Last week I was in Washington DC for the TechCon365 conference (formerly EduCon365 & SP Fest) where I presented a pair of full-day workshops on the SharePoint Framework & developing custom Microsoft Teams Apps (with a fire 🔥👨🚒 in my workshop room), co-hosting a roundtable discussion, and delivered three breakout sessions on React hooks, SharePoint Embedded and another Teams development session. Yeah... it was a busy week! Not just at the conference but also outside the convention center with...
27 days ago • 2 min read
While many Microsoft 365 solutions involve both client-side and server-side solutions, what almost all of them have in common is the need to obtain an access token from Microsoft Entra ID to either identify who the currently signed-in user is and to call either (or both) your endpoints or an existing one. When you use access tokens to secure your endpoints, you should never assume it’s valid and secure. Access tokens are just like cash - whoever has them can use them, and whoever receives...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
In the last newsletter issue, I called out Microsoft's upcoming, and very aggressive retirement of Office 365 Connectors in the next three months! In this week's article, I explain how you can replace your soon-to-be-retired Office 365 Connectors to Microsoft Teams Bots. Microsoft Teams initially introduced webhooks as a way to connect external services to channels. The retirement schedule is aggressive, with no new connectors allowed after August 15, 2024, and all existing connectors ceasing...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Recently, I posted polls on LinkedIn and YouTube asking Microsoft 365 developers what they thought about using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) for creating Microsoft Teams apps. When I posted both surveys, I was clear that I don't think SPFx is a good option for building tabs in Microsoft Teams. Results from the LinkedIn survey In this week’s article, I want to explain why. To be clear, I like the SharePoint Framework; it’s the best option when you want to extend or customize SharePoint...
2 months ago • 2 min read
The open-source tools we use in creating Microsoft Teams apps and SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions are built on top of Node.js. While Microsoft 365 developers don’t necessarily need to become Node.js developers, you do need to know enough to manage your system. One challenge I see SPFx developers face time and time again is dealing with different Node versions & Node package dependency versions. One of the best decisions every SPFx developer can make is to adopt using a node version...
3 months ago • 3 min read
In a recent newsletter, I shared the news that Microsoft accounted for the upcoming retirement of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) domain-isolated web parts. It appears they’re doing this to get rid of iframes in SharePoint pages - an unfortunate development because it was one of the ways to better secure your SPFx solutions. Why? When an SPFx solution requests an access token from SharePoint Online (SPO) using either the Microsoft Graph API or Azure AD (aka Microsoft Entra ID) API, SPO has no...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Conferences such as Microsoft’s Inspire, Ignite, and the recent Build Conference serve as platforms where Microsoft displays its latest and upcoming projects. The last Build Conference in Seattle was no exception. With the past 18 months of AI advancements, it seemed like the news and innovations were in overdrive. Unless you’ve been completely disconnected, you’ve likely heard of Copilot. If not before, you would have heard of it during the conference, especially with it being mentioned...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Microsoft is at it again… building off all the retirement notices in 2023 coming to a head in April 2026, Microsoft is as it again killing off a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) feature. Late last year, I wrote about the trio of retirement notices that announced that the following services were going to get shut down in April 2026, including: Azure Access Control Service (ACS) SharePoint 2013 Workflows SharePoint Add-in Model (provider-hosted & SharePoint-hosted) You can learn more about the...
4 months ago • 4 min read
This week’s newsletter is arriving a bit later than usual for a good reason. Today marks the first day of the Microsoft 365 Community Conference in sunny Orlando, FL. I wanted to ensure ample time to cover all the announcements from today’s keynote. You'll notice a new section in the newsletter - Newsworthy Stories. Given the rapid pace of news and announcements in the Microsoft 365 developer space, I’ve added this section to help you stay informed. This newsletter aims to be a reliable...
5 months ago • 3 min read