Collaborative Apps with Microsoft Cloud - Azure For Sure Ep. 4

Hi everyone and welcome back to the new episode of Azure Forest Show

I'm a host, Stephen Simon, and we are back on Thursday. So you might have seen that we are streaming on a little different time

We usually stream it on 9 a.m. Pacific time, but today has been a certain change because it's a very, very special episode

Just a quick update that, sorry for the delay. There was a little hustle behind the scene

So, yeah, so it is six. always 5.30 p.m. at my place and, you know, I joined from India, Delhi. So they might be

a little background now. It's kids when, it's the time when kids go to the park, parents are out

and the pandemic is almost gone. So they might be a little background noise. So please bear with

me. So everyone who's joining, welcome back once again. This is episode number four. And I think

we're almost halfway down to the season one of this Azure for sure. Thank you so much for all

the people that have been joining all this time. And in today's episode, we have a very, very special

guest. I remember I hosted her first time back in July 2020. It's almost like two

one and a half for two years now. She is Aichabba. She is a senior cloud advocate. She's a senior

cloud advocate now when I started hosting her. She was a cloud advocate and she has been a

micro-strand partner too. So yeah, quite an interesting show is going to be. And we're going to

talk about collaborative apps with Microsoft Cloud. And yeah, so without any further ado, if you have any questions, please feel

going to go ahead and drop them in the comments. And let's bring our guest in

Hi, Aja, welcome to the Aja for show live show. Hi, yeah, thanks for having me

It's a great show and I'm really excited to be here. All right, Aja, thanks for accepting the invitation

And before we go ahead and move to the technical stuff on this live show

could you tell us where you're joining us from and what do you do actually as a cloud advocate

Yes, of course. Hi everyone. My name is Aichabash. I'm a cloud advocate at Microsoft and I live in Dubek

And I live in Dubai, but I'm originally Turkish. And you may hear some background noise of cars

because people love using noisy cars over here. And at Microsoft, I mainly focus on Microsoft 365 technologies

such as Graph Microsoft Teams. But today, you're going to talk about more

of how we can build collaborative apps using Microsoft Cloud. So that covers a lot of clouds from Microsoft

Yeah, exactly. So, I, you know, today it says collaborative apps with Microsoft Cloud

and this show is about Azure, right? So why didn't you end up saying collaborative apps with Azure

I mean, for me, as a layman, when I hear Microsoft Cloud, it is Azure

So why not collaborative apps with Azure, and why did you put up Microsoft Cloud there in the title

Yeah. So if I tell you that this is not only Asia

would you just leave me alone out of the episode because it's not Asia

I hope not. No. Yeah, so the reason I call this as Microsoft Asia, so not Microsoft Asia, but Microsoft Cloud

because in terms of collaborative apps and actually many apps we started building these days

include per platform, Microsoft 365 or Azure. So combination of those technologies help us make solutions at the end

So when we, let's say, try to build something collaborative, let's say you want to get

notifications from each and every user when they change their presence status, let's say

then you will of course need graph, but also you will require some other technologies to build

the entire app. If you're building a web app, you will use maybe Azure Static web apps

If you're building a bot to do that, you will use Azure bot service or you will use Power Ritual

agents. So there's never one single technology or one single thing, one single part of Microsoft

EU. So that's why I want to call this Microsoft Cloud because of course we need Azure

but we all will also get some support from other technologies at Microsoft, such as per platform

GitHub and Microsoft 365. So a combination of all those makes it an in-to-end solution

actually. All right. That makes sense now. So you mean to see the entire ecosystem, right

Microsoft 65, Azure, Graves, and GitHub. You put it all together and then you call it as a Microsoft Cloud, right? Perfect

Makes sense. So when you say building a collaborative apps, now I don't get collaborative, what does collaborative

mean, but if I heard the apps, some of the apps that I have been using throughout this

pandemic and even before that has been like Outlook or Microsoft Teams and maybe one

which are some of your favorite apps? My favorite apps, probably day to day, I use teams quite often

And then Outlook is the next one. I also use to do a lot just to keep track of my to items day to day And also I use office to check out all of the files meetings everything is going on

office so you can search around. Basically, all these apps are collaborative apps built by Microsoft, but there are also

other apps that you can build and you can get this data in your own application

For example, you can build a bot that can notify you about your upcoming event

That can be one collaborative app. Or you can actually create a tap on teams that can show the time zones

It's actually my colleague Bob who built that app because in our team, we are distributed

all over the world. So we always need to check the time zones every time when we want to schedule a meeting

And it's a hassle to take all the time zones. Instead, he built a tab on teams that shows all of the time zones in our team so that you

can go ahead and take a look if it works for the person you're looking for

So these are basically collaborative apps that helps you during your working day

That can actually help you on the side of teams, outlook or other stuff

Lots of people are actually getting so many information. say that there are so many apps, so many files, and so on

We see a lot of applications built for centralizing the files, maybe centralizing the channels they're using in the company

All those scenarios make a real good collaborative app scenarios. I get that

What I get it from you just say is that we're using these applications on a day-to-day basis

and we're generating a lot of data, right? And what you're saying is that we can use

use that data and build custom apps upon it, right? Totally, yes

You can build your whichever makes your life easier. You can build that app and you can use your own data in the app

So that makes it a culvert to app. That's pretty handy. And actually, you did give an example in the very beginning about the web

website, for instance, if I need to go ahead and build a collaborative app

that is, that is front end is a web app. right our static website so what would be my very first step for instance now i have decided

that okay i need to go ahead and create an app where some of my team members will go ahead and

log in and they'll work around it right so what is the very first step and i need to go ahead and

build an app uh so it depends where you start right uh most of the people always start with

visual studio code and then uh they build their app locally and then they start and installing

the SDKs and then they call the APIs required and they also work on the interface and the front end

And then you end up, you know, hosting your app in Asia or other cloud platforms

While you're doing that, of course, you will need a lot of information how to make this app happen

because as you said, we have login. We also have maybe you want to gather some other data from Microsoft 35

then you have to call Graph, then you have to know Microsoft Graph, at least a little bit

how you can call the API. And after that, you need to know Asia Static Web Apps or Azure Web Apps

then you can host your app. So all these scenarios are actually available in Azure Architecture Center for your reference

If you're looking for some of the collaborative app scenarios, and if you don't know what is the good match

if you're not sure what can be the good scenario, there's actually a great place in Asia

Architecture Center. We started calling solutions across Microsoft Cloud Platforms, literally reading from the documentation

over here in my screen. You can just go there and check out what are the scenarios related to Asia and Power Platform

or Azure and Microsoft 65. And you will see in some of the scenarios, we actually have even three of them, not

just two. And you will see some of the scenarios. We also have a really good YouTube channel

You can find a lot of community scenarios under Microsoft 365 developer YouTube channel

where you will see students are building great solutions for community improving the onboarding

system in the community or again, students are building solutions to improve their universities

online learning environment, for example, by getting the learning API or by getting some data

from Microsoft Teams and Moodle at the same time to track attendance and so on. And of course

we have great solutions from MVPs. They also tell us how we can build all those solutions

So I guess there are so many places you can check out if you're interested in collaborative apps

Yeah, that's on you and your team have been creating a lot of content around this and the community is very, very active

A quick question, right, when I think I'll go back to the collaborative app, right

When we say that we're generating a lot of data and we can capitalize the data and coherent building apps around it

Now, I know, you know, these interns that we hire, you know, I'll give a real

time scenario. When we hire these interns in any of the company, it's often very challenging

to give them tasks, right? They always ask you that, hey, we need you to go into something. And we really don't have a lot of work to give them. So what they actually end up doing is

they were just logging to the system, then this is log out, they'll keep on changing files

from here to there. They just find a way to kill their time, right? So what I feel is that

there's a lot of instantaneous change of data happening in this Microsoft Cloud ecosystem, right

So when I go ahead and build these collaborative apps, can those apps be very instant to handle this kind of change in data

Yes, great question. Actually, in Microsoft Graph, in a really quick introduction

if someone watching and doesn't know what Microsoft Graph is, Microsoft Graph is an API that we can gather all of our data from Microsoft 365

Basically, if you're chatting with someone on teams or if you are receiving sending emails on Outlook group

if you're using Planner and if you have tasks there, you can basically gather all that data and use it in your own app

This is a really basic description of graph, but there's a lot you can do with Graph 2

One of the features in Graph is called Microsoft Graph Change Notifications

and it recently, actually, it has announced last year, build that you can use Microsoft Graph Change

notifications with Azure EventHubs. That makes a huge difference because, as you know

Azure EventHubs can handle millions of data at the same time in real time

That means all of the data digesting and handling part will be covered by Azure EventHubs

So we don't need to worry about the servers and stuff. So we don't need to worry about how we can digest the data

in the app site, event. Hub will take care of getting the data real time and sending it to your data

So in short, yes, you can build real-time apps actually by using Microsoft Graph, change

notifications, and the combination with Azure EventHubs makes it really good because in this

case Azure EventHubs such a good technology that can handle all these data real so you don have to worry about it So in this case I guess when you working with Microsoft 365 or Power Platform or Azure

there are so many other options available in the other environments that you can leverage and you can combine

so your app will become much more powerful. And some of the examples are actually, when I was working as a consultant in the field

at Microsoft, I always see combination of those technologies as a solution and not just like

you know, focusing on one single technology like graph, but instead combination of graph

and event hubs, maybe Azure functions as well, makes it a super cool and real-time app, real-time

collaborative app when you know how to consume all those together. So I get that part, right

So when you go ahead and create these apps, you can also leverage the Azure, this event hub and all

Now, so Aisha, where does power apps play a role in this

I know, I mean, I've built many power apps. I've used power automate. I've used power bi

Now, if I, definitely, I can build a power app that can work across different teams, right

But from your perspective, where can these power apps, a power automate

would come into play. Yeah, so in general, if I speak for per platform

it can actually play a really big role, especially, let's say you ask your intern to build an app for your team

so that your team can, if let's say they join your company for the first time

and they need to build a team's app, onboarding app, but they first need to learn, let's say, both framework

and they need to know at least one language so they can write code

Instead, they can leverage from power ritual agents, which has a really connected way of testing your app in Microsoft Teams

so you don't have to do much. You just click test and you can test it on Teams too

I guess Power Platform comes into the picture when you want to have a quick recurrence flows

Let's say you want to, I mean, in one of the scenarios I use Parvotomatomate, for example, in the entire picture of the solution is the way I recurred the subscription for Microsoft Graph Change notifications, because my subscription expires every hour, every top of the hour

So I need to renew it. Either I can write a code, or I can just simply create a flow on Power Automate so it can recur itself

And another scenario can be, as I mentioned, if you want to build a really quick bot that can handle

as some stuff brings some of your data, but you don't know how to write code and you don't know how to leverage from bot framework SDK

Power Virtual Agent comes to come into the picture, and it's a really easy way to build bots

Same for Power Apps, if you just want to test some data, and if you want to build an app that your team can use

Again, Power Apps are a really good way of building that. Instead of creating an Azure Static Web App, you can actually create a Power App

So again, the same structure can work with the graph, with teams

And again, you can leverage from event hubs, but your front end app will be Power App

So I guess there are so many ways that we can leverage from Power Platform

Absolutely great. So I think we are moving more towards low code, no code

where you don't have to write a lot of code, at least a repetitive code

and there's so many powerful tools out there. I personally love power automate. I come from an RPA background

so I really love that. So, Aisha, you know, during this, when I was exploring this power epsilon, right

I found it very challenging to go ahead and find a subscription, right

You need to be a part of our organization to actually go ahead and practice. Although I was doing it on Microsoft Learn

which has a very good sandbox, They give you Azure subscription on the fly and all that

So do you have any suggestions that people could actually go ahead and get a free subscription and get started

Yes. Actually, in general, when you start using some Microsoft 365 data with graph or if you want to test something on teams

or if you're building a power app or power virtual agent, it might be really challenging

for you to test it in your company's environment or your school's environment

Instead, you can go ahead and register to Microsoft 365 developer program

It's a free program and everyone can join the program. In Microsoft 365 developer program, you will get a tenant

It's a demo tenant. It will come with a number of people and it will come with certain data

So you actually will see when you create a tenant in Microsoft 365 developer program

you will see some people chats on teams. So there is a data available in Outlook

in Microsoft 365 in general, so that you can practice test your power automate flows

or test your power app with the existing data. It's actually a really nice program

if you're a student and trying to build some projects for your school or if you work in a company and if you're trying to

to build something with the data you have in Microsoft 365. I guess it's a really nice program

And again, I will mention it's free. So I guess for developers, it's a really nice way to start stuff

in a really easy way. Other than asking admins to give us permissions

we can just go ahead and use it. I mean, yeah, developers always love free stuff, right

So good for them. So I share a quick question on this

Now, if I need to go and use Azure for free, right, they give me free, certain free credits for 12 months

How it works for this developer program? Is it available for the entire

for my rest of our life, 12 months? How does that work

So in the Microsoft 365 developer program, as long as you continue using your tenant

so they actually work in the activity base. If you don't enter your tenant in next 90 days

I'm not sure about the date, but something like that, then your tenant will expire

If you continue using your tenant for testing purposes, if you build some other apps and continue using the tenant accounts

then you can continue using, there is no expiring date. It will continue renewing itself as long as you continue using it

Wow, that's very nice of Microsoft, I would say. You keep on using it and they'll keep on renewing your subscription

so that that really helps. Now, Aisha, we're almost like towards the end of the show, right

And we've been talking about collaborative apps and Microsoft Draft. And you're an expert in it, right

You're the one who goes ahead and build this product, right? So my question here to you is, what is the most challenging thing or a task while building a collaborative app

What do you think there is still room of improvement or maybe if there's something that you guys and the guys and girls are working on

I guess the most challenging part is knowing, because it's impossible to know everything in technology

I mean, you can say yourself an export if you work in a really long time in such area

I guess in terms of collaborative apps you need to know some stuff in many different areas For example you need to know Azure You need to maybe if you want to use power platform again you need to know a little bit more about it

Also, if you want to do something with collaboration, you will need to understand Microsoft 365 and how graph and teams work

So in all these scenarios, sometimes it is hard to find, and to install

because when you go to the documentation, if you're in the graph documentation or teams

you will see any information about that piece. If you go to EventHubs, you will find information about that

But you are the one you need to connect each and every one of them

in the architecture, in the solution. So for that, actually, you're working a lot on increasing

the number of solutions that developers can build by combining all these technologies so they'll understand how they work in a

real solution instead of just understanding one single product itself. Because when it comes to the real-life scenarios

if you're a developer in a company or if you're a consultant, you probably see that a lot that you probably need to

if you're a developer, you're the one need to handle the power tomate flow

as well as you are the one need to build the graph change notifications

by using event hubs. So you're the one probably handling the entire thing

So that's the area. That's why we want to focus a lot and increase the number of solutions available for your reference so that you can find the easy way of connecting all these stuff and have those work together

Because I guess when it comes to the development, when there's something new, companies always want to try that

But developers are the ones need to learn the new stuff. and try them in different solutions

So it's, I think, important to have their into-end version of it

Yeah, you're often a one-man army in your team. So yeah, you have to do a lot of work

So I just, since you're a cloud advocate, right, and you spend a lot of time in their community

So do you also run some of the live shows or maybe a blog

that you run it where people can always go ahead and stay, stay updated with the latest code samples or the examples that you guys and the

world's put it out there. Yeah, so in my team, there are so many projects going on, so many great work that my colleagues

are working. Recently, I had an initiative about blog posts that you maybe see if you're following me

I've been posting about it. We started having a series of articles

which is called Learn from the Community. Our purpose is to Learn from students, learn from MEP, startups, companies, and basically whoever wants to share in the community

And yes, that one. We publish these articles every Tuesday at 8 AMPT

And you can see that every week we cover another scenario. If you're more of a reader, instead of just watching the video, we have a really short version of explaining you what is the problem

what is the biggest reason that students or MEPs build that project

And then we explain you the solution really shortly. And if you're interested in learning more, you can just go ahead and check out the video

We publish on our YouTube channel. And this is it. And also we want to hear more of those projects so that we can publish

and highlight your story on our YouTube channel. And also we can highlight your story again on

learn from the community. If you're interested in maybe collaborating with us to put your project on our YouTube and also learn from the community, if you want to be a part of it, you can just either reach out to me or Stefan or in a more formal way, we have a form that you can reach out to us

You can just fill out the form and I can reach out to you and we can record the videos

the form you can reach out from aka.m.s. slash share dash your dash story. I should have come up with an easier one

Yeah. And then no one has did you when you said Stephen did you mean did you mean me

Yeah. I know everybody calls you Simon but your real name is Stefan right? Yeah it was so awkward to hear my first name

Yeah. But Simon is your last name. Yeah, Simon is my last name, yeah

Probably I'm the only one calling you this, seven. Yeah, it sounded so different that I had to confirm

So, Aisha, about from, so is there anything you want to plug around this topic before we end the show

Go ahead and try it. I mean, first of all, if you're interested in learning more of the stories, go ahead and check out, learn from the community

series, I'm sure you will like some of the scenarios you may find your inspiration and build

your own or most of the scenarios have GitHub repose so you can just go ahead and try yourself

for your own company, for your own community. Second double, if you want to be a part of it

please do not hesitate. We definitely want to hear from each and every one of community members

If you want to share and if you think that your project might be interesting for others too

definitely we invite you to be a part of learn from the community this is one last thing i can

can say and also can we show aka ms link at the bottom so people can throughout the book

i need to like a k a dot ms what was that learn no share share dash your dash story

i think people got it already okay i'm gonna drop it anyway

All right, that's a girl. And also here, I think this is the right

aka I must share your story. That's easy. That's an easy one

So Aijab, one quick question before you leave, or maybe a couple of quick questions

I see you have very interesting paintings in the background. Did you make them? No

I bought them, but then I was too lazy to put them on top

So they're staying at the bottom instead. And I want to have some colorful stuff

my colleague, Rabia, has really good lights. And she also has some books on top

So I also, I'm on the same path, but it just takes so much time to build something like that

So that's why. I want to do exactly the same thing like your background

But it takes time to build it. Yeah, exactly. You know, it has so many modes

I love it. Oh, nice. No, right. So, I just thank you

Thank you so much for, for being. a part of Azure 4-Shall

Show. I would love to have you back. And yeah, I think it's time

You say bye to everyone, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. Thanks for having me

It's a great show. I love the name, Azure for sure. But we talked about something else, like Packersault Your 655

It's good, too. Yeah, it's a big ecosystem, right? It comes, it falls under that

So thank you everyone for joining us today. This was episode number four of Azure 4thier, next week we joined

I don't remember next week, yes, but yeah, join us next week

We are almost halfway down of this series. And, yeah, Icha, have a nice day ahead, and I'll see you soon

Thank you, everyone. See you. Hi, everyone