft Look Book – Discover the modern experiences you can build with SharePoint in Microsoft 365. Look book provides design examples for SharePoint Online which can be automatically provisioned to any tenant in the world. See more from https://lookbook.microsoft.com. This service is also provided as open-source solution sample from GitHub.
  • yo teams – Open-source Yeoman generator for Microsoft Teams extensibility. Supports creation of bots, messaging extensions, tabs (with SSO), connectors and outgoing Webhooks. See more from https://aka.ms/yoteams.
  • PnP Framework – .NET Standard 2.0 SDK containing the classic PnP Sites Core features for SharePoint Online. More around this package from GitHub.
  • PnP Core SDK – The PnP Core SDK is an SDK designed to work for Microsoft 365 with Graph API first approach. It provides a unified object model for working with SharePoint Online and Teams which is agnostic to the underlying API’s being called. See more around the SDK from documentation.
  • PnP PowerShell – PnP PowerShell is a .NET Core 3.1 / .NET Framework 4.6.1 based PowerShell Module providing over 400 cmdlets that work with Microsoft 365 environments and more specifically SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. See more details from documentation.
  • Reusable SharePoint Framework controls – Reusable controls for SharePoint Framework web part and extension development. Separate projects for React content controls and Property Pane controls for web parts. These controls are using Office UI Fabric React controls under the covers and they are SharePoint aware to increase the productivity of developers.
  • CLI for Microsoft 365 – Cross-OS command line interface to manage Office 365 tenant settings. See release notes for latest updates. 
  • PnPJs – PnPJs encapsulates SharePoint REST APIs and provides a fluent and easily usable interface for querying data from SharePoint sites. It’s a replacement of already deprecated pnp-js-core library. See changelog for the latest updates.
  • PnP Provisioning Engine and PnP CSOM Core – PnP provisioning engine is part of the PnP CSOM extension. They encapsulate complex business driven operations behind easily usable API surface, which extends out-of-the-box CSOM NuGet packages. See changelog for the latest updates.
  • PnP PowerShell – PnP PowerShell cmdlets are open-source complement for the SharePoint Online cmdlets. There are more than 300 different cmdlets to use and you can use them to manage tenant settings or to manipulate actual SharePoint sites. They See changelog for the latest updates.
  • PnP Modern Search solution – The PnP ‘Modern Search’ solution is a set of SharePoint Online modern Web Parts allowing SharePoint super users, webmasters and developers to create highly flexible and personalized search based experiences in minutes. See more details on the different supported capabilities from https://aka.ms/pnp-search.
  • Modernization tooling – All tools and guidance on helping you to transform you SharePoint to modern experiences from http://aka.ms/sppnp-modernize.
  • SharePoint Starter Kit v2 – Building modern experiences with Microsoft Teams flavors for SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2019 – reference solution in GitHub.
  • List formatting definitions – Community contributed samples around the column and view formatting in GitHub.
  • Site Designs and Site Scripts – Community contributed samples around SharePoint Site Designs and Site Scripts in GitHub.
  • DevOps tooling and scripts – Community contributed scripts and tooling automation around DevOps topics (CI/CD) in GitHub.
  • Teams provisioning solution – Set of open-source Azure Functions for Microsoft Teams provisioning. See more details from GitHub.

 

✍ Documentation updates

Please see all the Microsoft 365 development documentation updates from the related documentation sets and repositories as listed below:

 

 

Microsoft 365 Developer and Microsoft 365 Community YouTube video channels

You can find all Microsoft 365 related videos on our YouTube Channel at http://aka.ms/m365pnp/videos or at Microsoft 365 Dev. These channels contains already a significant amount of detailed training material, demo videos, and community call recordings.

 

Here are the new Microsoft demo or guidance videos released since the last monthly summary:

 

 

Community demos as following: 

 

 

Key contributors to the January 2021 update

Here’s the list of active contributors (in alphabetical order) since last release details in GitHub repositories or community channels. PnP is really about building tooling and knowledge together with the community for the community, so your contributions are highly valued across the Microsoft 365 customers, partners and obviously also at Microsoft.

 

Thank you for your assistance and contributions on behalf of the community. You are truly making a difference! If we missed someone, please let us know.

 

 

Companies: Here’s the companies, which provided support the community initiative for this month by allowing their employees working for the benefit of others in the community. There were also people who contributed from other companies during last month, but we did not get their logos and approval to show them in time for these communications. If you still want your logo for this month’s release, please let us know and share the logo with us. Thx.

 

pnp-companies-january-2022.png

 

Microsoft people: Here’s the list of Microsoft people who have been closely involved with the PnP work during last month.

 

MVP Community team

MVP Community team (PnP Team) manages the PnP community work in the GitHub and also coordinates different open-source projects around Microsoft 365 topics. PnP Team members have a significant impact on driving adoption of Microsoft 365  topics. They have shown their commitment to the open-source and community-driven work by constantly contributing to the benefit of the others in the community.

 

Thank you for all that you do!

 

 

Here are the Microsoft Internal PnP Core team members:

 

Next steps

See all of the available community calls, tools, components and other assets from https://aka.ms/m365pnp. Get involved!

 

Got ideas or feedback on the topics to cover, additional partnerships, product feature capabilities? – let us know. Your input is important for us, so that we can support your journey in Microsoft 365.

 

“Sharing is caring!”

 

Microsoft 365 Community (PnP) – January 13th 2021

 
Working with APIs in Power Platform for beginners

Working with APIs in Power Platform for beginners

by | Jan 15, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.


I recently learned how to work with APIs and the different methods to call them. I started with a straight forward example that’s not too complex. I used an open API (that means I don’t need authentication for my request) to get the number of the day from a website called MathTOOLS. I want this number of the day to be posted as a chat message in Microsoft Teams.



Let’s start with some theory first



Whats an API?



API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface and they allow applications to communicate with each other and exchange data. An API lists operations that it can perform and which you can use, if you know how to trigger them. Usually the operations are…



– GET (read)

– POST (write)

– PUT (update)

– PATCH (update, but only partially)

– DELETE (remove)



How to address APIs?



An API is an interface that you can call and communicate with. You can perform different operations, like getting data, writing things, and so on. But you need to know the correct language, that the API will understand, you need to know the correct direct dial and You need to know what to tell the API to make it do what you want it to do. The language you need is HTTP, which is an acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

If the browser on your computer wants to communicate with a server somewhere on the world, it sends an HTTP request (it asks politely) and when we did everything in the right way, we will get a polite answer, an HTTP response.



An HTTP request gives us the ability to communicate with an API. So much for the theory, now let’s get our hands dirty :clapping_hands: and let’s see how it looks in Power Automate.



HTTP request



As I mentioned earlier an HTTP request consists of a view things. We will need a…



– Method

– URL

– Headers

– and a body


HTTPrequest.png

 

Method



Luckily we know the methods already.

 




























Method Action
GET read
PUT update
POST write
PATCH update partially
DELETE remove

 

In this use case we want to get the number of the day, so we choose the GET method.



URL



Now for the URL we need to know the URL (kind of obvious, isn’t it :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes:) of the service we want to address. But not only that, we will also need the endpoint. This is something like the direct call, putting you to that exact point that you want. Usually an API will tell you how the endpoint looks:



api-math-tool.png



The endpoint of the website MathTOOLS is `https://api.math.tools`, but if we read carefully (I usually struggle with that :smiling_face_with_halo:), we get more details for the API of the number of the day:



api-nr-of-day.png



The endpoint for the number of the day is `https://api.math.tools/numbers/nod`. The API documentation even provides us with the information of how the HTTP response will look like:



JSON-nod.png



It’s a very long JSON object (if you want to get started with JSON, I recommend the amazing blog from Bob German Introduction to JSON.

But let’s stay at our HTTP request in Power Automate. We know the Method, we know the URL and we know that we don’t need any authentication. That means we can fill out all mandatory fields in that flow action and it looks like this:



HTTP-flow-step.png



Let’s run this flow on a daily basis and see what the result looks like:



HTTP-flow-run-successfull.png



(Since you can hardly see the result, I paste the body here once again)



HTTP-flow-result.png



And that’s it, we used an HTTP request to GET information from a API. Now for the last part of this blog, we want to use some information from this result to be posted in a chat in Teams.



Use a certain information from a JSON object in a chat message



Now it would make a lot of sense, if we cover the question, how to use a certain information from that JSON object in, let’s say a chat message, right?

Let’s say, we want to post the number of the day in a daily Microsoft Teams chat. We need just two steps for that:



1. put the information of that JSON file in a variable, so it’s always up to date



2. use that variable in message in a Microsoft Teams chat



To use a certain information in a variable, you first need to initialize a variable and fill out all the information:



Name: I called mine NrOfDay

Type: We want to use a string here (a string is a sequence of characters, that can include letters or numbers, but it will be recognized as a “text”)

Value: Here we want to define the value of this variable. In our case that means that particular information from this long JSON object.



JSON-value.png



We want the value of the property “number”



Notice, that this JSON element consists of three different objects. We have the objects “success”, “copyright” and “content”. The object “content” contains an object called “nod”, which contains two more objects called “category” and “numbers”.



JSON-objects.png



As stated earlier, we want the value of the property “number”, which is located in the object “numbers” (which is part of the object “nod”, which is part of the object “content”).



JSON-nod-value.png



Now we can tell our variable in Power Automate the exact location of the value we want to use in this variable. The expression to “navigate” to the value of this property looks like this:

`body(‘HTTP_-_GETnon’)[‘contents’][‘nod’][‘numbers’][‘number’]`

The first part (`body(‘HTTP_-_GETnon’)`) tells where we want to look, the later parts are navigating through the JSON object until we reach the exact object and the exact property. With this method you can get any value of any JSON object you like.



Now you can build in the variable in a “Post message in a chat or channel” action as dynamic content in Flow and it will always show the value of the property of that JSON object.



Teams-message.png



That’s it. That is how you call an API, get a JSON object back and use certain values from that object in Power Automate. I hope you liked it and it helps you. If anything is unclear, or you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me. Easiest way would be twitter :*



As I mentioned in the beginning, I will further work with APIs. If you want to learn more, here’s what I’m going to work on next. If you have specific questions, please ask me or make suggestions. I’m always eager to learn new things.

Next API topic: What’s a custom connector, where is the difference between a http request and a custom connector and when to use what.

Four Additional Azure Synapse Database Templates Now Available in Public Preview

Four Additional Azure Synapse Database Templates Now Available in Public Preview

by | Jan 14, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

In response to the enthusiastic adoption of the eleven Synapse Database Templates for which we announced availability, in public preview, in November and December 2021, we’re pleased to announce today that we are making available, in public preview, additional Synapse Database Templates for four more industries:


 



  • Automotive Industries

  • Genomics

  • Manufacturing

  • Pharmaceuticals


 


The Synapse Database Template for Automotive Industries is a comprehensive data model that addresses the typical data requirements of organizations engaged in manufacturing automobiles, heavy vehicles, tires, and other automotive components.


 


The Synapse Database Template for Genomics is a comprehensive data model that addresses the typical data requirements of organizations engaged in acquiring and analyzing genomic data about human beings or other species.


 


The Synapse Database Template for Manufacturing is a comprehensive data model that addresses the typical data requirements of organizations engaged in either discrete or continuous manufacturing of a wide range of products. Portions of this database template are also included as part of the previously announced Consumer Goods database template and in the Automotive Industries and Pharmaceuticals database templates being announced today so companies in those industries will likely prefer to use those database templates rather than the general purpose Manufacturing industry database template as they contain additional content specific to those industries in addition to the content contained in the general Manufacturing database template.


 


The Synapse Database Template for Pharmaceuticals is a comprehensive data model that addresses the typical data requirements of organizations engaged in creating, manufacturing, and marketing pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical products and medical devices.


 


Most of the Synapse database templates contain many different business areas that together comprise each of these very large industry-specific data models. For example, in addition to business areas such as Product, Inventory, and Human Resources, there is also an Emissions business area which provides support for data used to report greenhouse gas emissions (including scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3 emissions), an area of significant focus for many of our large customers.


 


These 4 additional database templates can be accessed now in Azure Synapse either in the gallery or by creating a new lake database from the Data tab and selecting + Table and then From template.


 


DataModels_0-1641958582645.png


 


Learn more:


Meet a recent Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador graduate: Rogerio Rodrigues

Meet a recent Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador graduate: Rogerio Rodrigues

by | Jan 13, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

This is the next segment of our blog series highlighting Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors who achieved the Gold milestone and have recently graduated from university. Each blog in the series features a different student and highlights their accomplishments, their experience with the Student Ambassadors community, and what they’re up to now.


 


Today we meet Rogerio Rodrigues who is from Brazil and recently graduated from the Universidade Federal de São Paulo with a master’s degree in computer science.


 


Student_Developer_Team_0-1642033918760.png


Responses have been edited for clarity and length.  


 


When you joined the Student Ambassador community in 2012 as an undergraduate student at Universidade Federal de São Paulo, did you have specific goals you wanted to reach?


 


I had some goals like learning to speak in public because I was very shy but wanted to contribute to public events in the Student Ambassador program.  I also wanted to go deeper into Microsoft technologies like Azure, DevOps, and Mobile Development with Xamarin.  I had a dream to work at Microsoft as an employee. The community helped me a lot with these goals. I learned public speaking and became an MBA technical training teacher. I learned a lot about Microsoft technologies, received recognition in the technical community, and became a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). I am pleased to have been part of the community, which undoubtedly contributed the most to my professional career.


 


As a Student Ambassador, what were the accomplishments that you’re the proudest of and why?


 


In 2018 and 2019, together with other Student Ambassadors and Microsoft MVPs , we created an initiative called Natal Nerd where we collected gifts, toys, and cash as donations to help orphans and at-risk children for Christmas. Several Student Ambassador events and lectures about Microsoft technologies were held at universities with companies in São Paulo, and the entry fee was a toy to donate to Natal Nerd.  We presented at 23 universities in the country and reached more than 2,500 students and professors, disseminating and sharing knowledge about Microsoft technologies and the Imagine Cup. We were able to collect gifts to improve Christmas for more than 800 children.


 


In 2019, another Student Ambassador and I delivered 4 talks at 11 technical events at the Microsoft Student Partners Tech Days at eight universities in Brazil with the help of MVPs [Editor’s note: Microsoft Student Partners is the former name of the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program].  We delivered another four talks in countries such as Peru, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Mexico with the help of other Student Ambassadors.


 


In 2019 and 2020, I was chosen to go to the Microsoft Student Partner Summit and the Imagine Cup Final because of my contributions. The events in 2019 were amazing – opportunities that I will never forget because they was very valuable to me.  Even though the events in 2020 were virtual, I was very happy to have received the recognition.


 


I also created a Student Ambassador Latam YouTube channel and Meetup group with more than 2000 subscribers.


 


What are you doing now that you’ve graduated? 


 


My dream was to become a Microsoft employee.  I had already tried twice and didn’t pass the interviews, but last year I became a Customer Engineer at Microsoft and was assigned to serve large public sector banking clients. I’ve also started my part-time doctorate program in computer science with a focus on environmental science and weather satellites. After completing my doctorate, I plan to do a post-doc in my line of research, continue to teach at universities, and contribute to science.


 


If you could redo your time as a Student Ambassador, is there anything you would have done differently?


 


The only thing I would have done differently would be to study more English right away when I joined in order to communicate more easily with other Student Ambassadors around the world. Learning to speak English better made a big difference for me in 2019 when I was at the Student Partner Summit for the first time because in addition to learning new technical content, I met many other Student Ambassadors from other cultures and the amazing Student Ambassador Program Team.


 


If you were to describe the community to a student who is interested in joining, what would you say about it to convince him or her to join?


 


If you desire to be a unique professional, you should apply to the Student Ambassadors program. In addition to receiving special treatment in the community, you will have access to a lot of technical information, you will have the opportunity to network with people from all over the planet, and you will have contact with Microsoft professionals where you can find excellent opportunities.


Furthermore, the community helps you have a much broader view of technology than just Microsoft technologies, as you will have contact with different areas and the opportunity to work on fantastic projects.


 


What advice would you give to new Student Ambassadors?


 


Actively participate in the community. Join other Student Ambassadors in Leagues or groups to create initiatives. It’s fantastic, and you learn a lot. Make contact with other Student Ambassadors as you will experience different cultures, practice languages, learn more technology, and perhaps share your knowledge with other Student Ambassadors. Actively contribute to your local community and promote content at your university. These actions will help you to secure further knowledge and develop new skills. The community provides a sea of opportunities.


 


What is your motto in life, your guiding principle?


 


My motto in life is “Be different. Help lift but not drop”.  Helping those we can help will bring us great experiences, and we will be doing our part in making the world better.


 


What is one random fact about you that few people are aware of?


 


I’m a big fan of Star Wars. I have a big tattoo on my back that’s the design of an X-Wing spaceship with the 3 characters I like–Luke, Leia, and Rey Skywalker.


 


Good luck to you in the future, Rogerio!


 


Readers, you can reach Rogerio on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.


 

Protect your Smartsheet Deployment using Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Protect your Smartsheet Deployment using Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

by | Jan 12, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

By Erin Boris, Idan Basre and Yoann Mallet


 


One of the latest app connectors to be added to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is for Smartsheet.


As we have in the past for other protected apps, we would like to share a few examples of how to use it to secure your Smartsheet deployment.


 


Why Connect Smartsheet?


As with other apps, connecting Smartsheet to Defender for Cloud Apps allows you to leverage some of the built-in features of your favorite CASB, such as:


 





















Benefit

Description

Policy or template

Threat and Anomaly Detection

Detect cloud threats, compromised accounts, and malicious insiders

The following built-in Threat detection policies automatically apply when Defender for Cloud Apps is connected to Smartsheet:


·       Unusual file share activities


·       Unusual file deletion activities


·       Unusual administrative activities


·       Unusual multiple file download activities


 

Audit, investigation, and hunting

Use the audit trail of activities for forensic investigations

Leverage Advanced Hunting Queries as part of the Microsoft 365 Defender Portal to audit the use of Smartsheet and create policies

 


How to connect Smartsheet?


Let’s start with connecting Smartsheet.


Detailed instructions are available here, and if you prefer our video, check it out below:


 



 


Leverage Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Smartsheet


The best way to get quick value from Defender for Cloud Apps when protecting Smartsheet, is to use the Advanced Hunting feature in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal.


If you have not used that portal just yet, simply visit http://security.microsoft.com and you will be redirected to it.


Once there browse to advanced hunting. This will enable you to write your own KQL queries to gather relevant information from the Defender for Cloud Apps activity logs.


Here are two relevant examples:


 


Scenario 1: New user invited, has an external email address


Having a new user invited to Smartsheet with an external email address may be suspicious. In order to detect this, you can leverage the following KQL Query:


 


 

CloudAppEvents
| where Application == "Smartsheet"
|extend a=parse_json(RawEventData).additionalDetails 
|extend email=a.emailAddress
| where ActionType == "User Accept Invite"
and email  !contains "contoso.com" 
| project Timestamp,Application, AccountDisplayName, ActionType,email

 


 


Below is an example of the result of that query in Advanced Hunting:


YoannMallet_0-1641841350218.png


 


This can potentially help you detect any attempt to exfiltrate data or identify a malicious user enabling an external account.


Another option to view all accounts with external email addresses that currently have access to Smartsheet, is from the API connector properties in Defender for Cloud Apps.


 


YoannMallet_1-1641841350271.png


 


A filter can be used to see all external accounts that have accepted an invitation.


 


Scenario 2: File sent as attachment to external email address


When files are sent as an attachment from Smartsheet directly, to an external email address, this can be a sign of data exfiltration.


In order to identify such activities, you can leverage the following KQL Query:


 


 

CloudAppEvents
| where Application == "Smartsheet"
|extend a=parse_json(RawEventData).additionalDetails 
|extend Recipient=a.recipientEmail
| where ActionType =="Sheet Send As Attachment"
and Recipient  !contains "contoso.com" 
| project Timestamp,Application, AccountDisplayName, ActionType,Recipient

 


 


Creating alerts from these queries


In addition to detecting these actions, Microsoft 365 Defender also allows you to create your own custom detections, and identify when these occur in near real-time, as described here.


 


As you can imagine, when using such powerful queries, the sky is the limit! Feel free to share any relevant KQL query you have identified for Smartsheet in the comments below.


 


Resources:


For more information about the features discussed in this article, please read:



Feedback


We welcome your feedback or relevant use cases and requirements for this pillar of Cloud App Security by emailing CASFeedback@microsoft.com and mentioning the area or pillar in Cloud App Security you wish to discuss.


Learn more


For further information on how your organization can benefit from Microsoft Cloud App Security, connect with us at the links below:


























Join the conversation on Tech Community. 


Stay up to date—subscribe to our blog. 

Upload a log file from your network firewall or enable logging via Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to discover Shadow IT in your network.

Learn more—download Top 20 use cases for CASB.

Connect your cloud apps to detect suspicious user activity and exposed sensitive data.

Search documentation on Microsoft Cloud App Security. 

Enable out-of-the-box anomaly detection policies and start detecting cloud threats in your environment.

Understand your licensing options. 

Continue with more advanced use cases across information protection, compliance, and more.

Follow the Microsoft Cloud App Security Ninja blog and learn about Ninja Training. Read up on recent blogs: aka.ms/MCASMarch2021


Go deeper with these interactive guides:


·       Discover and manage cloud app usage with Microsoft Cloud App Security


·       Protect and control information with Microsoft Cloud App Security


·       Detect threats and manage alerts with Microsoft Cloud App Security


·       Automate alerts management with Microsoft Power Automate and Cloud App Security