Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online Cookbook E-Book

Gaurav Mahajan

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 637

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Microsoft 365 offers tools for content management, communication, process automation, and report creation. Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online Cookbook maximizes workplace collaboration and productivity using SharePoint Online, Teams, OneDrive, Delve, M365 Search, Copilot, Power Platform, Viva, Planner, and Microsoft Forms.
You will find thoroughly updated recipes for SharePoint Online, covering sites, lists, libraries, pages, web parts, and learn SharePoint Framework (SPFx) basics for building solutions. You will explore many Microsoft Teams recipes to prepare it to be your organization’s central collaboration hub. You will be able to unlock Power Platform potential with recipes for Power Apps to enable low-code/no-code app development and learn to automate tasks with Power Automate and Power Automate Desktop. The book teaches you data visualization with Power BI, and chatbot creation with Power Virtual Agents (Copilot Studio). Finally, you will also learn about the cutting-edge Copilot and Gen AI functionality in Microsoft 365 and Power Platform. By the end, you will be equipped with skills to effectively use Microsoft 365, SharePoint Online, and the Power Platform.
Whether it's enhancing career prospects or improving business operations, this book is a perfect companion on your journey through the Microsoft Office 365 suite.

Leseprobe

Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online Cookbook

Second Edition

A complete guide to Microsoft Office 365 apps including SharePoint, Power Platform, Copilot and more

Gaurav Mahajan

Sudeep Ghatak

Nate Chamberlain

Scott Brewster

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online Cookbook

Second Edition

Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Senior Publishing Product Manager: Pradeep Sharma

Acquisition Editor – Peer Reviews: Gaurav Gavas

Project Editor: Amisha Vathare

Content Development Editor: Matthew Davies

Copy Editor: Safis Editing

Technical Editor: Karan Sonawane

Proofreader: Safis Editing

Indexer: Manju Arasan

Presentation Designer: Ganesh Bhadwalkar

Developer Relations Marketing Executive: Sohini Ghosh

First published: June 2020 Second edition: February 2024

Production reference: 2070425

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Grosvenor House

11 St Paul’s Square

Birmingham

B3 1RB, UK.

ISBN: 978-1-80324-317-7

www.packt.com

Foreword

This book is a “recipes to success” publication. If you are looking for practical guidance on Microsoft 365, you have picked the right book with the right authors. Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Teams, Viva, Power Platform, and more give you the ingredients; this 2nd edition provides over 100 recipes to mix and blend with confidence. Whether you are a beginner or an expert, you will find something useful and interesting on your way to becoming a top Microsoft 365 chef. Now you’re cookin’!

The authors are all Microsoft experts with years of real-world experience designing and building Microsoft 365-based solutions (big and small) – and they’re gracious enough to point out all the gotchas. Each recipe ensures it is easy to follow and navigates toward photo-worthy results. You will learn how to configure, customize, automate, and integrate Microsoft 365 workloads to enhance your productivity and collaboration. Plus, you'll get tips and tricks along the way.

So, grab your apron and get ready to explore the delicious possibilities of Microsoft 365. Bon appétit! Chefs Gaurav, Sudeep, Nate, and Scott await.

Mark Kashman, Senior Product Manager - Microsoft

Contributors

About the authors

Gaurav Mahajan is a seasoned technical leader with over two decades of spearheading and delivering Microsoft solutions. As a M365 and Power Platform practice lead in Washington DC, he provides innovative solutions by collaborating with clients across industries. He holds a bachelor’s in engineering, Stanford certification in AI, and a PG in management from the coveted IIMs. Gaurav contributes to the tech community through speaking engagements, and his blog gauravmahajan.net. He also co-chaired the M365 & SharePoint Saturday conference in Pittsburgh.

Sudeep Ghatak is a Microsoft MVP in Business Applications and a frequent contributor to the Power Automate Community forum. He works as a principal architect in Christchurch, New Zealand and loves designing solutions based on Office 365 and the Azure platform. He is a certified Solutions Developer (MCSD) and holds a postgraduate degree in instrumentation engineering. He is an active member of the Microsoft community and is often seen speaking at user groups and conferences in New Zealand.

Nate Chamberlain is a technical content creator, solution architect, and trainer, recognized as a 5-year Microsoft MVP. With a background in business analysis and systems administration, Nate has authored seven books and manages his blog, NateChamberlain.com. He holds an array of certifications, including M365 Enterprise Administrator Expert and Microsoft Power Platform App Maker Associate, and is a frequent speaker at user groups and conferences.

Scott Brewster is a Microsoft 365 solutions architect. He has supported numerous government clients focusing on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 since 2008. His focus is on security, administration, migration, governance, and training. Scott has been speaking at conferences and user groups since 2010 and runs the SharePoint User Group of DC.

About the reviewers

Yves Habersaat is a Microsoft MVP (MostValuableProfessional) and MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer) with expertise in Microsoft cloud technologies. Yves works for Sword Group in Switzerland, a global leader in technology transformation and a Microsoft Gold Partner, as a business applications consultant. As a consultant, he assists his clients with on-premises migration, deployment, governance, modern software development, low-code/no-code development, and change management.

Yves is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience with the wider Microsoft community, by participating in many sessions as a speaker and posting regularly on his blog.

Learn more on Discord

To join the Discord community for this book – where you can share feedback, ask questions to the author, and learn about new releases – follow the QR code below:

https://packt.link/powerusers

Contents

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Sections

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more…

See also

Get in touch

Overview of Microsoft 365

Getting the most out of this book – get to know your free benefits

The infrastructure business is changing!

The evolution of Microsoft 365

What is Microsoft 365?

Licensing

Microsoft 365 apps

Signing in to Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 user interface

Page header – the suite bar

Settings icon

Page content

Microsoft 365 admin interface

Microsoft 365 admin roles

Let’s get started!

Introduction to SharePoint Online

Getting to the SharePoint start page

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating a modern site

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Types of modern sites

Site creation next steps

There’s more...

Site versus site collection

Modern versus classic experience

Reusing a site as a template

See also

Viewing site contents

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating a list

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Deleting a list

See also

Adding an item to a list

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Viewing and editing items

Deleting an item

Other actions

See also

Creating a document library

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Uploading documents to a library

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Uploading a folder

There’s more...

Document actions

See also

Deleting and restoring a file

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Emptying the recycle bin

File deletion in OneDrive

Restoring a library

Deleting library columns

Deleting previous file versions

See also

Sharing a document

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Types of links

There’s more...

Copy link

See also

Searching content

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Modern Sites in SharePoint Online

Changing the look

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Adding a page

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

Entering basic page information

Publishing a page

The Site Pages library

There’s more…

Components of a SharePoint page

Content approval

News posts and news links

Deleting a page

See also

Adding a web part

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Audience targeting

Adding an app

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Types of apps

Removing an app from your site

See also

Modifying the top navigation

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Cascading menus and mega menus

See also...

Modifying the left navigation

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more…

Hiding Quick Launch or changing orientation

See also...

Viewing and changing site settings

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Determining and revoking permissions for a site

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Site permissions

Permission levels

Permission inheritance

Permission groups in SharePoint

Site collection administrator

There’s more...

See also...

Creating a subsite

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also...

Lists and Libraries in SharePoint Online

Creating a list from an existing Excel file

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Creating a list from a template

Creating a list from an existing list

Saving a list as a template

Exporting a list using site scripts

Exporting a list using PnP

Exporting a list using list settings

See also

Adding a column

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Editing or deleting a column

Other column settings

Column formatting

List form customization

Site columns

See also

Creating a custom list view

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Microsoft Teams document library views

The Items that need attention view

Bulk-editing properties

Exporting to CSV or Excel

Advanced view formatting

In-place view filtering, sorting, and grouping

Filters pane

Working with large lists and libraries

Using Edit in grid view to bulk-edit list items

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Viewing and changing list settings

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Modern versus classic list and library experience

See also

Viewing and changing list permissions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Item permissions

Navigation and search visibility

See also

Adding alerts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Notification emails

Finding and deleting other users’ alerts

See also

Document Management in SharePoint Online

Creating a new document

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Governance and information architecture

See also

Associating a document template

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works…

See also

Viewing and editing documents in the browser

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Editing and Viewing modes

Co-authoring documents in the browser

See also

Viewing and editing documents in the client

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

The Open in Desktop App option

There’s more...

AutoSave in the client app

Co-authoring documents in the client app

Document metadata

See also

Downloading documents

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Moving and copying documents

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Viewing and changing document library settings

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Versioning settings, content approval, and document checkout

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Other versioning settings

There’s more...

Checkout process for documents that open in the client

Co-authoring and versioning settings

See also

OneDrive

Uploading a file to OneDrive

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

File and folder operations

There’s more...

OneDrive home page

See also

Syncing files and folders

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

OneDrive app settings

There’s more…

Add a shortcut to OneDrive

Files On-Demand

Sync issues

Sharing a file

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Links granting access

Requesting files

See also

Microsoft Teams

Installing Teams

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Teams top panel

There’s more...

See also

Creating a new team

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Microsoft Teams templates

See also

Adding a member

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Joining a team

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more..

See also

Leaving a team

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Deleting a team

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating channels and tabs

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Showing or hiding teams and channels

Managing notifications

See also

Initiating conversations via posts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

See also

Scheduling a meeting

Getting ready

How to do it...

Scheduled meetings

Meet in a channel

Meet now

Live events

How it works...

Live captions

Custom backgrounds

Avatars

There’s more...

See also

Sharing files

Getting ready

How to do it...

Sharing files via the Upload button

Sharing files via conversations

Sharing files via SharePoint

How it works...

See also

Searching within Teams

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Searching for messages and conversations within teams

Searching for people in your Microsoft 365 tenant

Searching for files within Teams and other Microsoft 365 locations

See also

Adding a connector

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

See also

Using approvals in Teams

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Create a channel calendar tab

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works

There’s more...

See also

Creating custom registration forms for Teams meetings

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Using breakout rooms in Teams meetings

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Power Automate (Microsoft Flow)

Technical requirements

Introducing flows

Flow landing page

Creating a flow using a template

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Flow components

Flow history

Flow properties

There’s more…

See also

Editing a flow

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Testing a flow

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Exporting a flow

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Importing a flow

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Adding owners to a flow

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Sharing your flow

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

Connections

Instant/manual flows

There’s more…

See also

Creating a solution

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating a flow in a SharePoint library

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Creating a business process flow

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Copilot in Power Automate

Getting ready

How to do it

How it works

See also

Creating Power Apps

Creating a template-based app

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Power Apps Studio

Formulas

Saving and publishing

Versioning

See also

Connecting to data sources

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more…

See also

Adding screens

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more…

See also

Creating a canvas app from a blank template

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Power Apps events

Variables

Functions

Power Apps and AI

See also

Creating Power Apps from a SharePoint list/library

Getting ready

How to do it...

Customize forms

Create an app

How it works...

There’s more...

See also

Creating a Power Pages website using Power Apps

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Creating a model-driven app

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Custom pages and the modern app designer

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Applying Power Apps

Sharing a Power App

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Embedding a Power App in Teams

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Embedding a Power App on a SharePoint page

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Creating a Power App using Dataverse for Teams

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Exporting a Power App

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Importing a Power App

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

See also

Copilot

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works…

Creating tables and columns

Adding controls to a form

Writing formulas

Power BI

Technical requirements

Retrieving data

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works...

See also

Transforming data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Modeling data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

Calculated columns

Measures

See also

Visualizing data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There’s more...

See also

Sharing a report, dashboard, or dataset

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Create a dashboard

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more…

See also

Embed a Power BI report on a SharePoint page

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There’s more...

See also

Power BI and AI

Microsoft Fabric

References

Overview of Copilot in Microsoft 365 and Power Platform

Introducing AI

What is generative AI?

Prompt engineering and how we wrote this chapter

What is OpenAI?

Copilot in Microsoft 365

Technical requirements

Conversational AI chatbots

ChatGPT

Microsoft Copilot

Copilot with commercial data protection

Copilot for Microsoft 365

Copilot in Windows

Differences between the various AI chatbots

Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps

Copilot in Word

Copilot in Excel

Copilot in PowerPoint

Copilot in Outlook

Copilot in Teams

Copilot in Microsoft Loop

Copilot in Microsoft Whiteboard

Copilot in Microsoft OneNote

Copilot in Microsoft Stream

Copilot in Microsoft SharePoint

Copilot in Microsoft OneDrive

Copilot in Microsoft Viva

Copilot in Power Platform

Copilot in Power Apps

Copilot in Power Automate

Copilot in Power Virtual Agents (Copilot Studio)

Copilot in Power BI

Copilot in Power Pages

Data privacy and security

The future of Copilot

Summary

FAQs

Unlock Your Book’s Exclusive Benefits

How to unlock these benefits in three easy steps

Need help?

Other Books You May Enjoy

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Index

Preface

We have been working on SharePoint and related technologies since 2007, when Microsoft 365 wasn’t around, and we have seen it go through several transformations since then. One of the questions we have often been asked as consultants is “What is SharePoint?” We have, at times, struggled to answer that question because, unlike some other Microsoft products that focus on solving one problem, SharePoint is a platform that can be leveraged to help implement a multitude of business solutions.

The question is even harder to respond to when someone asks “What is Microsoft 365?” because it is even bigger than SharePoint. With this book, our goal is to answer those questions by providing practical guidance on and insights into how to carry out various tasks in all the different areas of Microsoft 365. While we have provided the necessary background and best practices where possible, we have deliberately stayed away from getting too technical to keep the recipes simple for those who are new to Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 is an ever-changing platform with frequent updates being made to it. As you can imagine, it is hard to write a book on such a rapidly changing platform. We have tried to keep the book as close to the latest updates as we can. However, you should expect to see some variations in the steps and images provided in this book. Having said that, the underlying concepts that guide these steps should remain the same.

This comprehensive guide encompasses all major applications within the Microsoft 365 suite, along with an exploration of Copilot, with the aim of providing you with a head start in adapting to Microsoft’s adoption of AI features on its platform. To achieve expert status, however, you will require additional study and lots and lots of hands-on practice.

Who this book is for

While writing this book, we had multiple audiences in mind.

On the one hand, we want to help end users become familiar with the many Microsoft 365 services. If you use these services in your business, you’ll learn the basic controls as well as some tips and tricks to boost your productivity.

On the other, more administrative, hand, we also wrote recipes with more technical concepts in mind. If you’re an IT administrator who wants to understand Microsoft 365 governance, or a business stakeholder or architect wanting to understand the tools of the trade for handling business workflows, there’s a lot for you to learn.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Overview of Microsoft 365, summarizes the products available in the Microsoft 365 suite, what they are used for, and the general licensing information you should know about. You’ll learn how to sign in to Microsoft 365 and get to know its user interface.

Chapter 2, Introduction to SharePoint Online, provides recipes for the basic operations when using SharePoint, such as creating and sharing documents. This is useful for anyone who needs guidance on the essentials of using SharePoint.

Chapter 3, Modern Sites in SharePoint Online, explores content management using modern sites. You’ll get to know the modern site architecture and features available in SharePoint Online for creating and managing modern sites.

Chapter 4, Lists and Libraries in SharePoint Online, covers the creation and management of lists and libraries in SharePoint Online. These are fundamental components for organizing and storing information.

Chapter 5, Document Management in SharePoint Online, focuses on document management capabilities in SharePoint Online, including versioning, metadata, and document collaboration features.

Chapter 6, OneDrive, discusses the features and functionality of OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage solution integrated with Microsoft 365. You’ll learn the basics of uploading, syncing, and sharing files.

Chapter 7, Microsoft Teams, explores Microsoft Teams, a collaboration platform that combines workplace chat, meetings, file storage, and application integration. The recipes in this chapter increase in complexity, so you can choose to learn basic controls or more complex topics such as adding connectors, using breakout rooms, and creating registration forms.

Chapter 8, Power Automate (Microsoft Flow), introduces Power Automate, Microsoft’s workflow automation tool for creating automated workflows across various applications and services. After creating a workflow, you’ll learn how to edit and test the flow before following recipes for exporting, importing, and sharing it.

Chapter 9, Creating Power Apps, guides users through the process of creating custom business applications using Power Apps, Microsoft’s low-code application development platform. You’ll learn how to create an app based on a template, connect to data sources, and add interactive screens to your app.

Chapter 10, Applying Power Apps, demonstrates how to deploy and integrate apps within your organization. You’ll learn how to embed an app in Teams and on a SharePoint page, as well as how to export and import your apps.

Chapter 11, Power BI, provides an overview of Power BI, Microsoft’s business analytics tool, for creating interactive reports and visualizations from data sources. While visualizing data is the end goal of Power BI, you’ll also learn important steps for transforming and modeling data.

Chapter 12, Overview of Copilot in Microsoft 365 and Power Platform, introduces Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant, and explores its integration within Microsoft 365 and Power Platform. We’ll take a bite-sized tour of Copilot in all the most popular software and what you can do with it.

Please note that the following chapters are only available in the free eBook that supplements this book: https://packt.link/online-sup-book

Chapter 13, Term Store and Content Types in SharePoint Online, discusses the management of metadata and content types using the Term Store in SharePoint Online for improving content organization and search.

Chapter 14, Search in Microsoft 365, explores the search capabilities within Microsoft 365, including Microsoft Search and its integration across various applications.

Chapter 15, Microsoft Delve, provides an overview of Microsoft Delve, a personal search and discovery tool, for surfacing relevant content and connections within organizations.

Chapter 16, Microsoft 365 Groups, explores Microsoft 365 Groups, collaborative workspaces that integrate with various Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams.

Chapter 17, Power Automate Desktop for RPA, introduces Power Automate Desktop, Microsoft’s robotic process automation (RPA) tool, for automating repetitive tasks across desktop applications.

Chapter 18, Copilot Studio (Power Virtual Agents), introduces Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft’s no-code chatbot development platform, a predecessor to Copilot Studio used for creating intelligent virtual agents to engage with users.

Chapter 19, Viva Insights, overviews the functionality of the Viva Insights app, including features for organizing your work calendar. As we’ll see, this is a “nice to have” application that aims to improve your work-life balance rather than performing staple tasks for your organization.

Chapter 20, Viva Learning, helps you get comfortable with Microsoft’s app for training and growing your skills, Viva Learning. You’ll learn what Viva Learning is, how to take courses on the app, review your learning activity, and suggest courses for your team.

Chapter 21, Viva Engage, prepares you to use Viva Engage, Microsoft’s enterprise social networking platform. You’ll find recipes for the basic functionalities of creating and joining Viva Engage communities, using the home feed, following people, and posting messages. In case you need some more administrative knowledge of Viva Engage, you’ll learn how to create a network and invite external members to your network.

Chapter 22, Planner, provides an overview of Microsoft Planner, a task management tool, for organizing and tracking work within teams and projects.

Chapter 23, Microsoft To Do, explores Microsoft To Do, a task management app, for organizing tasks and managing to-do lists across devices.

Chapter 24, Microsoft Forms, teaches you the basic features when using Microsoft Forms. As you’ll learn in the chapter, Forms is an easy solution for creating forms and quizzes. You’ll learn the differences between the two formats and what features are available in each.

Chapter 25, Custom Development – SharePoint Framework, is a more advanced chapter that discusses custom development using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) for building solutions and extensions on the SharePoint platform. This is the only chapter that will require a beginner-level knowledge of JavaScript.

Chapter 26, Microsoft 365 on Mobile Devices, explores the features and capabilities of Microsoft 365 applications on mobile devices, enabling productivity on the go.

Note that the Appendix is part of the supplementary eBook. It covers niche Microsoft technologies that may be “nice to have” additions to your workspace, such as Microsoft Bookings and Microsoft Loop.

To get the most out of this book

All you need is access to and licenses for the various apps and workloads in Microsoft 365, as well as the right administrative permissions. We’ll cover the specific requirements before each recipe. If you already have access to your organization’s Microsoft 365 subscription but are still unable to work your way through a recipe, you may need to reach out to your IT department to grant you the appropriate licenses and/or access required to complete the steps in that recipe.

Alternatively, you can also sign up for a Microsoft 365 trial account here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/try. This will give you one month’s free access to a newly created Microsoft 365 environment. This option is recommended for organizations or users that want to try the service first. You will need to enter your billing information first, but you can cancel the subscription at any time.

Another option is to sign up for the developer program by visiting https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program. This will provide you access to a Microsoft 365 environment containing all the workloads and apps, with fictitious user accounts, along with a lot of dummy test content. This environment has a 90-day validity, after which it is deleted unless it is renewed. The developer program provides a great opportunity to learn about Microsoft 365 and its entire suite of apps.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://packt.link/GitHub-repo. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/gbp/9781803243177

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Scaffold a web part template by typing yo @microsoft/sharepoint and respond to the questions that are asked.”

A block of code is set as follows:

Syntax: Set(variable_name,value)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

npm install -g @microsoft/generator-sharepoint

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: “Click the Sync option in the header menu.”

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Sections

Like any cookbook, we’ve organized this book into a series of recipes that follow a regular structure. You will find several headings that appear frequently in the recipe format: Getting ready, How to do it..., How it works..., There’s more..., and See also.

To give clear instructions on how to complete a recipe, we’ve used these sections as follows.

Getting ready

This section tells you what to expect in the recipe and describes how to set up any software or any preliminary settings required for the recipe.

How to do it…

This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe. Don’t worry if you’ve got questions about some of the technical details; we’ll cover those in the next section.

How it works…

This section consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in the previous section. This helps to couple your practical skills with a deeper understanding.

There’s more…

This section consists of additional information, such as more advanced features for more niche situations.

See also

This section provides helpful links to other useful information for the recipe. This includes links to other resources as well as other relevant recipes elsewhere in this book.

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1

Overview of Microsoft 365

Microsoft is the reigning leader in business collaboration and productivity. Over 400,000 companies worldwide use Microsoft products and services. Over 100 million monthly active users use SharePoint. Microsoft is a leader in the provision of content services platforms that focuses on the following key areas:

Content management: A content management system (CMS) (also sometimes known as enterprise content management, or ECM) lets you store, manage, and optionally share an organization’s content, which includes documents and/or web pages. Microsoft’s first true CMS came with Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, a product that later came to be known as SharePoint, which soon became a widely popular document and content management platform. While SharePoint serves as the document management solution for a team, OneDrive is meant to host and manage employees’ personal files.Collaboration: Collaboration is the exchange of information and ideas between collaborators within or even outside an organization. More recent advancements in technology allow for those collaborating to be located across different geographical locations and still be able to effectively work together as if they were collocated. SharePoint and Teams, coupled with your ever-favorite Office apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and so on, are a few of the Microsoft solutions that exist to help boost business collaboration.Communication: Communication is vital to every business. It reflects the culture of an organization and helps align the goals of individuals within an organization toward a common objective. To effectively communicate with employees, organizations should offer multiple channels for both formal and informal communication. Besides communicating the organization’s vision and goals, these channels can be used to update their employees on news, events, and policies to prepare them for a crucial situation, ensure safety, or effectively listen to the opinions and ideas of other employees. Microsoft has several apps that offer communication channels for different engagement levels, such as the following:Outlook: For formal communicationTeams: For instant communicationEngage: For communication between interest groupsProcess automation: Business process automation is the use of technology to execute repeatable tasks or processes. It helps accelerate and standardize business processes, thereby improving the quality of the outcome while reducing costs at the same time. You can streamline both simple and complex processes, such as employee onboarding, accounts payable, contract management, time management, and more. Microsoft provides the following selection of apps, grouped under the Power Platform umbrella, to help you build business process automation apps. Power Platform lets experts in the subject build no-code business solutions using the following:Power Apps: To build online formsPower Automate: To automate repetitive processesPower BI: To analyze and visualize dataPower Virtual Agents: To build chatbotsProductivity: Besides the applications mentioned previously, there are several other applications that target specific use cases, which can be broadly divided into the following categories:Office Online: Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to author and share contentProject and task management: Using To Do to manage personal tasks, Planner to manage simple project tasks, and Project Online for more complex scenariosDigital forms: Using Power Apps and Forms to build forms and surveysVideo streaming: Using Stream to upload and manage videosCopilot: Microsoft Copilot is the new transformative AI-driven tool that leverages the power of machine learning and natural language processing to optimize productivity, inspire creativity, and elevate collaboration within the Microsoft ecosystem. It simplifies tasks, offers intelligent suggestions, automates repetitive processes, and goes beyond being a mere tool. Designed for Microsoft products like Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Fabric, Sales, Service, and GitHub, Copilot empowers users in various domains.

All these products and services are now integrated and offered as a unified service called Microsoft 365 (earlier known as Microsoft Office 365 or Office 365). With Microsoft 365, Microsoft has designed a subscription model that allows organizations to provide these services to their employees. It comes with different plans tailored equally well for large, medium, and small companies.

In this chapter, we will first take a closer look at the infrastructure and evolution of Microsoft services. Then it will make sense to see the different plans and licensing models available to us. Once you’re aware of the licensing, we can learn a bit more about the apps and interfaces of Microsoft 365. Finally, at the end of this chapter, we will be ready to encounter the many recipes found in this cookbook.

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The infrastructure business is changing!

In today’s digital landscape, the landscape of business operations and data management has undergone a significant transformation. The days of maintaining in-house data centers with their labyrinthine server rooms, brimming with hardware and requiring constant vigilance, have given way to a more efficient and cost-effective solution: cloud computing.

Traditionally, businesses established these data centers to safeguard their most critical and sensitive information. These centers needed to be fortified with both physical and virtual security measures, making them formidable fortresses against potential threats. Along with security, significant ongoing costs came into play, including server licenses, hardware expenses, the substantial power needed to keep servers running, and the consistent maintenance of the facility itself. As a safeguard, many companies also invested in disaster recovery centers to ensure business continuity in case the primary data center failed.

While the concept of having a private data center, offering full control, might seem appealing, the practicality of maintaining such an infrastructure has proven to be increasingly challenging. Cybersecurity threats loom large, and protecting applications and data from potential attacks demands a level of expertise and resources that many organizations find hard to maintain.

From a financial perspective, it’s not cost-effective to keep servers running continuously, especially during periods of low application usage, such as local holiday seasons. Moreover, the burden of maintaining these servers 24/7, including applying patches, installing updates, and ensuring smooth operation, necessitates dedicated staff.

This is where cloud computing and hosting solutions have come to the rescue. The cloud offers scalable and flexible resources, reducing the need for heavy capital investment in hardware and security infrastructure. It allows businesses to pay for what they use, making it cost-effective, and cloud providers take care of the bulk of maintenance, updates, and security. Businesses can now focus on innovation, agility, and their core operations, leaving the technical intricacies to the cloud experts. The transition from traditional data centers to cloud computing has been a game-changer for companies of all sizes, offering a more secure, efficient, and cost-effective approach to data management and IT infrastructure. The term cloud refers to the infrastructure and/or services that are hosted and maintained by a provider and that can be accessed over the internet. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are some of the well-known cloud providers, but there are certainly many more that provide various cloud services. There are primarily three service models that cloud providers offer:

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS): In this model, instead of purchasing and maintaining their own computing hardware, organizations borrow the necessary infrastructure from one or more service providers by paying a fee. They then install and maintain the required software on this infrastructure.Platform-as-a-service (PaaS): In this model, in addition to the infrastructure, the service provider also provides the operating system and development tools required to build applications.Software-as-a-service (SaaS): In this model, the applications are provided by the service provider. These applications can be accessed over the internet. The responsibility of upgrading the software and fixing the bugs lies with the service provider.

The evolution of Microsoft 365

The journey of Microsoft’s productivity suite started in the 80s when it was first introduced by Bill Gates as Microsoft Office, with three applications: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Since then, Office applications have captured the corporate world and home users alike. Anyone who has ever used a PC has had some experience with Microsoft Office at some point. It is hard to imagine a world without Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These applications have transformed the world since the day they were launched.

While one team in Microsoft was busy improving the already popular Office suite of applications, another team was busy shaping an enterprise-scale collaboration and content management platform called SharePoint. This platform offers online document storage and enables collaboration between teams. In addition, and since its days of inception, SharePoint has been built to be a highly extensible and customizable platform that allows developers and non-developers alike to extend its capabilities by building business solutions on top of it.

SharePoint was initially released as a standalone application for installation on a server (there are several companies that still use it on-premises) before becoming available on the cloud as SharePoint Online and as a member of the Microsoft 365 family.

Advancements in SharePoint have given birth to other technologies and tools that have now evolved into fully featured products themselves. The following are just some of those products:

OneDrive: Older versions of SharePoint included a service called My Sites. My Sites were personal sites for every SharePoint user, a place where they could store their personal files. My Sites have now been replaced by OneDrive.Microsoft Teams: Teams has been through several pit stops before becoming Microsoft 365’s default communication tool. In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype, a free piece of software that enables you to make VOIP calls and host video conferencing. After the acquisition of Skype, Microsoft replaced the business communication tool named Lync with a corporate version of Skype, called Skype for Business. Skype for Business has now been deprecated and replaced by Microsoft Teams.Power Automate: SharePoint as a platform had a workflow solution referred to as SharePoint workflows. The workflows were designed using a free tool called SharePoint Designer. Although SharePoint workflows were powerful, managing them was hard because of the lack of a visual tool. SharePoint workflows got deprecated with the advent of Power Automate, which had a nice web-based visual designer that was so easy to use that even non-developers could build workflow solutions themselves.Power Apps: Microsoft InfoPath was a popular tool for designing, editing, and distributing electronic forms. InfoPath forms could be connected to a variety of data sources and were often used along with SharePoint to extend the capabilities of SharePoint list forms. InfoPath has since been deprecated and replaced with a web-based forms designer known as Power Apps. Again, with this move, Microsoft has tried to make designing forms easier for non-developers. Going beyond forms, with the help of Power Apps you can build custom business apps that connect to your business data and run seamlessly in the browser or on mobile devices (phone or tablet).Power BI: In 2006, Microsoft acquired ProClarity and launched PerformancePoint as a business intelligence solution. It was discontinued in 2009 and paved the way for Power BI.Microsoft Viva: Microsoft Viva is the most recent addition to the Microsoft 365 family, with a growing set of features. It is a platform that combines modules for communication, learning, resources, and insights. For example, Viva Topics is used for making knowledge and expertise in an organization available via Teams and SharePoint. Viva Connections enables you to create personalized dashboards for your staff. Viva Learning lets you build a training hub that brings content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and other third-party content providers.

Yet another module is Viva Insights, which focuses on your productivity by providing personalized insights about your emails, meeting schedules, calls, and chats. To learn more about Viva, check out two of the eBook chapters: Chapter 19, Viva Insights, and Chapter 20, Viva Learning.

Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft Copilot a new entry in Microsoft 365 space, revolutionizes productivity by integrating AI into everyday tasks within Microsoft 365 apps. Leveraging advanced Large Language Models (LLMs), Copilot understands user input across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, enhancing specificity through grounding techniques. By accessing content from the Microsoft Graph, Copilot delivers context-aware responses and insights. Eligible for enterprise, business, and education customers with specific licensing requirements, Copilot streamlines workflows, boosts productivity, and enables users to harness the power of AI within the Microsoft ecosystem for enhanced efficiency and innovation.

If you flick to the last pages, you won’t find any chapters on Viva. That’s because these chapters are part of the online eBook that comes with this book! Going ahead, any references to chapters numbered 13 or higher are referring to the eBook.

Over the years, Microsoft has made other strategic acquisitions, such as Yammer and Mover, to consolidate its Microsoft 365 offering. They were soon joined by other online services, such as Stream, Planner, Sway, To Do, and so on.

Hopefully, that provides you with some context on how Microsoft 365 evolved. The next section explains why Microsoft 365 is right for any organization.

What is Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is a SaaS and PaaS offering by Microsoft. It is a collection of several products, services, and platforms, each tailored for a specific use case. Microsoft 365 applications can be accessed online at www.office.com. In addition to online applications, it also lets you download the license-based client version of certain applications, such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), OneDrive, Teams, and so on.

Moving to Microsoft 365 provides you with the following benefits:

One subscription service for everything: Microsoft 365 provides you with an ecosystem of applications. Every application is designed to cater to a specific use case. You get applications that let you build electronic forms and business process automation, create insights into your business data, and so on. This saves you from buying multiple point solutions for every use case.No installation required: All Microsoft 365 apps are accessible through a web browser, including the ones that have a web and client version. Client versions are available for some applications, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Power BI, and so on. Although the web versions provide limited features compared to the desktop version, they are catching up with their client counterparts pretty rapidly.Choose your own device: Microsoft 365 runs on PC, Mac, and Linux machines. It is compatible with all major browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari 10+. More information on operating system and browser compatibility can be found at https://packt.link/browser-compatibility.Mobile friendly: All Microsoft 365 services are responsive (meaning that they adjust to the viewing area of the device) when viewed on mobile browsers. Most of these services also have a mobile app that lets you leverage native mobile features (such as camera and GPS). To read about the mobile compatibility of the various Microsoft 365 apps, visit https://packt.link/mobile-compatibility.Always get the latest features: Microsoft 365 is continuously being updated with new features and capabilities. Users do not have to worry about upgrades; they can experience improvements as soon as Microsoft updates are released to their organization’s tenant. Your organization can try new features before they are released to the general public by opting in for targeted release. Your IT administrator can designate a set of users to try out these new features before they get rolled out to the rest of the company. You can read more about the Standard and Targeted releases here: https://packt.link/first-release.High availability: Microsoft 365 offers 99.9% uptime. The information at https://packt.link/office-continuity shows uptime data across the world over the last three years. Microsoft notifies you at least five days before any scheduled maintenance job. You also receive notifications in case of unplanned outages. Administrators can check the status of Microsoft 365 services from the administration Service Health portal during partial outages.State-of-the-art security: One of the main reasons why companies are reluctant to move to the cloud is that they are not sure how secure their data is. Some of these security concerns are as follows:Who can access my data?: Your data belongs to you. There are well-laid policies and checks to ensure that no one can access your data without permission. There could be exceptional scenarios where the government or law enforcement agencies can request your data. To read more about this, refer to https://packt.link/data-access. Protect data from hackers: All Microsoft 365 data is stored in highly secured environments. However, to further secure your Microsoft 365 environment, Microsoft has laid out certain security guidelines (https://packt.link/security) that should be followed. These guidelines reduce the risks of hacking, if not eliminating them completely.Data ownership: Even though your data is saved on Microsoft infrastructure, they do not own your data. If you cancel your Microsoft 365 subscription, your data gets deleted from their servers after 90 days. During this time, you can renew your subscription or back up the data from Microsoft 365. You can read more about data ownership at https://packt.link/ownership.Compliance and information security: Microsoft 365 also provides features such as data loss prevention and device management that let you store your company’s data and information without the risk of information leakage. It offers additional capabilities surrounding data compliance and information security.

Since these are very highly specialized areas, focused on the administrative side of Microsoft 365, we have not covered the topics in this book. If you are an administrator and implementing Microsoft 365 for your organization, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with these areas. You can read more about Microsoft 365 compliance features here: https://packt.link/M365-compliance. You can read more about Microsoft 365 security features here: https://packt.link/M365-security.

Licensing

Adopting Office 365 offers many advantages, but at the same time, it takes a huge effort to find the right balance of cost and features for your organization.

Some licenses provide you with access to a bundle of services or apps while there are individual service plans for a specific app (like Power Apps, Power Automate, etc.).

Microsoft 365 has several subscription plans for the following entities:

Small and medium businesses: In this category, there are Basic, Standard, and Premium plans. The Basic plan offers Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) for online, mobile-only use, and grants 1 TB of storage per user. The Standard and Premium tiers include the corresponding desktop Office apps along with additional services.Schools: Microsoft offers plans to schools under the “Education” banner. The plans are A1, A2, and A3. A1 offers Office apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) for online and mobile-only use. The A2 plan additionally provides access to the corresponding desktop apps. Power BI is only available with the A3 plan.Non-profit organizations: This category includes a Basic and a Standard plan. The primary difference between the two plans is that the Standard plan lets you download Office apps for desktop whereas the Basic plan lets you access Office applications only on the web.Home users: For home users, Microsoft offers a one-time purchase or two subscription-based plans (family and individual) to choose from. The one-time purchase plan lets you use only three apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) on a single device. Family and individual plans offer additional apps.Enterprises: Enterprises can choose between the E3 and E5 plans. The E5 plan is the premium version that includes all Microsoft 365 apps and services.First-line workers: The first-line workers are the first ones to represent your organization. Microsoft 365 offers the F3 plan to help such workers stay productive. The F3 plan offers Office web and mobile apps, OneDrive, and a few other Microsoft 365 services.Standalone plans: Besides the plans mentioned above, some services are also available with standalone plans. These can even be included in plans that do not offer these services by default. The standalone plans are listed here: https://packt.link/standalone-plans.

You get access to a set of applications in Microsoft 365 based on the subscription plan assigned to you by your organization. To get access to other applications, you can either ask for your administrator to upgrade you to a higher plan or assign you a license for that specific application. We have mentioned the license requirements in the Getting started section of each recipe.

The Microsoft 365 plans get updated from time to time. You can check the plans by browsing to https://www.office.com/ and looking under the Productsmenu in the top navigation or referring to this page: https://packt.link/M365-plans.

Microsoft 365 apps

Microsoft 365 comprises the following key applications and services (in alphabetical order):

Calendar: This app lets you view your daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, book meetings, and share meetings and event times. It also lets you view your organization’s shared calendars and the calendars of your colleagues.Delve: This app uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to display information relevant to you based on what you work on and who you work with. The information is pulled from different applications within Microsoft 365, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. Delve is covered in the eBook in Chapter 15, Microsoft Delve.Dynamics 365: Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers customer relationship management and enterprise resource management services. It lets you build business applications for your organization. It comes with purpose-built data models that can then be customized as per your needs.Excel: Excel is one of the most popular programs that are used for organizing and manipulating data. It lets you connect to various databases and also visualize data using pivot charts and tables. With Microsoft 365, you can access your Excel spreadsheets in a web browser.Forms: Microsoft Forms lets you create surveys, team quizzes, and opinion polls by designing simple electronic forms using several input options. The responses received can then be analyzed individually or collectively within Forms or by exporting the responses in Excel. To learn more about Forms, check out Chapter 24, Microsoft Forms.Viva Insights: This app provides insights into your work habits by looking into your interactions with people. It also lets you mute notifications that might distract you and book time to focus on your daily calendar.OneDrive: OneDrive lets you save and share your files in one place. You can share these files securely with your colleagues, vendors, or partners. Your OneDrive files can be downloaded on any device and synchronized with the cloud to ensure that your work is never lost. You can find more details on OneDrive in Chapter 6, OneDrive.OneNote: OneNote is a note-taking app that can capture and organize your notes into notebooks, sections, or pages. It lets you take handwritten as well as audio notes. Outlook: Outlook lets you stay on top of your emails. It has features such as spam detection and auto-filter. It also has features such as attachment reminders, attendee tracking, and the ability to attach a document as a link (as opposed to a duplicate copy).People: People lets you maintain a list of your contacts. This includes internal staff, as well as all your friends, family, and acquaintances.Planner