Metadata is baked into SharePoint. Even so, many people use SharePoint just for document storage and never explore metadata. But without metadata, SharePoint isn't living up to its full potential. What is metadata? Why is metadata important? For simplicity, think of metadata as "document tagging"/ "document categorization". With the documents tagged, search gets leveled up. … Continue reading SharePoint: What If… Metadata?
SharePoint Online
Graph API: Follow SharePoint Online Sites
[SharePoint Online] has several social media-esque features baked into the solution. One such feature, choosing to "follow" specific SPO sites. But this is a manual action performed by each individual. That is, unless the Microsoft Graph API is used to follow a site on a person's behalf... Figure 1 - SharePoint Online sites being followed. … Continue reading Graph API: Follow SharePoint Online Sites
Power Apps: Recreating… OneDrive Photos
As the series continues, there is a common element among the apps. At their core, many popular apps have gallery experiences. Even the OneDrive app could be created using a vertical gallery for its photo grid... Setting the app foundation, count the total number of images in the data source. The app displays three images … Continue reading Power Apps: Recreating… OneDrive Photos
SharePoint Online: Sync vs OneDrive Shortcut
Microsoft 365 is ever changing. Released many, many months ago, Add shortcut to OneDrive remains a mystery to some people. This is different than Sync, right? Figure 1 - SharePoint Online Contextual Menu options. Somewhat different, but a lot of the same. Even so, the shortcut link delivers on its promise. Shortcuts link to specific … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Sync vs OneDrive Shortcut
Azure AD: SharePoint Online User Cache
[SharePoint Online] sites can use [Azure AD] security groups to manage user access and permissions. Noteworthy, these security groups can be applied directly to sites, lists, and/ or items. And every security group used on the SPO site is saved to the site member list. This member list roughly functions as a site cache and … Continue reading Azure AD: SharePoint Online User Cache
Power Automate: SPO Item Version Delta
[SharePoint Online] is a well known document management solution. Baked into this Microsoft solution is metadata and versioning. In simplest terms, metadata is document tagging. Versioning is an audit trail of document changes - including document properties... Figure 1 - Version history of a SPO list item. Working with SPO, Power Automate has an action … Continue reading Power Automate: SPO Item Version Delta
Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
Power Automate can add user accounts to SharePoint Online list items. If the person column accepts a single account, then the assignee claims are passed as a string. But for multiple accounts, the assignee claims are passed as an array. Illustrating this, loop through a list of approvers, then add them all to a list … Continue reading Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
Microsoft 365: MS Lists v SPO Lists
Microsoft Lists has been released to the wild. Is this different than SharePoint Lists? Kind of, but not really... Microsoft has a history of surfacing elements of SharePoint and creating "new" standalone solutions. Though not direct successors, but... Power Automate replaced SharePoint Designer workflows. Microsoft Forms became a substitute for SharePoint Surveys. However, things are … Continue reading Microsoft 365: MS Lists v SPO Lists
Graph API: Process SPO Folders w/ Special Characters
Microsoft Graph is a RESTful web API. With these APIs, I can access many of the Microsoft 365 resources. But for now, I need to query the contents of a folder with a special character in the name. Why is this an issue? Document management systems like [SharePoint Online] will often support special characters that … Continue reading Graph API: Process SPO Folders w/ Special Characters
Power Automate: Microsoft’s “Rube Goldberg Machine”
The Microsoft 365 suite is a collection of cloud-based solutions: Outlook Online,SharePoint Online,Microsoft Teams,etc. Also included in this ensemble is Power Automate, Microsoft's workflow solution. Power Automate flows can use dozens (and dozens) of connectors to link both Microsoft and non-Microsoft solutions into automated processes: TwitterAsanaMailChimpYouTubeSalesforceetc. Essentially, an action triggers the process, then a series … Continue reading Power Automate: Microsoft’s “Rube Goldberg Machine”
Power Automate: Object Properties
Using connectors and actions, Power Automate can CRUD data from different sources. Often enough, the returned data is simple text and/ or numerical values, but can sometimes be complex data objects. Represented in a JSON format, the properties of these complex data objects can typically be retrieved with key-value pairs... E.g., storing SharePoint list items … Continue reading Power Automate: Object Properties
SharePoint Online: File Metadata w/ Graph API
Microsoft's Graph API has endpoints for [SharePoint Online] lists and libraries. Worthy of note, document libraries are /drives when using the APIs. And although libraries are technically lists, the two resources will return different properties for the same SharePoint object. Additionally, some actions can only be performed using the /lists resources. An example of this, … Continue reading SharePoint Online: File Metadata w/ Graph API
SharePoint Online: Metadata Scopes
[SharePoint Online] has a number of features and functionalities. Among these, there is robust support for metadata. But why support metadata? Because metadata helps flatten files, index content, and improve search results. And with this robust support, metadata can be created at several different levels. One way to visualize these scopes... Local Regional National Global … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Metadata Scopes
SharePoint: List Views (CAML Queries)
Collaborative Application Markup Language (CAML) is a schema used in SharePoint to query list data. Viewing, sorting, and grouping columns, that's straight-forward. One or two filter conditions, also straight-forward. But when three or more conditions are applied, the logic may get a bit murky. Because the UI hasn't really changed over the years, it still … Continue reading SharePoint: List Views (CAML Queries)
Power BI: SPOList – Records v. Tables
Power BI Desktop can connect to a variety of data sources, including [SharePoint Online] lists. The text, date, and numerical columns will map directly, but a Person column will become a Record... E.g., list column Approver is a Person. So, what are Records? These are indexed data structures. Similar to hash tables, tuples, and structs, … Continue reading Power BI: SPOList – Records v. Tables
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