Latest SharePoint topics

These days, all of Microsoft’s updates about the SPFx, or community content have one thing in common: they ignore SharePoint Server SE. Not this post!

These days, all of Microsoft’s updates about the SPFx, or community content have one thing in common: they ignore SharePoint Server 2019. Not this post!

In this webinar, Andrew will cover what’s new with the MS-600 exam today, and look forward to some changes we can expect Microsoft to make to the exam in the coming months. This is free webinar is ideal if you’re a Microsoft developer who’s interested in taking the MS-600 exam to become a certified Microsoft 365 Developer Associate! Microsoft released a new certification in November 2020 for Microsoft 365 developers. The Microsoft 365 Certified: Developer Associate certification measures developers across five (5) primary workloads in Microsoft 365.

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash In this post, I want to update you on some of the changes Microsoft has recently made related to the exam & offer guidance if you’re planning to take the exam soon. I’ll also answer a few common questions that keep coming up. We’re also looking at some more significant changes coming in 2022! While it’s too early to know exactly what will change, I’ve got a pretty good idea on the direction they’re going.

You’ve hit a roadblock on your SPFx project & have a question. What options do you have? In this post, I’ll share a few options available to you.

Earlier today, I updated our Azure Pipelines Templates for SharePoint Framework projects. This is mostly a modernization update to the templates for developers using our templates to implement a CI/CD process for their SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects using Azure DevOps Pipelines.

Late last week, I wrapped up refreshing the student code downloads for the Fundamentals & Ultimate bundles of my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course to SPFx v1.12.1, built from scratch + bonus demo in the React chapter showing how to use React Hooks!

I’m excited to announce what’s in the latest refresh of my MS-600 exam prep course! New content, over 300 practice test questions and more!

Back in October 2020, when I announced and launched my latest course Microsoft 365 Certified Developer Associate MS-600 Exam Prep, I committed to reaching the content complete milestone in February 2021. After two releases in December & January, I’m excited to share with you that the final two chapters will be published, true to my commitment, by the end of February 2021!

As we near the end of 2020, I wanted to take a look at where we are with respect to the State of SharePoint Client-Side Development. In this post, I’ll give you an update on where we are with popular frameworks and tools developers use in the client-side SharePoint development world.

In early September 2017, I announced Voitanos' first course to be published. A little over three years later, I’m excited to share with you today the news on my next course that’s currently in the works!

Join me for a half-day virtual workshop at the Microsoft 365 Collaboration Conference to get up to speed on the SharePoint Framework.

I’ve been working with the great folks at SharePoint Fest to put together a virtual workshop solution! Are you a SharePoint Framework developer? If you’re looking to level-up your SharePoint Framework skills for the enterprise, this workshop is for you!

On Wednesday, April 22, I presented the webinar Get Certified! Overview of the MS-600 exam & Microsoft 365 Developer Associate Certification with Rencore & Waldek Mastykarz. Rencore has posted the recording of the webinar as well as a link to the slides if you weren’t able to join us live or you want to re-watch it. Click here to access the recording. In that webinar I hinted there was more coming - I’m excited to share with you a new webinar series I hosted in May 2020, and all the recordings are available now!

Microsoft released a new certification in November 2019 for Microsoft 365 developers. The Microsoft 365 Certified: Developer Associate certification measures developers across five (5) primary workloads in Microsoft 365. Developers must pass a single exam, the MS-600: Building Applications & Solutions with Microsoft 365 Core Services, to achieve this certification. Andrew Connell, a Microsoft Office Development MVP, was deeply involved in working with Microsoft as they created the certification, exam, and associated materials.

Microsoft released a new certification in November 2019 for Microsoft 365 developers. The Microsoft 365 Certified: Developer Associate certification measures developers across five (5) primary workloads in Microsoft 365. Developers must pass a single exam, the MS-600: Building Applications & Solutions with Microsoft 365 Core Services, to achieve this certification. Andrew Connell, a Microsoft Office Development MVP, was deeply involved in working with Microsoft as they created the certification, exam, and associated materials.

Late last year, Microsoft introduced a new certification for developers working in the Microsoft 365 space. The Microsoft 365 Certified: Developer Associate is intended to measure & certify someone can “design, build, test, and maintain applications and solutions that are optimized for the productivity and collaboration needs of organizations using the Microsoft 365 platform”. In order to achieve this certification, you must pass a single exam: Exam MS-600: Building Applications and Solutions with Microsoft 365 Core Services.

Have you noticed since installing the Yeoman generator for SharePoint, when you add a web part to a new or existing project and specify the “No JavaScript framework” option, you get a web part who’s render() method’s indentation is all messed up like this? This is frustrating, but it’s very easy to fix. The Yeoman generator for SharePoint is a globally installed NPM package. When you execute yo @microsoft/sharepoint, after answering a few question prompts, the Yeoman uses template files to generate the new web part file.

I’ve updated our Azure Pipelines Templates for SharePoint Framework projects earlier today. This release, v1.3.0, includes a few improvements and updates. These updates are packed into two releases, v1.2 & v1.3. They are broken up so if you aren’t interested in v1.3, you can configure your pipeline to use just the 1.2 release which includes a specific fix / enhancement. What’s new The two releases include three updates & two minor changes to the project.

Like previous years, Microsoft delivered a session at the Microsoft Ignite 2019 conference that was essentially the “State of SharePoint Framework”. This session, BRK3071 - SharePoint Framework: What’s new and what’s next, started with a review of what the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) is and where it can be used. The second half of the session covered what’s coming next with SPFx, both in the short & long term. In this post, I’ll recap what was shared and share my thoughts.

Customers can leverage the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) in any of the modern or recent SharePoint versions. This includes SharePoint Online & SharePoint on-premises versions SharePoint Server 2016 & SharePoint Server 2019. To build a SPFx project, you use the Yeoman generator for the SharePoint Framework to create your project and get started. But there seems to be some confusion on which version you should install depending on your target SharePoint environment. Let’s clear this up, once and for all.

Late last year I published a few Jest presets to simplify adding automated testing to your SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects. These are complete with example tests including testing the rendering of components, testing async functions using promises or callbacks and even simulating user events. You can learn more about the presets in the original post, Enable Jest testing of SharePoint Framework Projects in One Simple Step. In this post, I want to share some updates to the presets that have been published.

When I’m teaching React to developers, one thing that comes up often is dealing with a common error. But here’s the interesting thing: it’s not running into the error that comes up all the time, its how to deal with it that surprises them. I’ve always wanted to have something to point to that the scenario & why one option is better than others, even though there are plenty of ways to address the issue. That’s what this post is!

In just four simple steps, this post will show you how to automate the build, test & deployment to SharePoint Online of any SharePoint Framework project using Azure Pipelines. I guarantee you can have it done before your coffee is ready! Seriously… go get the pot going and come back to this post. DevOps is all the rage these days. Developers throw it in resumes left and right & the recruiters are always searching for someone who can check that box.

In this series, I showed you how to build custom elements, a native web technology supported natively by most browsers (except you Edge & IE…) and presented two options for how you can go about it. One option involves using one big project with the SharePoint Framework & Angular in it while the other utilizes two projects to mitigate the downsides of the one-project approach. So, you can now use Angular in SharePoint Framework projects and this is made possible by Angular Elements which was introduced in Angular v6 back in May 2017. Sweet! We’ve got the “can you do it” question answered! But, should you do it? There are always tradeoffs when picking a web framework for your next project and using one with the SharePoint Framework is no different. Let’s take a step back and look at the whole picture. Only then can you decide if it makes sense for you.

This has been a long time coming and many of you Angular developers who also work with the SharePoint Framework may have given up by now and switched to React, but for those of you who have been holding out, Angular is finally a viable option for SPFx development even with a few drawbacks.

Here’s a post that teaches you a technique that you can start leveraging in your SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects right away! You know those projects where you have certain values you use in development or testing while others that you use in production? This would include things like different account or IDs used for telemetry services, different endpoints to sample or production data that you’re interacting with in your project.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, Microsoft released v1.8.2 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). A little over a month ago, I wrote about the v1.8.0 release. Since then we had another minor release (v1.8.1.md) released on April 16, 2019. In this post, I’ll summarize what you can find, and share some additional details I found after spending some time picking apart the last two minor releases. A new SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator has been published by OfficeDev: 1.

I’m excited to share this latest update to my course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework for developers. This update, packaged as sprint 16, includes one new chapter and a LOT of updates. When I originally planned out sprint 16, I intended to record a lot of new content. However when the SPFx v1.8.0 release came out there were enough changes to SPFx that I decided to go back and update the course, including adding some new lessons, completely re-recording existing lessons and updating quite a few lessons (both video & notes).

On Thursday, March 14, 2019, Microsoft released v1.8.0 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). This release is packed with many features that were previously in developer preview to the Generally Available (GA) milestone. However, there are some subtle updates that developers have been asking for. In this post, I’ll summarize some of what you can find, but also share some details I found after spending some time with the v1.8.0 release, kicking the tires and finding a few resolutions to issues.

Earlier today I recorded an impromptu Facebook Live video for the recent release of sprints 14 & 15 of the SharePoint Framework. Usually, I let people know about these ahead of time but travel the last few weeks has been rough. Add up issues with production targets that were externally influenced by other people’s schedules, attending the Microsoft 2019 Global MVP Summit & a brief business conference in Las Vegas… I didn’t want to wait any longer.

In my last post, Securing an Azure Function App with Azure AD - Works with SharePoint Framework!, I showed how you can secure a REST API deployed as an Azure Function App using Azure Active Directory (AzureAD). This comes in quite handy when you want to secure some custom server-side business logic that'’s called from a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) client-side solution. The SPFx docs show how to use APIs with permissions to the Microsoft Graph. This post will explain how to add custom permissions to the AzureAD application that is used to secure your Azure Function.

I recently published a new chapter in my Mastering the SharePoint Framework on-demand course for developers that included a section that showed how to call a REST API deployed using an Azure Function App and secured with Azure AD from the SharePoint Framework. When I was working on this chapter, it felt like the process of configuring an Azure Function App to be secured with Azure AD was harder and more complex than it should have been. Specifically, some of the things you do aren’t explained as well… so I decided to blog about it here!

I recommend people avoid this option for granting their SPO tenant permissions to endpoints and services secured with Azure AD.

I’m excited to share this latest update to my course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework for developers. Today’s update, packaged as sprint 13, includes two new chapters and a few updates… and it’s a huge release… the biggest yet adding over 3 hours of new content! Sprint 13 also marks a milestone: the Fundamentals Bundle of the course is now content complete! This means all planned chapters are now published. I will continue to make edits to existing chapters updating content when circumstances warrant, but at this time no new chapters or lessons are planned.

Setting up projects to use Jest, especially to test the rendering of your ReactJS SharePoint Framework projects & use the popular tool Enzyme for testing rendering, isn’t a trivial task, until now!

You know what I don’t like about automated tests? Most of the time, we don’t automate them, we just instrument them. We write our tests and then open a console window to run them periodically. Maybe we set up a watcher to automatically rerun them when either a test or the code file changes, and maybe we use an integrated console window in our editor to monitor when things change.

The latest version of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) released a few weeks ago, v1.7.0, uncovered a few issues between how the various Node.js package managers work. These issues appear to be rooted in the package tslint and came about with a change in how Microsoft was using tslint under the covers from SPFx v1.6 to v1.7. A fix has been submitted to tslint, but they appear to be lagging on their release schedule so there’s no ETA on when it will get rolled out.

It’s that time of year again! 35% off, buy 3 get 1 FREE, and more! 🤷 Have you’ve been putting off your SharePoint Framework education? 🤷 Maybe you were waiting for that killer deal to level up your resume? Now is the time to take advantage of our once-a-year huge discounts! Black Friday 2018 - 35% off everything ✅ DEAL #1: 35% off EVERYTHING - including the 4-day, 12hr LIVE course the week of December 17-20, 2018 (this offer has been discontinued) & the on-demand Mastering the SharePoint Framework Fundamentals & Ultimate bundles.

On November 8, 2018 (last Thursday), Microsoft released v1.7.0 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). This release is filled with a lot of new things Microsoft has been talking about for a few months. In this post, I’ll summarize some of what you can find, but also share some disappointments I had after spending some time picking apart v1.7.0. A new @SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator has been published by @OfficeDev: 1.7.0 #SPFx @Office365 !

I’ve seen more and more questions since the folks at NPM added an automatic scan for vulnerabilities after every NPM install. What’s going on? The NPM registry runs a security audit on NPM packages. With the release of NPM v6, this command is run automatically when you execute an npm install on your project. You can manually run one of these audits by executing the command npm audit (ref: npm-audit docs).

This month’s update on my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course features the transition from one sprint to the next. Sprint 12 Complete I published the final pieces of Sprint 12 this week. This includes a new chapter in the Ultimate Bundle, new lessons in two Fundamentals Bundle chapters and a bunch of fixes! Want to get the details? Join me on Facebook Live for a sprint release party tomorrow, Thursday, November 1 at 1pm ET to see what’s in sprint 12 & get a sneak peek to what is planned for sprint 13, Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals & more!

This month’s update on my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course features the transition from one sprint to the next. Sprint 11 Complete Earlier this week, I published the final pieces of Sprint 11. Two new chapters, the first chapters in the Ultimate Bundle! I also hosted the first Facebook Live sprint release party this week… if you missed it, you can get access to the recording here: Voitanos @ Facebook Live

In my last post, I talked about using Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework projects. That post showed how to do this using a single SharePoint Framework Project. In this post, I show you a much better option that uses two projects.

In my last post, I talked about using Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework projects. When doing this, you have two options on how you will implement this and in this post, I will talk about doing it in one big project that includes everything. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll show you a much better option that uses two projects.

In this post, learn what’s new with our flagship course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework, in Sprint 10, and what’s coming in Sprint 11!

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts. Vincent Biret Hi, my name is Vincent. I’m based in Montreal, Canada. I work for 2toLead as an Office 365 and Azure developer.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts. Paolo Pialorsi I’m Paolo Pialorsi, I live in Italy. I’m a senior consultant. I work in a company of my own called PiaSys.

This is one installment in our series “In Own Words” by Voitanos asking experienced SharePoint developers to share their thoughts on the new development model for SharePoint - the SharePoint Framework. In this series, we ask each person a series of questions and let them share their thoughts. Elio Struyf Hi, I am Elio Struyf. I’m from Belgium. I am working as a trainer for U2U and I’m also an Office Server and Services MVP.

In the past, I’ve written how I prefer Yarn over NPM not just for SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects, but also for all my Node.js based projects that leverage the NPM package registry: https://www.npmjs.org. I wrote that post in December 2016 and things have changed quite a bit since then. Last week Microsoft [released SPFx v1.5.0 & the associated Yeoman generator](/blog/sharepoint-framework-generator-updated-to-v1-5-0-inspecting-the-changes.md" >}} that added support for changing the package manager the generator ran after creating the project scaffolding.