June 2, 2021

Smarter way of loading SharePoint CSOM dll in PowerShell

Have you also got a legacy powershell script that loads SharePoint dlls and runs CSOM code directly? It’s quite easy to convert to PnP PowerShell. But if you run out of time and just need to execute the script, then I have a quick tip for you.

First of all, a CSOM script can be recognized by Add-Type commands (or Import-Module) plus the SharePoint dll paths.

Loading the dll the old way.

May 18, 2021

A cost effective way of running legacy scripts in the cloud

Have you also got some old huge scripts that run on a server locally? Have you also considered moving them to the cloud? Here comes an idea of how to do it quickly and easy.

In my case I have some older powershell scripts that are harder to convert to serverless applications:

They use MSOnline module in PowerShell, hence they require rewriting to AzureAD before using them in an Azure Function
They take around 15 minutes to complete, Azure Functions Consumption Plan is limited to 10 minutes. Of course I can split them in several parts, but I am looking for an easy way right now, I have to postpone refactoring because I am not sure if there is a real need for this script solution.
They process a lot of data and consume more that 400 MB memory which makes it crash when I put it in a Azure Automation Runbook.

Well, maybe a Windows Server VM in Azure is the only way? While recently setting up a minecraft server and following a blog post that proposes auto shutdown and logic apps to start the server, I came up with an idea to use exactly the same approach to make it as cost effective as possible.

April 20, 2021

Monitoring Microsoft 365 using Raspberry Pi and M365 CLI

I would like to show you my recent hobby project with a raspberry pi, a unicorn phat and the powerful cli-microsoft365: A simple monitoring solution of Microsoft 365 Services.

Status of some important services in Microsoft 365

In essence, I put the unicorn phat onto the raspberry pi zero w and wrote this python script:

unicorn03_m365.py

The python script checks the service status every five minutes and shows it with colors on the unicorn phat.

April 9, 2021

Git Merge develop to main in an Azure DevOps Release

This post is a techy one. It’s about running git commands in Azure DevOps Releases in order to finalize a deployment job to production.

Let me first describe our scenario:

We use Azure DevOps for code and for deployment. Our branch strategy a simplified Gitflow model, where all the current work is merged to the “develop” branch. The code from the “develop” branch is then built and released to staging environments and production. After a release to Production and regression tests the develop branch needs to be merged into the “main” branch (or “master”). So simply put, the git merge into main is what we mean by finalizing a production release.

April 8, 2021

1TB=1024GB in SPO Storage

You want to calculate your storage capacity in SharePoint Online? Here is how:

Every 1TB is 1024GB (it might be confusing, see my previous post, but it’s how it is calculated)
A tenant gets 1024GB by default
For every user license of a product that includes the service plan called “SHAREPOINTSTANDARD”/SharePoint Online (Plan 1) you get 10 GB extra
For every user license of a product that includes the service plan called “SHAREPOINTENTERPRISE”/SharePoint Online (Plan 2) you get 10 GB extra
For every user license of a product that includes the service called “ONEDRIVEBASIC”/SharePoint Online OneDrive Basic you get 0.5 GB extra

Products vs. Service Plans

A product (a.k.a. SKU) consists of service plans. E.g. Office 365 E3 (product) consists of SharePoint Online Enterprise among others. It is a Service Plan that gives you additional storage, not a product. The information on “SharePoint Limits” page is (over-)simplified. Simplified for a good reason of course - to give a rule of thumb for calculating your storage.

March 30, 2021

Print2SPO - en enkel utskrift till SharePoint

Den här bloggposten är ett (en aning större) användar- (eller verksamhetsutvecklar-)tips om hur man kan sätta upp smarta utskrifter till SharePoint Online - utan några extraappar eller lösningar.

Först och främst, stort tack till min kollega Shahram som har presenterat idén för mig. Tänk dig ett följande scenario:

Du har en mall i Word som du fyller i, skriver ut på papper. Låt säga, det är en plockorder. Du vill digitalisera processen genom att skicka pdf:en till ett gemensamt dokumentbibliotek i SharePoint eller Teams.

March 19, 2021

1 TB = 1024 GB in SPO?

There is confusion around how the storage is calculated in SharePoint Online. I believe, in SharePoint Online 1 TB is 1024 GB (based on powers of two), although the SI Prefix is for numbers based on powers of 10 (1TB = 1000GB, Wikipedia). In this post I would like to summarize the results of my investigations and I hope Microsoft or the community can confirm or disconfirm this.

First, let me explain why we care about it. The storage in SharePont is limited and we need to keep an eye on it. Especially in our case, where we need to track storage utilization across different parts of the organization/our tenant. The storage in SharePoint is calculated like so:

February 22, 2021

Vår robot Stefan

Roboten Stefan

Här är historian om Stefan, en robot jag och barnen har jobbat på under den senaste månaden. I en sann DIY-anda vill jag skriva om vårt projekt på bloggen och förhoppningsvis inspirera andra att utforska det. I och med projektet innebär en hel del pyssel, så är det lämpat i princip för alla åldrar.

Även om allting togs fram parallellt och stegvis (“i iterationer”), kommer projektet presenteras det i förenklad ordning

February 12, 2021

Demote News in SharePoint Online

In case you published a news in SharePoint Online and you now want to “downgrade” it to a regular page, I have a solution for you.

The reasons why you would like to demote a News might vary:

You publish an important message, perhaps a note about an operational disturbance. It might not relevant anymore, but you still want to keep the page in case someone wants to access the information.
You accidentally create a page as a news.
…

February 5, 2021

Kombinera två SharePoint-listor i PowerBI

Det här är en enkel guide på svenska om hur du kan ladda in data från två eller fler listor i SharePoint och lägga ihop dem till en.

Scenariot är följande. Du har två eller fler sajter i SharePoint Online som har var sin lista (med samma kolumner). Du vill ladda in data från båda och se en aggregerad/summerad version. Alternativet är att ha en delad lista, men ibland (av behörighetskäl eller av behovet för smärre anpassningar av enskilda listor), ligger det i separata listor/sajter.