Microsoft Graph – Deprecation of Outlook REST API v2.0

Announcement:
Today, we heard about the announcement, deprecation of Outlook REST API v2.0. The API will be decommissioned on November 30, 2022. After this date, the service will be retired, and developers may no longer access it.

What this meant for Outlook REST API v2.0 app developers:
– As part of the deprecation, you will soon see disable creation of new Outlook REST API v2.0 applications.
– This also means that going forward, there won’t be any further investments will be made by Microsoft in the capabilities or capacity of the Outlook REST API v2.0.
– In line with this announcement, OAuth Sandbox is also getting retired by December 31, 2020.

Moving forward:
If you are using the Outlook REST API v2.0 in your app, plan to transition to Microsoft Graph. You can get started from here Moving from Outlook endpoint to Microsoft Graph.

Hope this helps.

Office Developer: Difference between Office Web addin vs COM/VSTO addin

COM or VSTO add-ins are earlier Office integration solutions that run only on Office for Windows. The major difference what you see is that COM addins will be running in the user device or in the Office Client. The new Office Add-ins don’t involve code that runs on the user’s device or in the Office client. For an Office Add-in, the host application, for example Excel, reads the add-in manifest and hooks up the add-in’s custom ribbon buttons and menu commands in the UI. When needed, it loads the add-in’s JavaScript and HTML code, which executes in the context of a browser in a sandbox.

In general, Office Add-ins provides advantages over add-ins built using VBA, COM, or VSTO. I can name few of them,

• Cross-platform support:
  Office Add-ins run in Office for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Office Online. So your solution can run in Office across multiple platforms, including Office for Windows, Office Online, Office for the Mac, and Office for the iPad.

• Single sign-on (SSO):
  Office Add-ins integrate easily with users’ Office 365 accounts.

• Centralized deployment and distribution:
  Admins can deploy Office Add-ins centrally across an organization.

• Easy access via AppSource:
  You can make your solution available to a broad audience by submitting it to AppSource.

• Based on standard web technology:
  You can use any library you like to build Office Add-ins

Hope this helps.

Understand more about Office.js, it’s add-in runtime environment and Internet Explorer protected mode!!

In addition to the earlier blog post, you can refer the following:

– Microsoft Office addins using the Apps for Office platform are designed to run in isolation, using a low rights sandbox.
– Several features, such as the task pane view, use web views provided using Internet Explorer APIs. 
– To ensure these components execute HTML script in low rights mode, Office explicitly requires the browser object to run in Protected Mode. 
– Currently, IE does not support this from the API unless Protected Mode is enabled for Restricted Sites zone in IE itself.  This is typically not a problem since this is the default setting, and rarely will users disable it. However, if disabled (by user action or by GPO), these Office addin types may report an error when starting and refuse to load. It is an expected failure under that condition, and is blocked for security reasons.
– So while using Windows desktops, Protect Mode in Internet Explorer must be enabled for the Restricted Site Zone. This is typically enabled by default. If it is disabled, an error will occur when you try to launch an add-in.

For more info, you can refer

– https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250462(v=vs.85).aspx to know more about “Understanding and Working in Protected Mode Internet Explorer”
– https://dev.office.com/docs/add-ins/develop/privacy-and-security to know more about “Privacy and security for Office Add-ins”

Hope this helps.

Azure Dev TestLabs for Developers and testers…

Azure DevTest Labs provides developers and testers a self-service sandbox environment to quickly create Dev/Test environments while minimizing waste and controlling costs. This lab provides lot of benefits including creating, configuring, and managing developer and test environments in the Azure cloud.

Using this service the developers and testers quickly create environments in Azure while minimizing waste and controlling cost. You can test the latest version of your application by quickly provisioning Windows and Linux environments using reusable templates and artifacts. Easily integrate your deployment pipeline with DevTest Labs to provision on-demand environments. Scale up your load testing by provisioning multiple test agents, and create pre-provisioned environments for training and demos.

 

https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Azure/What-is-Azure-DevTest-Labs/player

You can get it started from here. To create a Dev Testlabs lab, you will need:

• An Azure subscription. To learn about Azure purchase options, see How to buy Azure or Free one-month trial. You must be the owner of the subscription to create the lab.
• An Azure Resource Group for the lab. See Azure Resource Manager Overview and Azure Role-based Access Control.

Hope this helps!!