January 21st Hack Productivity Office Hours Recap

 

I’m developing an Outlook Add-In and I need more than 1 user account to test it (at the very least 2), since there is a limitation in the Office 365 dev and Outlook Developer Preview accounts with regards to the number of email accounts that you can create (not to forget to mention that our addins will not work in the general public domain of @hotmail or @live.com accounts),  Is there an alternative way for us to create more than one Outlook account so we may be able to test if our calls to the Contact, User or People APIs?

We do offer 30-day trials that give you 25 users: aka.ms/geto365. You could get another 30 day trial after that one ends. Or if you’re a MSFT partner you can get a 90-day trial. You can do that here if you’re a partner: https://www.microsoftofficedemos.com

 

Office add-ins can be installed within Office 365 accounts but also Live accounts (personal), and for Outlook add-ins with Exchange 2013+ mailboxes. What is your position regarding add-ins that need authentication with other Microsoft services?

For example, if we want to access OneDrive API (that supports both One Drive for Business and personal One Drive). The app must be registered for OAUTH. Should we register our app on Azure AD or in the Microsoft Account Developer Center or in SellerDashboard? It seems that there are many ways to register apps. What is the recommended approach for registering your app for OAUTH? What if the OAUTH scopes were granted during the add-in install maybe we could avoid another OAUTH flow for the app (with all the known problems related to sandboxed iframe). Maybe Azure AD would be a better way to integrate all Microsoft services?

We have 3 authentication options for building things that call into different OAPIs: consumer only APIs (outlook, one drive, one note), organizational applications (O365 - those are registered through Azure management portal or dev.office.com), organization + consumer APIs together (for that we have a new site - apps.dev.microsoft.com).

If you’re building for O365 you really should register in the Azure management portal. You’ll see the most API options there. There is a registration page in Dev.Office.com for those without Azure accounts. It’s a scaled down registration page, less flexibility in how to define that application using that page.

 

Is it possible to create outlook tasks using Graph tasks API? Is it possible to set reminder for new task being created using the API? Is it possible to set reminder for task existing in outlook using the above mentioned API?

No, you can’t manage tasks using the REST APIs. However, you can use the Office 365 exchange web services there are services to create, update, delete and manage tasks. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/dd877302(v=exchg.150).aspx

 

Can I use GraphApi for O365 plugin instead O365 api? if Yes, link pl. ( I only see O365 example for plugin)

Yes, you can use either, http://dev.office.com/getting-started/office365apis

 

Is there a way to get calendar weather data by calling office api , and can you call the calendar resources independent of outlook ?

No, there is not. That data is not provided by the API.

 

Does my plugin work on 'Hotmail' or is Graph restricted to Business?

Looking at this hackathon I’d encourage you to look at just consumer or just organizations, not both. Just because I think you’re going to run into challenges finding an account that works. If you have longer term aspirations for your hackathon submission, we can work with you post-hackathon to get that going. We’ll be going to that V2 app model. Think about the scope of what you’re working towards. If you’re looking just for functioning for the hackathon look at the Azure Active Directory.

For Office 365: Azure Management Portal http://portal.azure.com
For Office 365 AND Consumer https://apps.dev.microsoft.com

 

Registering through azure AD: I have access to azure portal. How are the endpoints actually used? The resource endpoints are different from what is provided there.

Please refer to: https://graphexplorer2.azurewebsites.net

 

Additional Resource Links

Connecting to O365 from an office add-in: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/richard_dizeregas_blog/archive/2015/08/10/connecting-to-office-365-from-an-office-add-in.aspx

Youtube video that shows how to do easy authorization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDlsfCwvwvo

Incorporating 3rd party services with OAuth 2.0: Office add-ins can be used in most versions of Office, including native applications and online versions across multiple platforms. This sample shows how to incorporate 3rd party services that are compliant with the OAuth 2.0 specification by using server-side technologies to pass the tokens back to the add-in: https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-Add-in-Nodejs-ServerAuth

Resources for EWS and Calendaring questions: Using Azure AD is a better option, because if a feature is broken or is missing on the APIs you can give it a try with EWS (same token authorize) or the GRAPH API. Check out our information on Exchange Web Services: