Mail merge is still a thing. Why? Because after all these years, it continues to get the job done. But with more businesses using Microsoft Lists, can mail merge still do its job? The short answer, yes. However, Microsoft Word can't connect to Microsoft Lists directly. If we open the mail merge data source dropdown, … Continue reading MS Lists: Mail Merge Data Source
SharePoint Online
Power Automate: Copy Emails + Attachments to SPO
Closing out this story, the Power Automate flow built to copy Outlook emails to [SharePoint Online] should have copied the email attachments as well. Though not every email has attachments. Tweak the flow and check for attachments, then copy when necessary... Reviewing a previous flow run, examine an export of the tempObj variable. Take note … Continue reading Power Automate: Copy Emails + Attachments to SPO
Power Automate: Copy Emails to SPO
Once upon a time there was a very special user. This user was great at their job and worked with us for many years. Throughout the years, their job responsibilities required that they catalogue and archive legal records for the business. Unfortunately, soon enough, they were ready for new career opportunities. Now, they needed to … Continue reading Power Automate: Copy Emails to SPO
SharePoint: Modern Site Architecture (Hub v. Sub)
Microsoft is encouraging organizations to embrace Modern SharePoint. With this nudging, creating sub-sites is still supported, but largely frowned upon. Though Classic SharePoint welcomes sub-sites. Modern SharePoint, not so much. Instead, Microsoft now recommends creating all sites as their own site collection, then associating sites using hub linkage... To better conceptualize the hub idea, consider … Continue reading SharePoint: Modern Site Architecture (Hub v. Sub)
SharePoint: What If… Metadata?
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?
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… Twitter
At last, closing out the Power App recreation series. Kicking things off, the first app mocked up Instagram. Nothing fancy, but the app used two galleries populated from two Excel data sources. The second app roughly recreated Netflix and again, used two galleries and two Excel data sources. However, app #2 used the Filter() function … Continue reading Power Apps: Recreating… Twitter
Graph API: Building and Working w/ Batches
Several of the Microsoft 365 resources are accessible through the Microsoft Graph REST API. As adoption grows, Microsoft introduces more resources and more APIs. But with this increased adoption, customers are generating more and more API requests. And when too many requests are generated too quickly, Microsoft will throttle. This results in a series of … Continue reading Graph API: Building and Working w/ Batches
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
console.log('Charles'); 