Microsoft 365 – Annabel Treshansky's Blog

Reading Time: 26 minutes

Introduction

This post describes a Power App that fetches and displays data from the Stack Exchange REST API using OAuth2 authentication, with a custom connector created by importing a collection from Postman.

Why did this happen?

This is a step in my ongoing project to access our Blackboard Learn Virtual Learning Environment using REST APIs. I thought this might be possible using Microsoft Power Apps, which would allow the development of apps more quickly, but getting the connection itself figured out was proving complex^{(*here’s why)}.

The first step in testing out this theory was my Dad Jokes Power App, which did not require any authentication.

Once that worked, the next step was to try the same process with another REST API that used the same kind of OAuth2 authentication process as Learn. After searching through various free public API lists, I found the Stack Exchange API, which seemed to match the authentication process fairly closely, and has good instructions too.

I also thought it looked useful in its own right, both for keeping up with news from developers, and for trying out methods for searching, sorting and filtering data when I got further into the Power Apps side of app development.

May 31, 2022

Using JSON formatting in SharePoint columns to display fields from a Person data column

By Annabel Treshansky

On 28th March 2022

In SharePoint, Why, God, Why??

Reading Time: 10 minutes

The Problem: How could I access data fields from a SharePoint Person column to display in another column?

I’ve been developing a laptop booking system in SharePoint and PowerApps.
As part of the Bookings list, I need to display data columns for the borrower’s name, user id and email address. This data is all included within SharePoint’s ‘Person or Group’ data type, however, I can’t access the Person data fields using lookup or calculated columns.

Mar 28, 2022

Screenshot of a Power App that fetches random jokes from a REST API

Making a Dad Jokes App using REST APIs and Power Apps Custom Connectors

By Annabel Treshansky

On 10th March 2022

In Power Apps, Programming, Why, God, Why??

Reading Time: 30 minutes

This post describes a Power App that fetches and displays data from a simple REST API using a custom connector created by importing from Postman. The app also uses a Toggle control to create a While loop in Power Apps.

The app itself can be found here: https://apps.powerapps.com/play/f1478489-b888-4e8a-9fe5-8c244e126e70?tenantId=2e9f06b0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61, but is sadly only available to those with a University of Edinburgh login, as this app is a personal educational project and is not for publication or profit.

Why did this happen?

I’ve recently been working on a project to access our Blackboard Learn Virtual Learning Environment more efficiently using REST APIs. It occurred to me that this might be possible using Microsoft Power Apps, which could allow the development of apps more quickly, if we could get the connection itself figured out. The Dad Jokes app was developed as a proof (or otherwise) of the concept.

Mar 10, 2022

Screenshot: Adding a new list item in Teams

Copying Files, Flows, a Plan, SharePoint Lists and a Notebook from one Microsoft Team to another

By Annabel Treshansky

On 31st March 2021

In Flow / PowerAutomate, Office 365, Organisation, SharePoint, Teams, Useful Tips, Why, God, Why??

Reading Time: 13 minutes

First thing on the list: get organised!

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a University document called the New Learning Technologist Development Toolkit. And so I began a new project to follow it and develop my skills in Learning Technology. Obviously a project like this needed some way over the top organising… 😁

A while ago, I developed my own Microsoft Team called ‘Team of Me’, for organising myself and bringing my notes and notifications together in lockdown. This seemed like a good place to organise my training plans, so at first I created a channel in this Team to collect resources for this new project.

I began setting up a plan in Planner, creating lists of links, collecting PDF resources, making a few notes in the OneNote notebook and setting up some helpful Flows to channel messages into the right places, and cheer my progress along.

However, I soon discovered that the New Learning Technologist Toolkit, which looked like a short PDF, was actually a lot bigger than I’d thought. Everything it mentioned sent me down another rabbit hole of links and documents, and I realised it would need several channels in its own right to organise it all.

In fact, I began to suspect that becoming a Learning Technologist would take a lot longer than the 4 weeks listed after all. Who knew🙄. And so I decided to set my project up in a new Team of its own, which I’ve called ‘My New Learning Technologist Toolkit Team’.

The challenge now was to copy across the content I had collected and created in my original Teams channel into this new team.

Mar 31, 2021

Using Flow with Teams, part 2

By Annabel Treshansky

On 3rd April 2020

In Collaborative Software, Flow / PowerAutomate, SharePoint, Teams

Reading Time: 19 minutes

Recap

This is a follow on from my previous post, ‘Using Microsoft Flow to update a Teams group with SharePoint activity‘. Flow is also known as Power Automate, and it is a Microsoft method for connecting apps so that outputs from one app can become inputs to another app, and events that happen in one app can trigger procedures in another app.

In my previous post, I added Flow to a Microsoft Teams group, and set up conditional testing to post a message in one of two Teams channels, depending on the value chosen in a metadata column when a file was uploaded to a SharePoint library belonging to the Team.

The Plan

The next steps to improve on this Flow will be:

Changing the SharePoint column name to ‘Relevance’ and the option labels, Teams channel names and Flow conditions to say ‘Urgent’ and ‘FYI’ rather than ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Never’. This morphed into the far more complicated problem of waiting for the SharePoint column value to change before continuing the Flow.
Jump to this section.
In the message that’s posted to Teams, change the text displaying the uploaded file’s URL to a working link to the file.
Jump to this section.
Post the message in Teams using the name of the person who uploaded the file to SharePoint.
Jump to this section.
Another thing I would like to do is to add the updates as cards in ‘To Do’ columns in the Teams group Trello board.
Jump to this section.
Summary: Bringing the last few things together. Jump to summary section
Jump to links

Apr 3, 2020

Using Microsoft Flow to update a Teams group with SharePoint activity

By Annabel Treshansky

On 29th March 2020

In Flow / PowerAutomate, SharePoint, Teams, Useful Tips

Reading Time: 6 minutes

I resumed my progress with Microsoft Flow after a pointless side quest attempting to change my favicon in SharePoint. I had very little success there, though I learned a lot, but with this, thankfully, I am having better luck.

To get started, I watched some of a video course on LinkedIn Learning: Microsoft Power Automate: Beyond the Basics, with Gini von Courter. I’ve watched enough of these now that I find Gini quite calming and pleasant to listen to: it’s a no nonsense way to get back in the frame of mind for the Microsoft universe (which is like the Marvel universe, but kind of solid, unmoving and heavy).

As it turned out, this course was ideal for me, because I’d already set up a Teams group for my current project and Gini started off with adding Microsoft Flow to Teams. Being quite new to Microsoft Teams, I hadn’t thought of doing that before, but it does make a lot of sense and offers some useful opportunities worth practising.

Mar 29, 2020

Screenshot: Trello board inside a Microsoft Teams group

How to add a Trello board to a Microsoft Teams group

By Annabel Treshansky

On 11th March 2020

In Teams, Trello, Useful Tips

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This post assumes you have a Trello board (because who wouldn’t) and a Microsoft Teams group (and who wouldn’t want to cheer one of those up with a Trello board).

So here’s the Trello board I’ve created as the first Swiss cheese hole nibbled into my upcoming SharePoint project:

My Trello board, a thing of awesomeness that nearly keeps me sane in moments of SharePoint

And here’s the Teams group I’ve created for the same SharePoint project:

It says, ‘Welcome to the Team!’ That’s a nice start, I like that. Big improvement, Microsoft!

Here’s what to do next…

Mar 11, 2020

Changing the Favicon in my SharePoint SubSite

By Annabel Treshansky

On 11th March 2020

In Pointless Side Quests, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Usability, Why, God, Why??

Reading Time: 27 minutes

A cautionary tale…

If you’re looking for how to do this yourself, let me save you some time: there’s a good post about it here: How To Change The Favicon In SharePoint Online, but it does require SharePoint Designer and the last 2 steps didn’t quite work for me.

Fatal Distraction:

Once upon a time…
I was almost making progress on starting a SharePoint project when instead I got annoyed with the enormous number of identical tabs that SharePoint opens in the browser:

Screenshot of browser window showing many similar looking sharepoint tabs open

Too much, SharePoint, and it all looks the same!

So I wanted to upload a favicon for my subsite. It’s the little icon that goes in the web browser tab to distinguish one site from another. Like this:

My favicon of choice, but bigger

It’s maybe a 10 minute job to change it on ANY NORMAL WEBSITE. So I thought it would be a nice, useful way to find out a little bit more about the workings of SharePoint…🤪

Mar 11, 2020

SharePoint screen for creating a new subsite

A Practice Site for SharePoint and Flow / PowerAutomate

By Annabel Treshansky

On 7th March 2020

In SharePoint

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Having overcome (thank God) my initial stumbling block of all-consuming dread, I have begun building a practice site for using SharePoint document libraries and lists with Microsoft Flow (or PowerAutomate as I think it is now called).

Mar 7, 2020

Cher wearing a halo and standing like a religious icon

SharePoint: Who can save us?

By Annabel Treshansky

On 3rd March 2020

In Collaborative Software, SharePoint

Reading Time: 5 minutes

To be fair, it’s not her best work

I’m Attacking SharePoint and Flow with Swiss Cheese

I may have mentioned in previous posts (that I might not have published yet) that I am at the beginning of a big project to tidy up an old shared network drive, delete what’s no longer in use, and move all its remaining associated filing systems and processes into SharePoint. This is to be done for the purposes of efficiency, standardisation and automating of data protection. Yay.

A year ago, I hadn’t heard of SharePoint. (And yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…) Since then, I’ve approached it first with an open mind, and then with increasing dread.

So when I first heard about this project, I thought, “Please, for the love of God, no.” What to do. SharePoint is part of my job, so I have to stop this negativity and get into it.
And if there’s one thing I know I am, it’s stubborn as ****. So there will be a way.

So. Who are those people most well known for stopping any panicking and making people get on with things? That’s right, Management Consultants. So I did some internet research, and discovered there are ways to get on with such things. First I would tackle my project with Swiss Cheese, then Salami, and then a Pomodoro. It’s no wonder these management types bring such comfort and reassurance everywhere they go.

Kicking off with the Swiss Cheese method, I am nibbling little holes out of my project until the rest makes enough sense to slice up like salami. So here goes…

Mar 3, 2020

...in which I don't go up mountains

Category: Microsoft 365 Page 1 of 2

Making an OAuth2 Custom Connector to fetch data from the Stack Exchange REST API in Power Apps

Introduction

Why did this happen?

Using JSON formatting in SharePoint columns to display fields from a Person data column

The Problem: How could I access data fields from a SharePoint Person column to display in another column?

Making a Dad Jokes App using REST APIs and Power Apps Custom Connectors

Why did this happen?

Copying Files, Flows, a Plan, SharePoint Lists and a Notebook from one Microsoft Team to another

Using Flow with Teams, part 2

Recap

The Plan

Using Microsoft Flow to update a Teams group with SharePoint activity

How to add a Trello board to a Microsoft Teams group

Changing the Favicon in my SharePoint SubSite

Fatal Distraction:

A Practice Site for SharePoint and Flow / PowerAutomate

SharePoint: Who can save us?

I’m Attacking SharePoint and Flow with Swiss Cheese

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