Posts

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. It is vital to determine this before-hand so the network can be prepared and provide a good experience to users of Teams. ...

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? The actual Teams app that you add or install to Teams is actually not really an app, as such. On it’s own it doesn’t actually do anything. If you look inside a Teams app package, you will usually only see three files: ...

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. ...

Updated: January 30, 2020 Introduction For a while, when using Graph API and PowerShell I have been using my own implementations of communicating with Graph API as outlined in the following posts: Getting started with Microsoft Graph and PowerShell Authenticating with Graph API Using a Device Code However, at Ignite 2019, it was announced there is a Graph API PowerShell SDK in the works. Even better, its available on GitHub today! For a heavy PowerShell user like me, this is great news. ...

The running joke when having a poor user experience with applications is to “blame the network”. As it turns out, there is some truth to that. You see, if your network is not configured correctly or capable it may well be the cause of common complaints - especially when using real-time communication applications such as Teams. At Symity we are helping more and more customers shift from on-premises Skype for Business to Teams, with that comes network considerations that were not previously needed. ...

Backup-TeamsChat Disclaimer: This tool is provided ‘as-is’ without any warranty or support. Use of this tool is at your own risk and I accept no responsibility for any damage caused. Backup Teams chat messages (not channel messages) for safe keeping - messages are saved in to a HTML report for easy viewing. Written in PowerShell Core and using Graph API (no modules required), it can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux. ...

Disclaimer: This tool is provided ‘as-is’ without any warranty or support. Use of this tool is at your own risk and I accept no responsibility for any damage caused. Backup-Team Backup-Team is a tool used to backup and recreate Teams from Microsoft Teams. A backup from the tool can include items such as settings, channels, tabs, owners, members, conversations and files. Teams can be recreated, including on a different tenant for a pseudo migration scenario. ...

Introduction Recently, I’ve been wanting to use PowerShell Core more often with Graph API. But what has held me back was having to use WinForms or WPF to display the Microsoft login page to authenticate the user. Searching around, it appears you can authenticate Azure AD users with a device code too - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/develop/v2-oauth2-device-code By doing this, your script/tool/app/device can generate a device code to be entered on another device (that has a web-browser). For example, I can run a PowerShell Core script on a headless Ubuntu server which provides a code, then use that code to sign in from my Windows PC. ...