Introduction Have you ever had an idea to ask a bot to perform a simple interaction? Then this article is for you. A simple interaction could be an answer to a question you asked: You: What time is it? Bot: It’s 3.56PM You could achieve this (and more) by building a bot using tools such as Power Virtual Agents or Bot Framework, but that is a little overkill for a simple interaction.

A while back I wrote about how using a custom authentication provider with the Graph SDK would allow for the use of a client credential flow. Since then, I began using the @azure/identity package to obtain the access token instead. However, with the release of the Graph Javascript SDK 3.0, this is no longer needed. With the use of TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider you can now pass the generated Credential from @azure/identity directly in to TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider and use the SDK without having to manage the retrival of the token.

A neat little trick I came across recently was that you can connect to a Teams PowerShell session within the Azure Shell. Even better, you do not need to install or import the module, or even enter your credentials (thanks Managed Identity)! Simply do the following: Login to https://shell.azure.com Within the PowerShell prompt enter Connect-MicrosoftTeams -Identity Run a Teams PowerShell command “Cs” Cmdlets Cs cmdlets (e.

This blog post is inspired by Ayca Bas’s excellent blog post on this subject using Azure Logic Apps instead of Power Automate Introduction Microsoft To Do is a great tool for allowing you to keep lists of tasks across your personal and work life. This could be something as simple as a shopping list or a project or anything that can be split down into individual tasks. With the release of the To Do APIs in Microsoft Graph, it is now possible to integrate with your To Do tasks outside of To Do.

Introduction Recently, I wanted to use the Microsoft Graph JavaScript SDK within my Node app. If you are familiar with the SDK, you will know that it will not obtain its own access token - you need to use an authentication provider and feed that to the SDK client. Typically, with browser-based authentication you would authenticate as the user and use something like the implicit grant method with a library such as MSAL.

Introduction Have you ever wondered how much network traffic Teams uses? I have. Not just for curiosity, but for performing a network impact assessment when helping organisations roll out Teams. Although Microsoft do provide estimated figures for this purpose, it doesn’t hurt to see how real-life usage compares. I have previously written about preparing your network for use with Microsoft Teams, and part of the process is determining the estimated network bandwidth that Teams will consume and the path it will take.

What is Yo Teams Yo Teams is a fantastic tool that generates Teams apps using Yeoman. By populating a few parameters you are able to generate a basic structure (scaffolding) of a Teams app. The benefit of this is all basic dependencies such as UI, frameworks and Teams SDK are already in place, allowing you to just start building out your app. I have tried to write this post in a way that caters for all and that anyone (not familiar with web app development) can read.

Background Microsoft Teams apps is something I have been keen to blog about for a long while. However, there was one issue with that, I had never learned what they are, how they work and how you go about creating one. So, I set myself a challenge at the start of the year to learn, hoping to help others in the process. Let’s get started! Fundamentals What is a Teams app?

Adaptive Cards explained Adaptive Cards are actionable message cards that are adaptive depending on user interaction. Adaptive Cards can be used in different Microsoft 365 applications such as Outlook, Teams, Bots etc. but maintaining a native look and feel to the application they appear in. Whilst this post is centred around Microsoft Teams, one great feature about Adaptive Cards is that any card created can be re-used, no matter what application, within another application that supports adaptive cards.

Disclaimer: Although I have dabbled with Linux over the last 20 or so years, I mainly use it as a server OS rather than a desktop OS. As such, what you read below is the way I understand it, I am not a Linux expert! This had been announced for a little while, but just before the end of 2019, Microsoft released a version of Teams for Linux. At this time (January 2020), it is in public preview so there will be bugs and still room for changes or improvements to be made.