SharePoint/SPFx: Returning to Webpart Development Part #1

Recently I was asked to develop a webpart for a modern SharePoint site. My first thoughts were; where do I start, I haven’t done any webpart development for years? I would like to share my journey with you over the next few posts and hope my experience will help new and returning developers along the way.

Development Environment & Tools

Development Tools

Code Editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

If you have not done so already, install your preferred Integrated development environment (IDE). My choice is Visual Studio Code, however there are three supported code editors:

Now you are ready to install or in my case update the development toolchain prerequisites. Pop back to the Microsoft article and follow the steps.

Tip: Hold [Ctrl]+[`] will open the Terminal window in VS Code.

Set up your SharePoint Framework development environment

In my opinion Microsoft has done a good job in publishing a collection of articles describing how to build and deploy your first webpart. I would recommend starting by reading the “Set up your SharePoint Framework development environment” articles to get yourself up and running

Tips:

  1. At the time of writing this article, the SPFx Framework does not support the latest TLS (long term support) version of Node.js. Installing the wrong version will cause you headaches, so read “Important” notes under the Install Node.js section before you install Node.js
  2. Click here to navigate the Node.js v10.x, use the Node.js > Downloads > Previous Releases page.

Already have Node.js installed?

As a Windows 10 user, I opened “Add or remove programs” and entered Node into “Search this list” and checked the version before running executing the node-v10.22.0-x64.msi file.

The following command can be used to check the version installed:

node -v

Trusting the self-signed developer certificate

Don’t forget to configure a self-signed SSL certificate which can be done by running the following command.

gulp trust-dev-cert

You will use this when testing your custom solutions from your development environment which uses HTTPS by default.

Modern Browsers

Even though Google Chrome  is my preferred browser, I like to have Microsoft Edge and Firefox installed for additional testing capabilities.

Tip: I use Google Chrome’s persons (profiles) to switch between Tenants and Accounts. I understand that other browsers now include similar functionality.

Other Tools

Notepad++

I like this code editor for its simplicity and Plugins, such as: JSON Viewer and XML Tools.

Fiddler

Captures all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet with Fiddler HTTP(S) proxy. Inspect traffic, set breakpoints, and fiddle with requests & responses.

Postman

Helps you build, connect and test APIs. An example is testing the Microsoft Graph API.

VS Code Extensions

Focused on SPFx development:

  • Debugger for Chrome
  • Debugger for FireFox
  • Debugger for Microsoft Edge
  • ESLint
  • jshint
  • Markdownlint
  • React Native Tools

For Source control:

  • Git Merger
  • GitLens

General Development:

  • Azure Account
  • Azure Functions
  • Azure Repos
  • Beautify
  • C#
  • Code Spell Checker
  • Edit CSV
  • Paste JSON as Code
  • PowerShell
  • Rainbow CSV

Frameworks & Fashion

Back in the mid 2010’s I built a lot of SharePoint webparts and worked with numerous JavaScript frameworks including: jQuery, jQuery UI, Underscore.js, Knockout, Vie.js and experimented AngularJS.

When the SPFx framework came on the scene the “AngularJS verses React (ReactJS)” conversation was fresh. While I built a handful of SPFx Webparts and Extensions I have to acknowledge things have moved on since then…

Back to School

Even though I had done these tutorials a few years ago, I found it invaluable to do them again:

Another great place to start with is the SharePoint Framework Client-Side Web Part Samples website and check out the Getting Started page. You can either clone the GitHub repository or just explore the code online.

My Pitfalls

If you are anything like me, I would recommend avoiding the following pitfalls:

  1. Using someone else’s code may seem like a great idea, however unless it does 90% or more of what you require you may find yourself spending more time trying to understand the code rather than writing new functionality.
  2. Getting bogged down in detail; this can easily happen if like me you enjoy detail. My strategy to avoid this is to draw wire-frames and carry out research (e.g. frameworks etc) before the build officially begins.
  3. Avoid the muddying of data and presentation code/layers; this is an area I can get bogged down in, however on a positive side the cleaner the separation the easier the code is to support and maintain.
  4. Unable to upgrade frameworks. It’s not always obvious what is going on, however if you find your projects are being scaffolded with old version npm packages then try retracing your steps and uninstalling everything including Node, before reinstalling again.

Next time

For my next post I will focus on design and frameworks.

Demo of the PnP Modern Search solution

Demo of the PnP Modern Search solution

A demo of the PnP Modern Search webparts put together to replicate some of the functionality found in the “Classic” Search Centre.

For more information on the PnP Modern Search Webparts click here: https://microsoft-search.github.io/pnp-modern-search

For an extended* version of the Search Verticals webpart click here: https://github.com/sionjlewis/pnp-modern-search

*Forwards the query string parameters or fragment to the next page.

SharePoint Online Admin cannot access the Content Type Hub

This is the second time I’ve been unable to access the Content Type Hub on a new Tenant as SharePoint Administrator.

The first time it happened, I thought it might be a one-off provisioning error and so I asked the Company Administrator (the person who create the Tenant) to grant me access.

This time I thought this might be in Microsoft plan to limit access. Having done a Google search and found solution posed by Jasper Ooosterveld. Apparently, he has had the same issue as a Global Administrator…

Because the Content Type Hub is a special and is not listed within SharePoint Admin Center you can use the following URL to add your SharePoint Administration account as a site collection administrators.

https://TenantName-admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/online/TA_SiteCollectionOwnersdialog.aspx?site=https://TenantName.sharepoint.com/sites/contentTypeHub

Do not forget to replace TenantName with your tenant name and that should be job done!

SharePoint Modern Library Experience: command ribbon

SharePoint Modern Library: Cannot exit “Expand content” mode

After clicking on the “Expand content” command button I have found myself scratching my head:

  • Where is the “Collapse content” command button?
  • Where has the command ribbon gone?
SharePoint Modern Library Experience: “Expand content” command

Well, the command ribbon is still there, it is just hidden by the ‘top placeholder’. Or more precisely, what has loaded into the ‘top placeholder’. For example: Hub Site Navigation or a SPFx Extension.

Having done a few web searches, I’m not the only one seeing this bug and apparently Microsoft is planning to fix the bug. In the meantime, here are two workarounds:

  1. Delete your browser cache (including cookies) and reload the page
  2. Open your browser’s developer tools (e.g. press F12).
    • Select the ‘Console’ tab
    • Paste in the following code
    • Press enter
document.querySelectorAll("button[title='Collapse content']")[0].click();

And now you should see the modern command ribbon again.

Connect-PnPOnline: unwanted credential caching

UPDATE: May 2021

This problem, as described in my original post below, has been fixed for the Connnect-PnPOnline, when using the UseWebLogin param. Plus, the ClearTokenCache parameter is no longer available…

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://[tenant].sharepoint.com" -UseWebLogin;

The “new” (or orignal) experience when calling the above Cmdlet will look like the following screen shot:

Login screen: That didn’t work … Here are a few ideas…

For more options, see https://pnp.github.io/powershell/cmdlets/Connect-PnPOnline.html#example-9

An alternative is to use the Interactive prameter:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://[tenant].sharepoint.com" -Interactive;

For more information, see https://pnp.github.io/powershell/cmdlets/Connect-PnPOnline.html#example-10

Original Post

Since creating a new Windows 10 profile (new PC) the Connect-PnPOnline PowerShell CmdLet has been caching my primary credentials while using the UseWebLogin parameter. 

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://[tenant].sharepoint.com" -UseWebLogin;

This wouldn’t be a problem if I only worked with on tenant…

After a fair amount of Google searching, mucking around with Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge settings I found that running the Connect-PnPOnline CmdLet with the following parameters worked:

Connect-PnPOnline -Url "https://[tenant].sharepoint.com" -SPOManagementShell -ClearTokenCache;

Once signed you can revert back to using the UseWebLogin parameter, well until the next time the PowerShell console caches the wrong details… 😉

For more information see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-pnp/connect-pnponline?view=sharepoint-ps

Office 365 Service Health

Need to check the health of your Office 365 Tenant and Services?
Here are some links that may help:

Office 365 (Tenant) Service health
https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/servicehealth

Microsoft 365 Service health status
https://status.office365.com

Office 365 outage map
https://downdetector.co.nz/status/office-365/map

Manage the life cycle of private channels in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft has published a very useful article in “Manage the life cycle of private channels in Microsoft Teams”, which can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/private-channels-life-cycle-management

In this post I have added my thoughts below some of their key points.

Set whether team members can create private channels

Team owners can turn off or turn on the ability for members to create private channels in team settings. To do this, on the Settings tab for the team, turn off or turn on Allow members to create private channels.

Microsoft
Microsoft Teams: Team Settings

As an admin, you can use Graph API, however currently there is not an option available for PowerShell (e.g. using the Set-Team PowerShell cmdlet – version 1.0.3).

Set whether users in your organization can create private channels

As an admin, you can set policies by using the Microsoft Teams admin center or PowerShell to control which users in your organization are allowed to create private channels.

Using the Microsoft Teams admin center

Use teams policies to set which users in your organization are allowed to create private channels. To learn more: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-policies

Microsoft

Using PowerShell

Use CsTeamsChannelsPolicy to set which users in your organization are allowed to create private channels. Set the AllowPrivateChannelCreation parameter to true to allow users who are assigned the policy to create private channels. Setting the parameter to false turns off the ability to create private channels for users who are assigned the policy.

Microsoft

NOTE: This cmdlet is currently (20/11/2019) only available in limited preview in the pre-release Teams PowerShell module.

To learn more about New-CsTeamsChannelsPolicy, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/skype/new-csteamschannelspolicy?view=skype-ps

Create a private channel on behalf of a team owner

As an admin, you can use PowerShell or Graph API to create a private channel on behalf of a team owner. For example, you may want to do this if your organization wants to centralize creation of private channels.

Microsoft

Pretty straight forward, for more information see the links below:

Find SharePoint URLs for all private channels in a team

Whether you’re looking to perform eDiscovery or legal hold on files in a private channel or looking to build a line-of-business app that places files in specific private channels, you’ll want a way to query the unique SharePoint site collections that are created for each private channel.

As an admin, you can use PowerShell or Graph APIs commands to query these URLs.

Microsoft 
$sites = get-sposite -template "teamchannel#0" 
$groupID = “<group_id>" 
foreach ($site in $sites) {
  $x= Get-SpoSite -Identity $site.url -Detail; 
  if ($x.RelatedGroupId -eq $groupID) {
    $x.RelatedGroupId;$x.url
  }
} 
GET https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/teams/<group_id>/channels?$filter=membershipType   eq 'private'

Compliance, eDiscovery and legal hold are all very important considerations when working with SharePoint and Microsoft Teams and I don’t see Private Channels being different. With that in mind, being able to quickly locate and manage the Site Collections (and data) is essential.

Currently there is not way to list and manage site collections created by Private Channel within the SharePoint Admin Center. Plus the PowerShell implementation is lagging behind the Graph API. That said with a little effort we can work around these limitations.

List and update roles of owners and members in a private channel

You may want to list out the owners and members of a private channel to decide whether you need to promote certain members of the private channel to an owner. This can happen when you have owners of private channels who have left the organization and the private channel requires admin help to claim ownership of the channel.

As an admin, you can use PowerShell or Graph APIs commands to query these URLs.

Microsoft

Pretty straight forward, for more information see the links below:

References and Links

Microsoft Teams: Team Settings

First impressions of Private Channels in Microsoft Teams

We finally have Private Channels in Microsoft Teams, here are some of my first impressions.

👍 Private Channels are created without the Wiki tab

👉 Private Channels create a new SharePoint site collection (based upon a modern Team)

👉 A Private Channel’s site collection’s Alias (URL) is prefixed with its “parent” Team’s Alias (URL):

  • Team Name: Human Resources
  • Private Channel Name: Annual Reviews
  • https://[company].sharepoint.com/sites/HumanResources-AnnualReviews

👍 Space re removed from a Private Channel’s title when a site collection’s Alias (URL) is created:

  • Private Channel Name: Annual Reviews
  • https://[company].sharepoint.com/sites/HumanResources-AnnualReviews

👎 Private Channels’ site collections are not available to see within the ‘modern’ SharePoint Admin Center. Other site collections are listed under the Active Sites page.

💀 Deleting a Private Channel also deletes the site collections (as expected). However the site collections is not available for recovery within the SharePoint Admin Center, under the Deletes Sites page.

👉 Private Channels site collection’s logo is not inherited from the Team and cannot be updated using the Microsoft Teams App. However it can be changed using the modern SharePoint UI.

👉 A Private Channel’s site collection’s homepage is the Documents library. It does not have the Site Pages feature activated and therefore does not have a Site Pages library.