All software development should be agile and code delivered through CI/CD. A bold statement but one thought by many people. Agile gives the engagement between all involved stakeholders from the developers through to the user and helps everyone understand what is wanted. CI/CD helps to ensure that you can make small changes with next to zero breakages or impact - note that I did say helps and not just ensures there. These simplifications of the full reality are generally accepted by teams but for mid to large organisations there is a bigger question - how do you budget for an agile project?

## How does budgeting usually work?

From experience, many organisations have a run the business pot and a change the business pot. The run side caters for keeping the organisation running with support teams and server costs for existing applications sitting there. For new projects, enhancements and new ideas, the budget comes from the change the business side. Apologies to any finance folks out there that I have over simplified the notion.

Many of the issues with budgeting comes as mid level managers have to make decisions about what is essential and work out how to expand what is considered to be run so that they can fit in projects considered to be important. Nice to have projects are then fought over in the change the business pots.

![Coins](018/12/coins.jpg)

## How are agile projects any different?

In some ways they are not. As long as you consider them run the business projects and accept that a certain level of enhancement to continue the application being effective is key. The problems crop up when user groups decide during the year (as budgets are generally run annually) that something larger needs to change. This could be because of a business opportunity, a regulatory change or just the whim of a senior director.

Agile projects are generally open ended with user stories gathered constantly and prioritised. The notion of a project with a defined end point disappears as you continuously enhance your product, adapting to change as you go along. At the start of each sprint, you look at the resources you have, compare with the stories in the backlog and get cracking.

## A new way

The key to budgeting in an agile world is to have agile budgeting. Bring the review periods for budgets to smaller increments. Have sprint style committees to discuss the upcoming roadmaps and use planning poker for teams to be able to re-allocate budgets. Teams often hold budget for longer for fear of losing it so remove that fear and allow the flow between different areas more dynamically.

Retrospectives offer the perfect oppurtunity to see if budget is well spent and to steer future spend. Review the cost per sprint velocity and whether this is dropping. This is also a change to review hardware and cloud spend, allowing devs the opportunity to see the impact of their architectural decisions. With cloud computing, it becomes more instant to see the cost reduction of better performing code.

## Sounds like utopia but will it actually happen?

If the willingness to change is not there then it certainly won't. This reckons more realistic discussions and more openness, something that can be lacking from large organisations. It puts more exposure but over funded areas that are not performing but also puts more pressure on constantly justifying work done. This may lead to more stress for teams but the aim should be to make rational discussions part of the new normal, reducing the constant stress of it.

Metrics will show that less money is wasted this way so the will should be there. Large enterprises are like juggernauts so it won't change quickly but more organisations like ING are adopting agile and so will be adopting more techniques like this. Time will tell.


An Advent series - Finance and Budgeting in a world of Agile and Continuous Deployment

The modern SharePoint webparts have added connectors to Twitter, Facebook pages, YouTube and many others but there are still some gaps like Instagram - here is how you can use Microsoft Flow to push your content in to SharePoint.

![Instagram feed on SharePoint](018/12/InstagramToSharePoint.PNG)

##How does it work?

[Microsoft Flow](https://emea.flow.microsoft.com) is an easy to use tool that runs workflows that can be triggered from a large number of systems. Many of the connectors included are Social Media connectors such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

With the Instagram trigger, a Flow can be started whenever a new photo is uploaded to your account. The connector returns a link to the image which can be pulled using the HTTP activity. The contents can then be written to a SharePoint library.

![Instagram to SharePoint Flow](nstagramToSharePointFlow.PNG)

Ignore the error message in the image which was due to me hiding the site used.

##Showing the contents

As you can see in the top image, the document library can be displayed as an image gallery on any page with a set of tiles for the images.

Should you need to customise the display further, you could also a [PowerApp](https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/) to retrieve the feed and render the results as you want with details like the caption and other text.

You can also custom develop a webpart using [SharePoint Framework](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/spfx/sharepoint-framework-overview) and deploy across your organisation, allowing full control to the HTML returned.

##Is this needed for all social networks?
Thankfully Microsoft has already created many of the connectors as webparts that can be used without any customisation. The example of the Twitter feed is shown above and below are the current set of webparts available in first release tenants.

[List of WebParts](018/12/ListOfWebParts.PNG)
[List of WebParts with connectors](/images/2018/12/ListOfWebParts2.PNG)

##A brief warning
The HTTP connector is due to move to require a P1 or P2 license for Flow so there will be additional cost for the licenses. However, if you are already using the HTTP connector, you have an extension as the [detailed post](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-Retirement-Blog/Updates-to-Microsoft-Flow-and-PowerApps-for-Office-365/ba-p/289589) says:

> Customers with active users of these features will get an automatic extension until January 31, 2020 or the expiration of their existing Office 365 subscription term (whichever is longer).

##Is it easy to create the flow?

Yes, it doesn't take long to copy the flow but you can also import the Flow directly using this [Exported Flow](https://github.com/kevmcdonk/Mcd79SharePointScripts/blob/master/UploadInstagramFeedtoSharePoint.zip).


An Advent series - Get Instagram posts into SharePoint in just 5 mins of configuration

The [SharePoint PnP Provisioning framework](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/solution-guidance/pnp-provisioning-framework) is great for creating sites from a template but sometimes you need to do that little bit more that PowerShell offers and one such scenario at the moment is setting the banner image for a page.

The full script for this can be found at https://github.com/kevmcdonk/Mcd79SharePointScripts/blob/master/CreateTeamSiteWithCustomModernPage.ps1.

If you are connecting to multiple versions of SharePoint (e.g. SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint Online), then I highly recommend [this post](https://www.erwinmcm.com/running-the-various-versions-of-pnp-powershell-side-by-side/) from Erwin van Hunen.

## Getting started with the simple stuff

The first step for almost all PnP PowerShell scripts is to run [Connect-PnPOnline](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/connect-pnponline). My scripts generally take a credentials parameter at the start so that I do not need to keep entering credentials. You can also use -UseWebLogin, especially if you are using Multi-Factor Authentication.

Using PnP PowerShell, it is very easy to create a new Team or Communications Site using [New-PnPSite](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/new-pnpsite), passing the name and alias for the site (used for the Url).

```
New-PnPSite -Type TeamSite -Title $departmentDisplayName -Alias $departmentName
```

## Clearing the decks

Making changes to existing pages is possible but as you do not know what could have been added to pages, I prefer to delete the existing page and add a brand new one. On the script example, the page has just been created so this may be overkill but as I tend to use these functions in other scripts, I kept it in.

Delete the current homepage with [Remove-PnPFile](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/remove-pnpfile)

```
$removedFile = Remove-PnPFile -SiteRelativeUrl $homePageUrl -Force
```

and add a new blank one with [Add-PnPClientSidePage](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/add-pnpclientsidepage)

```
$newHomepage = Add-PnPClientSidePage -Name "Home" -LayoutType Article
```

and then in the interests of clearing the deck, remove all sections on the page too

```
$homepage = Get-PnPClientSidePage -Identity Home
$homepage.Sections.Clear()
```

## Adding some basic content

The simplest content to add is the the latest content on the site with a Content Rollup web part based on the left section.

```
Add-PnPClientSidePageSection -Page Home -SectionTemplate TwoColumnLeft
Add-PnPClientSideWebPart -Page Home -DefaultWebPartType ContentRollup -Section 1 -Column 1
```

The page can then be saved and set as the home page using the WelcomePage of the RootFolder

```
$ctx = Get-PnPContext
$web = Get-PnPWeb
$ctx.Load($web.RootFolder)
**$web.RootFolder.WelcomePage = "sitepages/Home.aspx"**
$web.RootFolder.Update()
$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
```

## Finally the complex bit

This took quite a bit of testing and searching on how to set this and I hope to try and integrate this in to a [PnP PowerShell](https://github.com/SharePoint/PnP-PowerShell) pull request.

The first step is to get the ID of the image you want to set as the banner. The image should already be uploaded to SharePoint somewhere although you can reference an external URL as well - I would recommend not doing this though as you are reliant on the image remaining there and adding external calls.

```
$stockImageUrl = $tenantSitesUrl + $stockImageSite
Connect-PnPOnline $stockImageUrl -Credentials $mycreds
$bannerImageItem = Get-PnPFile -Url $bannerImageLink -AsListItem
$bannerImageId = $bannerImageItem["UniqueId"]
```

Adding the webpart html is key. To split out the right content, converting it to xml first to make it easier to set the right parameters. The unique ID of the image retrieved in the first section as well as the image URL are set in the HTML and then set back on the page. You can also set the focal point location by changing the translate X and translate Y settings but I found that doing this on the page and then copying the values was the easiest way.

```
$page = Get-PnPClientSidePage $pageName
$layoutWebPartsText = "<div><div data-sp-canvascontrol="""" data-sp-canvasdataversion=""1.2"" data-sp-controldata=""&#123;&quot;id&quot;&#58;&quot;cbe7b0a9-3504-44dd-a3a3-0e5cacd07788&quot;,&quot;instanceId&quot;&#58;&quot;cbe7b0a9-3504-44dd-a3a3-0e5cacd07788&quot;,&quot;title&quot;&#58;&quot;Title Region&quot;,&quot;description&quot;&#58;&quot;Title Region Description&quot;,&quot;serverProcessedContent&quot;&#58;&#123;&quot;htmlStrings&quot;&#58;&#123;&#125;,&quot;searchablePlainTexts&quot;&#58;&#123;&#125;,&quot;imageSources&quot;&#58;&#123;&#125;,&quot;links&quot;&#58;&#123;&#125;&#125;,&quot;dataVersion&quot;&#58;&quot;1.2&quot;,&quot;properties&quot;&#58;&#123;&quot;title&quot;&#58;&quot;Home&quot;,&quot;imageSourceType&quot;&#58;4,&quot;translateX&quot;&#58;49.2,&quot;translateY&quot;&#58;74.3&#125;&#125;""></div></div>"

$layoutWebPartsXml = New-Object -TypeName XML
$layoutWebPartsXml.LoadXml($layoutWebPartsText)
$controlDataText = $layoutWebPartsXml.ChildNodes[0].ChildNodes[0].Attributes["data-sp-controldata"]
$controlData = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $controlDataText.'#text'
$controlData.serverProcessedContent.imageSources | Add-Member imageSource $bannerImageLink -Force
$controlData.properties | Add-Member uniqueId $bannerImageId -Force
$controlData.properties | Add-Member imageSourceType 2 -Force
$controlDataTextUpdated = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject $controlData
$layoutWebPartsXml.ChildNodes[0].ChildNodes[0].Attributes["data-sp-controldata"].Value = $controlDataTextUpdated
$page.PageListItem["LayoutWebpartsContent"] = $layoutWebPartsXml.OuterXml
$page.PageListItem.Update()
$ctx = Get-PnPContext
$ctx.Load($page.PageListItem)
$ctx.ExecuteQuery()
```

## Summary

The script allows you to build out sites using PowerShell scripts which can either be run manually or built in to an Azure Function and run on a trigger. PnP Provisioning is great for building out the structure of sites and can be used for pages but there are still cases where PowerShell can be more suitable.


An Advent series - building a SharePoint modern page with PnP PowerShell setting the banner image

You can now make SharePoint look beautiful and the SharePoint Lookbook is a great starter to see how and share it in your organisation to break the stigma that surrounds SharePoint.

“SharePoint always looks rubbish”
“You have to spend lots of money to get SharePoint working on mobile”
“Never use the default navigation, it just won’t work”

All these are phrases I’ve heard and often said about SharePoint over the years but a lot of that is changing. The biggest recent example of this is the [SharePoint Lookbook](https://spdesign.azurewebsites.net/downloads/ignite-2018-lookbook.pdf) – released at [Ignite 2018](https://news.microsoft.com/europe/2018/09/28/microsoft-ignite-2018-round-up-all-the-key-announcements-and-news/) and designed to focus on the designers out there and the way that they would go about designing sites. It breaks down the areas where you can make changes by adding headers and footers or select different webparts and the document gives great examples of the amazing looking sites that you can create. All of these are responsive so that they adapt well to working with mobile and tablet devices.

##No more starting projects with master templates
The difference is that where you previously had to work on customising SharePoint heavily and focusing on those customisations at the start of the project, the content is now the king as you know that it will look great straight away. This is a bit of a swing from people who have long been trying to brand SharePoint exactly how they want things to look. Now the key is to get the content exactly how you want it to be, with images that meet your branding, with content written in a way that meets your organisations standards, with targeted items aimed at the right people, and with the apps that people use in their digital workplace day in day out.

So it becomes less about the customisation, the massive upfront effort to redesign your master pages and page templates and it becomes far more about getting the right content into your site and the imagery to continue your brand. That’s not to say that you can’t add elements of branding. You can create site designs which define what’s on your custom sites and you can specify logos and colours to blend SharePoint in to your own environment.

##More time for being productive
The shift away from just doing the look and feel means that the project team can focus on people being productive. You can focus on people collaborating together. You can focus on the integration with Microsoft Teams, Planner, ToDo, Stream and the many other services available with Microsoft 365. That is where the importance is to employees and that is where the value organisations will get from SharePoint and Microsoft 365.

##Think about the team
The SharePoint Lookbook is not just about the Communications Sites but also about Team Sites - sharing information and content between team members. The focus is on getting the right tasks to be done in front of people as simply as possible. Intelligent search will surface the right content to team members, allowing everyone to get started straight from their site.

##What next?

Now you can spend your time working on getting people productive, you have more time to keep up to date with the changing world of SharePoint! In the mean time, you can see much of what will be arriving in Targeted Release tenants by the end of December in [this post on the Ignite 2018 round up](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-SharePoint-Blog/Build-your-modern-intranet-with-SharePoint-in-Office-365/ba-p/255453) or listen to the [latest Intrazone podcast](https://intrazone.libsyn.com/bonus-roadmap-pitstop-november-2018) where they discuss the changes. I will also be covering some of the changes as they hit my tenant so keep an eye on this blog.
![Lookbook](/images/2018/12/building-blocks-hero-p-1080.jpeg)


An Advent series - the SharePoint Lookbook

If you have started using Azure Cosmos DB, you may have noticed that the backup story is pretty limited by default. Having recently deleted a test database by mistake and waited three days to get round the support maze to have it restored, it was a good chance to implement a more robust backup strategy.

The simplest way I have found to do this is to backup the entire DB using Azure Data Factory. Naturally it may depend on your DB size and you may want to instead backup the change feed on a more regular basis but this worked for well for our scenario.

To get started with Azure Data Factory:

- Add it as a service through the Azure Portal
- Click on Author and Monitor to be taken to the home page
- Click on Copy Data

![Azure Portal](/images/2018/12/AzurePortalDataFactory.PNG)![Start SCreen](018/12/AzureDFStartScreen.PNG)

- Fill out the name for your task
- Add a Cosmos DB Linked Service as a source
- Fill out the connection details

![Cosmos Linked Service](018/12/AzureDFCreateLinkedService.PNG)![Cosmos Connection Details](ection.PNG)

- Select the Cosmos collection (Items in the case below)
- Select "Export as-is to JSON files

![Cosmos Linked Service](/images/2018/12/AzureDFCosmosQuery.PNG)

- Create a Destination Source
- Use a new Azure Blob Storage linked service

![Linked Azure Blob Service](018/12/AzureDFCreateLinkedServiceStorage.PNG)

- Define the file path and name, using a temporary name for now

![Linked Azure Blob Service File Path](018/12/AzureDFSelectFolder.PNG)

- Click several Nexts until the wizard completes and creates the Pipeline
- Click on the pencil icon an navigate through the Pipelines to find your newly created Copy Data Pipeline
- Click on the Copy Data activity and navigate to the Sink section
- Edit the Sink Dataset
- Find the filepath, select backup.json and select Add Dynamic Content
  ![Azure Storage Filepath](/images/2018/12/AzureDFUpdateFolder.PNG)
- Change the value to "@concat(utcnow(),'.json')" so that each run will give the file a unique name

This completes it all so that you can now Debug to test it and then Publish when all ready. Depending on your preferences, you can create a Trigger to run this every day or to whatever frequency you need. To restore these backups, create a similar Copy Data task going back the other way.

Then sit back and feel better that you can do something stupid with delete in the portal without so much worry.


An Advent series - Backing up Azure Cosmos DB

So here's a challenge for me to finish the year - one blog per day throughout advent! It's a leap of faith but this blog has been neglected for too long so I will clear out some of my backlog and cover thoughts on Digital Workplace, Digital Homeplace and some of the places that Microsoft 365 helps to fill that out.

![Leap of faith](pg)

My first post is on focus and productivity. I have written before on [open plan offices](http://www.mcd79.com/2017/06/20/remote-working-and-open-plan-offices-productivity-vs-collaboration-2.html) and the trade off around productivity and collaboration. What are the tips that I use to stay focused?

##Three tasks per day
I wrote previously about my [PowerApp to focus on three tasks every day](http://www.mcd79.com/2017/03/07/stay-productive-creating-a-three-daily-tasks-app-in-powerapps-and-flow-2.html) and I still use this technique although slightly adapted to use [Microsoft To-Do](http://www.mcd79.com/2017/04/19/microsoft-helps-you-stay-productive-with-to-do-2.html) now. Before the daily stand-up, I will note any meetings I have that need work before them as a priority and any deadlines that are due that day. Then using To-Do's built in "My Day" function, I can set aside a realistic set of three tasks and tick them off as they are done. I set them in priority order and add a couple of nice-to-haves after those. The nice-to-haves should be something that's a benefit that may get you ahead but not necessarily something that will be top priority the next day. Sadly blog posts usually sit in this never ending bucket!

##Noise cancelling headphones
The benefits of an open plan office are over hearing what is happening and getting a greater understanding of what others are doing. However, there are times when you just need to get on with things. I am often lead off to other minor tasks when I hear others talking about something and my mind gets distracted by thinking about their issues instead. My [Bose QC-35 IIs](https://www.bose.co.uk/en_gb/products/headphones/over_ear_headphones/quietcomfort-35-wireless-ii.html) let me focus on one thing, usually with some great repetitive classic dance music (Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx and Orbital are favourites here) or even something heavier (Pantera, Slaves, IDLES) when I need to get a move on. Tailor the music to the mood but I find that something less hummable along to keeps me focussed on the work.

##Make the most of travel time
Time in the office is usually not great for catching up on the latest news and in a cloud focused world where things are moving faster than ever, keeping up is essential. To balance this out, I use my commute to and from work to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. These help me with distraction from overthinking my current project and encourage the brain to have some balance.

My first recommendation from these is the book Organised Mind by Daniel Levitin, talking about information overload and how to deal with it. There are so many great topics in here about how the brain works and how you can trick yourself in to doing the wrong things that I will be picking up a whole blog on this later. Definitely worth a [read](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00M8PUC8K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) or [listen](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Organized-Mind-Audiobook/B00WIPXGEM).

I've also enjoyed:

- [Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harai](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Homo-Deus-Audiobook/B01HGY2730) - thinking about the world of tomorrow
- [The Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Idiot-Brain-Audiobook/B01D0FOKXE) - understanding how your brain so it doesn't completely own you
- [Diaries 1969-1979 by Michael Palin](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Diaries-1969-1979-Audiobook/B004EWYUCY) - Pure relaxation as Michael Palin takes you through the early Monty Python days (the rest of the diaries are fantastic too)
- [Adolf Hitler and my part in his downfall by Spike Milligan](https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Adolf-Hitler-Audiobook/B019FUCBCU) - possibly more an English humour thing but the ability to keep yourself seeing the funny side in spite of horrific situations is very important to me

And some podcasts (which I use Podbean on the iPhone for):

- [Microsoft Cloudshow](http://www.microsoftcloudshow.com/) - I love these two, just casually chatting about the latest Microsoft Cloud news, keeping you informed and entertained. Definitely my top pick
- [The Intrazone](https://intrazone.libsyn.com/) - Chat and discussion directly from the SharePoint team and their good friends
- [Microsoft 365 Developer Podcast](http://www.m365devpodcast.com/) - After a brief hiatus, Jeremy Thake has re-invigorated it brilliantly, bringing a heavy Microsoft Graph slant and great guests
- [.Net Rocks](https://dotnetrocks.com/) - Really broad set of subjects that keeps me informed in the latest dev ideas
- [The Future of Work](https://thefutureorganization.com/future-work-podcast/) - Moving away from the technical side, this gets you thinking about applying the technology not just using it for the sake of it - Jacob Morgan is a very interesting character with some great connections
- [Desert Island Disks](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnmr/episodes/downloads) - a reminder about what is special in life

##Retrospectives
You cannot be productive without looking at how you haven't been productive. Look back once a month at what you have achieved and, more importantly, what you haven't been able to achieve will help you to understand yourself better. Looking inwards at what you have done and empathising with others so that you can understand why they may not have been able to work well with you will make sure that you always improve.

##Taking a break and enjoying the family
I will finish off with the most important one, especially for those with partners and kids. Take time to enjoy them. Stop working, put down the phone and do some Hot Wheels, Scratch Jr or watch a dance class. Talking of which, I'm off to help build a Hot Wheels timer with a Raspberry Pi and Scratch!


An Advent series

After a few issues with Google Cloud hosting and mounting costs, I decided to move back to Azure after seeing that you can now host static pages on Azure Storage and use [Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/) - post to come on that soon.

For now, here's a cross post from the [Ballard Chalmers](https://ballardchalmers.com) blog series I have been writing on Modern Serverless Development in Azure. The ability to create apps that scale as you need them is so much simpler now but I learnt a few things along the way and so the blog series has been a great way to start to share those.

- [Part 1 - introduction](https://ballardchalmers.com/2018/08/08/modern-serverless-development-part-1-an-application-journey-series/)
- [Part 2 - Data Repository with Cosmos DB and Azure Storage](https://ballardchalmers.com/2018/08/21/modern-serverless-development-part-2-data-repository-with-cosmos-db-and-azure-storage/)
- [Part 3 - Business Logic with Azure Functions](https://ballardchalmers.com/2018/09/24/modern-serverless-development-part-3-business-logic-azure-functions/)

I will update this post as the next in the series of eight is released.

> Main image courtesy of Daniel Schwen [Blue Waters main data center room](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Waters_main_data_center_room.jpg) - [Legal Code](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)


Modern Serverless Development with Azure - an application journey

I have been recently exploring creating sites with Flow off the back of a list. I'd done this previously with Azure Functions very successfully but wanted to see if Site Scripts and Site Designs could remove that extra step. TLDR? Yes you can!

There are some great posts on creating Site Scripts and Site Designs (see additional links at the bottom of the page) but the basic one on [Microsoft Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/get-started-create-site-design) gets things going pretty quickly.

So how does Flow create the site? Creation of a Team Site using REST does not appear to be that well documented and I couldn't find any examples of creating a site with a site design in one step. This was a little odd so I took a look at what calls the main SharePoint page uses to create a site and the key appeared to be:

`_api/GroupSiteManager/CreateGroupEx`

> Massive caveat here - as these APIs appear to be minimally documented, they may be subject to change at short notice.

There are a few examples of using this out there (try [Googling CreateGroupEx](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=creategroupex&oq=creategroupex&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l4j69i59.2184j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)) that allowed you to pass the DisplayName, the Alias, whether it is public and even some that covered classification. However, I couldn't find any that passed anything to set the Site Design ID. Thankfully, Chrome came to the rescue and I found that it was passing the JSON below.

`{ "displayName":"@{triggerBody()?['Title']}", "alias":"Project-@{triggerBody()?['ID']}", "isPublic":false, "optionalParams":{ "Description":"", "CreationOptions":["implicit_formula_292aa8a00786498a87a5ca52d9f4214a_03dac6d2-3e91-4f43-9163-953ce1bf7616}"] } }`

A little bit of time later (and some swearing too...) I realised that the later half of the implicit_formula section was in fact the Guid of the Site Design. Once I had this I was away and running.

![Returning-Site-Design-List](/images/2018/07/Returning Site Design List.PNG)

I created a Flow that triggered from a SharePoint list containing the list of projects. It first retrieved the list of Site Designs to get the Guid - I could have hardcoded this but wanted to allow it to be more user friendly and retrieved by name, matching what the user would do. It then iterates through the designs until it found the matching one and made the call to CreateGroupEx.

![Create-Project-Site](018/07/Create Project Site.PNG)

The REST API calls were made using the relatively recent SharePoint activity called "Send an HTTP request to SharePoint" which meant that there was no need to work with any tokens or credentials.

There are still many cases where you would need some additional scripting that would require the PnP provisioning templates for more advanced scenarios and so would use an Azure Function but for situations where you don't want to have to have an Azure subscription (it can take months for some enterprises to agree that this is something that should be set up) then this is a good alternative. [Chris O'Brien](https://twitter.com/ChrisO_Brien) covers some great scenarios in his SharePoint Nuts and Bolts post below.

Happy site creating (but don't forget the [governance](http://bostonmusicdave.com/balancing-self-service-with-governance-and-control-in-office-365/)...)!

p.s. Yes, I know I've been quiet on here. Sorry. Life, work, kittens. All got in the way.

Additional links:

- https://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2018/01/site-designs-scripts-or-pnp-templates.html
- https://www.wortell.nl/blogs/sharepoint-online-site-designs-site-scripts/
- https://laurakokkarinen.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-sharepoint-site-designs-and-site-scripts
- http://www.aerieconsulting.com/blog/modern-sharepoint-templates


Exploring creating SharePoint TeamSites using SiteDesign and the REST API

After a year with a Delve based theme to my blog, I thought that it was time for a change, adding a little more to the template. And what better way to show that off than with my thoughts from the recent Build conference.

## Another year of evolution instead of revolution

I wouldn't say that I was completely disappointed but there was nothing that really surprised me this year. Lots of interesting updates appeared but nothing truly earth shattering. Many of the announcements had been trailed beforehand so while it was good to see the details, it was not a shock.

## AI for the masses is here to stay

While Microsoft are still going to continue with their machine learning tools, they see that where the real benefits lie is with making it easy for developers to use the services. There were more announcements around Cognitive Services at Build but also the open sourcing of Azure IoT Edge Runtime. The announcements around IoT were designed to make it easier to run the AI and machine learning on smaller devices and to bring the power to where it is needed. The partnership announced with DJI shows that Microsoft is taking the drone world seriously - Future Decoded showed an example of this last year where drones were being used to detect problems with power lines and there is much more opportunity for similar scenarios.

Read more at https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-open-sources-azure-iot-edge-runtime-embraces-more-kubernetes-partners-with-dji-and-qualcomm/ and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/what-s-new-with-azure-iot-edge/.

Also evolving is the ability to run custom machine learning models on Windows 10 having built them in Azure. This opens up the possibility of running huge processing on massive volumes of data (whether it be documents, images or videos) and run much smaller models on lower power devices. Using powerful GPU or even FGPA driven servers in the cloud, you will be able to process large volumes of data for your models and then run them on a Raspberry Pi, building in image detection or text scanning.

Read more at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-ai-platform-announcements-new-innovations-for-developers/.

## Kinect is back

This was a real surprise to me as I thought that Microsoft had decided to kill off the Kinect brand which I found a real shame. I played around with Kinect development a few years ago and found it very powerful so I am excited to see it return. It is backed now by the Azure AI cloud tools to offload much of the processing of what it sees. I expect to see far fewer games but far more useful gesture based applications being build from it.

Read more at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-project-kinect-azure-alex-kipman/?irgwc=1 or https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/perception.

![kinect](/images/2018/05/kinect.jpeg)

## Mixed Reality Apps

HoloLens isn't going away any time soon and while it has not yet truly found its way as a mass market device, it is forming useful niches. The focus from Microsoft on Firstline Workers makes the benefits of handsfree collaborative working more important and HoloLens will form a key part of this, either in its current guise or in future versions as they evolve.

Build announced two new apps to support this:

- Layout - import 3-D models in to the app and use them to lay out in a real world scenario e.g. see how new stands could appear in a shop.
- Remote Assist - allows firstline workers to easily reach out to experts and share issues using the HoloLens video sharing e.g. an engineer struggling with a task could ask for help from a centrally located specialist team immediately instead of waiting for them to travel in.

These apps are interesting but it is more important to see new capabilities being developed with HoloLens as a tool - keep watching this space.

Read more at https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/05/07/introducing-two-new-mixed-reality-business-applications-microsoft-remote-assist-and-microsoft-layout/

## Collaborative coding with Visual Studio Live Share

One service announced at Build and now available is the ability to live collaborate on code using not only Visual Studio 2017 but also Visual Studio Code. Similar to using Skype for Business screen sharing where you can work on the same code at the same time but with the added benefit that any party connected can view other areas, not just the one the person is sharing. With pair programming still being popular, this will allow pairs to do the same tasks while not necessarily being physically located together.

It is hard to say how much I can see this being used. I often do code reviews and discuss work done on code with others, both others and my own code. Will I use this for it? I'm still not sure if this really adds more benefit than a simple screen sharing session but will certainly be giving it a try.

Read more at https://www.visualstudio.com/services/live-share/.
![visual-studio-live-share-screen-1200x458](018/05/visual-studio-live-share-screen-1200x458.jpg)

## .Net Core 3.0

We are finally seeing .Net Core take the jump to the UI rather than just being backend or web code. While it won't be live until 2019 (with a preview in 2018), it will offer UWP, WPF and Windows Forms implementation for Windows desktops, increasing performance and allowing much easier deployment - no need to have to install a full .Net framework first before running the application, it will all be rolled in to the app itself.

What is disappointing with this at the moment is that the UI will only work on Windows, breaking one of the major benefits of .Net Core being cross platform. This may change later down the line but it feels like a kick in the teeth as Electron and other frameworks which make it easier to create Progressive Web Apps that work on many platforms.

Read more at https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2018/05/07/net-core-3-and-support-for-windows-desktop-applications/.

## Modern Meetings

Meetings feel like they haven't changed much since the advent of video conferencing took hold but thankfully Microsoft has given a sign of things hopefully to come. Being able to automatically transcribe meetings and assign actions to be tracked afterwards will help remove much of the unnecessary overhead of meetings. The technology is all now there and hopefully it can be harnessed together effectively and productively for all.

View more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddb3ZgAp9TA.

## Openshift on Azure

While not an area that I have touched on much, the big news here is that Azure is the only cloud platform with the partnership with Red Hat to offer a fully managed and engineered version of OpenShift. I'm sure Google and Amazon won't rest on their laurels but it is great to see yet more signs of the new Microsoft opening itself up to new areas.

Read more at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/openshift-on-azure-the-easiest-fully-managed-openshift-in-the-cloud/.

## Wrap up

I may have sounded negative at the start about Build but it was an indication that Microsoft are still travelling in the right direction. Opening up to many platforms, embracing the potential of AI and Machine Learning, supporting developers to deliver on requirements and preparing for an augmented reality explosion all help developers in the Microsoft space feel pretty confident right now.


Celebrating my new blog with thoughts on Build 2018

If you follow SharePoint news, you undoubtedly would have heard about Hub Sites. They were announced at Ignite in 2017 and have been causing a ripple of excitement ever since. Why? The big reason many people have often felt that SharePoint has lacked tools as standard that help to build a true Intranet. Rolling up news, connected sites, common navigation - all these things were possible in SharePoint but required a good bit of work to function well. Vendors have filled the gap in the past with some great digital workplace products like [Add-In 365](https://www.addin365.com/), [Valo Intranet](https://www.valointranet.com/) and [Powell 365](https://www.powell-365.com/en/) but many organisations did not want to make the additional investment required.

![Cogs](/images/2017/03/cogs.jpg)

## All about the hubs and spokes

I spoke in [an earlier blog](https://www.mcd79.com/here-is-why-microsoft-teams-is-vital-to-cut-down-a-cacophony-of-collaboration-tools-2/) about the importance of hubs and spokes to the digital workplace, allowing people to work in the way that they want but being connected to all the services that they need. At the time I was talking about the impact of Microsoft Teams as a new hub but areas of an organisation still look for their own hubs. That is where Hub Sites play in to this new world.

HR want to show where they can provide assistance to staff and help people to help themselves. Finance want to give access to key reports and data to those who should be allowed access to it. The Project Management Office want to have a single place to show the status across their portfolio of projects. In that last case, each project would often have its own site but there can be the need to link those with a common navigation and have news from each roll up.

This is where Hub Sites come in.

![Test Hub Site](018/03/Test-Hub-Site-1.PNG)

A Hub Site is not that different from the modern team site or communication site and getting started with a hub site requires you to first create one of these. At this point, we hit one of the big issues currently with Hub Sites - you need to be an admin and to be comfortable with a little PowerShell to be able to elevate a site to be a Hub Site. It's a pretty simple command (shown below) but this closes it off to a smaller set of people who can do this.

> Register-SPOHubSite https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/HR

Associated other sites to a hub site is a much easier affair. From the cog menu, select Site Information and you will see a new option appear - as an aside, this has been the easiest way to check whether hub sites are available in your tenant.

![Site info](ite-info.PNG)

The associated site will inherit a navigation bar with a common logo and the same navigation items. Sites that are associated do not get automatically added to the navigation and links must be manually added. There is also some time taken from adding items to the menu before it appears on the other sites, up to 10 minutes from experience at the moment.

![Common navigation](ommon-navigation-1.PNG)

News will also roll-up from other sites on to the hub site. There isn't any control of approving the news and you can't filter using the standard News web part at all. But to bubble up news automatically, it works well.

![News roll-up](-up.PNG)

## Thoughts

So are Hub Sites living up to the excitement? Partially. They look great and are starting to bring some much needed functionality. However, it feels a little early to get too excited. They will evolve and the rapid release cadence that Microsoft is on means that they will improve rapidly. This feels like a start rather than a fully featured product and if that is the case, then it is a good start. Giving some more control to what goes where and allowing end users control without PowerShell would be a great improvement. There are some hints as to what is coming with cross-posting and pinning of news suggested in the [Hub Sites AMA](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-AMA/bd-p/SharePointAMA) which took place last week and there will be even more being announced in May at the SharePoint Conference North America.

So a thumbs up for what is there now and hope that there is much more to come.


The Hub Site Hubbub

When working in the digital workplace and making proposals, there are often times where you need to show some content on your site. The go-to content for this has been Lorem Ipsum for quite some time (over 500 years if this article about the [history of Lorem Ipsum](http://www.loremipsum.de/about_lorem_ipsum.html) can be believed) but what about when you want something a little different?

Here are my favourite client friendly versions that work as of March 2018:

## Corporate Ipsum

A splurge of corporate speak like _"Bring to the table win-win survival strategies to ensure proactive domination. At the end of the day, going forward, a new normal that has evolved from generation X is on the runway heading towards a streamlined cloud solution. User generated content in real-time will have multiple touchpoints for offshoring."_

http://www.cipsum.com/

## Space Ipsum

One for all the space fans out there ([Andrew Connell](https://twitter.com/andrewconnell) and [Chris Johnson](https://twitter.com/c_f_johnson), I'm looking at you) and want some space based content like _"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed. As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realize thereΓÇÖs a fundamental truth to our nature, Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest. NASA is not about the ΓÇÿAdventure of Human Space ExplorationΓÇÖΓÇªWe wonΓÇÖt be doing it just to get out there in space ΓÇô weΓÇÖll be doing it because the things we learn out there will be making life better for a lot of people who wonΓÇÖt be able to go."_

http://spaceipsum.com/

## Social Good Ipsum

Looking for some socially responsible corporate waffle type content? Look no further than _"Program areas social enterprise transparent collaborate external partners effective replicable. Collaborate thought leadership challenges and opportunities compassion overcome injustice shine. Data issue outcomes; support, and indicators compassion issue outcomes social entrepreneur. Impact investing initiative global, problem-solvers; best practices program areas. The human-centered, policymaker; uplift theory of change capacity building. Leverage contextualize academic empower communities accessibility overcome injustice. External partners and indicators change-makers inclusive correlation. Shared value resist, or strategy correlation resilient to when. Milestones technology natural resources initiative citizen-centered social capital. NGO problem-solvers ideate; dynamic, living a fully ethical life thought leader rubric inclusive compassion. Systems thinking, transparent, compassion, empower communities venture philanthropy best practices. Silo effective bandwidth; rubric data social intrapreneurship. Triple bottom line data; but thought partnership, effective altruism social enterprise strengthening infrastructure strategy. Or, compelling move the needle impact investing, indicators transparent empower communities social enterprise. Data silo strategy social entrepreneurship co-creation; boots on the ground relief."_

http://socialgoodipsum.com

## Office Ipsum

Need some content to show meeting notes or client notes for a demo? Office Ipsum has some classics like _"I have an awesome idea for a startup, i need you to build it for me i was wondering if my cat could be placed over the logo in the flyer for this was not according to brief. Concept is bang on, but can we look at a better execution can you make pink a little more pinkish, yet try a more powerful colour. The hair is just too polarising. I trust you. Thanks for taking the time to make the website, but i already made it in wix make it pop I think we need to start from scratch, for we exceed the clients' expectations but we have big contacts we will promote you. Needs to be sleeker the hair is just too polarising, so can it be more retro."_

http://officeipsum.com/index.php
You can also get the classic Lorem Ipsum from there too.

## The Post Modern Generator

Intriguing generator that creates essays from recursive grammars - a machine learning Lorem Ipsum you could say. _"The main theme of McElwaineΓÇÖs[4] analysis of capitalist
situationism is not theory per se, but posttheory. Lyotard uses the term
ΓÇÿneocapitalist nationalismΓÇÖ to denote the difference between sexuality and
sexual identity. It could be said that the subject is contextualised into a
capitalist situationism that includes truth as a totality."_

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

## Trollem Ipsum

Finally a more entertaining one designed to generate content to troll other technologies. I included this one purely on the basis that it described Apple lovers as fanboys and Microsoft lovers as apologists. Here's the [Paul Thurrott](https://twitter.com/thurrott) generator: \*"Anyway Microsoft have led the market on this for years, on the whole I love Microsoft with all my heart, soon eventually the competition will catch up with Apple nevertheless 2011 is the year for Microsoft, after Netbooks outsold iPads, moreover 2010 is the year of netbooks. They need to fix the iPad, in addition better as a 7ΓÇ¥ model next the Dell DJ is an iPod killer, until no doubt Apple will finally do something about that. Innovative Windows Phone, as well as Apple should close their stores, finally 2011 is the year of Windows Phone prior to they should decrease the cost of their products so everyone can use them on the iPhone 4S is nothing special so as to the iPhone 4S has garnered supposedly record-breaking sales, in order that Time Machine rips off MicrosoftΓÇÖs Volume Shadow Copy Service.

2012 is the year of the Ultrabook suddenly so-called media tablets."\*

http://trollemipsum.appspot.com

> Image courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/mari_amaro/ via Creative Commons


Bored of Lorem Ipsum?

Cross posting from my work blog for those who follow me here. Something I wrote about being able to back up your Flows to source control. Let me know on Twitter if you found it useful at all.

[Backing up Microsoft Flow to Visual Studio or Github](http://ballardchalmers.com/2018/01/06/backingup-flow-visual-studio-github/)


Backing up Microsoft Flow to Visual Studio or Github

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