Yearly Archives: 2019

PowerApps – 3 different ways to implement currency input mask

As far as I know at the time of this post PowerApps doesn't have an Input Mask (currency mask in this particular case) feature. It is possible to mimic that feature using Text function but implementing it is not really straightforward and gets even more complicated if you are dealing with PowerApps integrated with SharePoint. In this post I will show you 3 different ways of implementing a workaround for a currency input mask, each has its own pros and cons: The currency mask formatting is not visible until you submit the form (the simplest). You can see the mask formatting even before submitting your form but you need to click away from the field to see the formatting (medium complexity). The currency formatting is applied real time as you type in the numbers (the most complicated but the most natural way of working with currency). Let's create a testprice…

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PowerShell – show and adjust resource booking configuration according to 4 scenarios

There is an amazing article (https://itpro.outsidesys.com/2017/11/06/exchange-configuring-the-resource-booking-attendant-with-powershell/) published by John Dougherty on how to adjust resource booking configuration having 4 different scenarios. Those 4 scenarios are: Anyone can book the resource. No delegate approval required. Anyone can book the resource. Delegate approval required for all requests. Only a list of people can book the resource without delegate approval. All others require delegate approval. Only a list of people can book the resource. All others are denied. There are no delegates. Not everything can be done through an Admin portal, that's why having such a PowerShell script is crucial. I decided to do several things to improve that process: Added code to check an existing configuration for every single Room and Resource. If the configuration is any different than these 4 above, then the script notifies you about it. Combined scripts into a single one. Added more user input to not adjust the…

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PowerApps form in SharePoint – create a configurable auto-incrementing column without Flow

If you search for SharePoint auto-incrementing column or SharePoint counter column you will notice that most of the examples use the old Workflow or Microsoft Flow to achieve that. In this blog post I will explain how to use PowerApps to do the same and even better. The benefits of using this method are: Configurable counter (if you would like to skip or reserve some numbers, you can adjust the counter to anything). That counter list can have many configuration items for other custom lists and applications. No Microsoft Flow runs are used. Further customization is possible (e.g. reserved numbers). The only downside I could find so far, when several users submit the form at once (literally within the same second), one of them will get an error message. So I'd recommend catching that error and let a user know to retry saving the form. Please note that in this…

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Script to search through Recoverable and Purged items and restore those

The purpose of this script is to find deleted messages in a specified user's mailbox. There are 3 levels (when configured) of Trash in a mailbox: Level 1 - Deleted Items (e.g. 30 days) Level 2 - Recoverable items (e.g. 15 days) Level 3 - Purged items (e.g. 15 days) Users usually know about the first two. Moreover, they can only work with the first two from both Outlook and OWA. Only admins have access to Purged items. It makes sense to use this script in at least 2 cases: A user is being terminated on bad terms, decided to permanently delete everything from both Deleted and Recoverable items. A user deleted an email at some point, missed the first 30-day period, then missed the second 15-day period, and then wants to recover that email. If it's less than 60 days (30+15+15) overall then that email can be restored. The script…

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PowerApps form in SharePoint – show values of Created and Created By before item submission

I am huge advocate of using as few columns as possible when building PowerApps forms in SharePoint. Let's take a look at a very simplified example - a custom Requests SharePoint list.  It surely has to have fields like: Requested By (a user name here) Requested On (a date and time here). So rather than creating two more columns and populating them with values, I would highly recommend using columns that already exist in SharePoint - Created and Created By. The downside of these columns is they don't have values until a user submits the request. Because of this it might be not the cleanest user experience if you decide to use and show those fields. There is a simple way to prepopulate those fields with values that will be exact (user name) or very close (date and time) to the ones that will appear after submission. Let's create a…

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Skype for Business – using Banner logo from Azure-Company Branding in a Skype Logo URL

It's a good practice to display your Company logo in the places where it makes sense, e.g.: Login page (for users to be 100% sure they are trying to access their Company resource) Email signature (Company branding) Skype for Business meeting (Company branding) Configuring Logo in the Skype for Business is pretty straightforward and fully described in this Microsoft article - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/SkypeForBusiness/set-up-skype-for-business-online/customize-meeting-invitations Since it has to be a URL, it must be pointing to a web resource whether it's your Company website, SharePoint document library with enabled anonymous access or anything else. In my opinion, these are all unnecessary dependencies. Why not using something that is already configured? PREREQUISITES - Company Branding To configure Company branding you must follow these steps: Go to Microsoft 365 admin center - Admin centers - Azure Active Directory Then Azure Active Directory admin center - Azure Active Directory - Company branding - Banner logo Upload your Company logo image following the…

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Script to add or replace distribution groups of a target user with groups a source user has

This PowerShell script has two use cases combined in it - ADD and REPLACE. Before any change is made the script also shows a group membership for both a target and a source users. Note, the script only processes those distribution groups that are managed in the cloud. If you have some groups synced with Active Directory, those should be processed separately. USE CASE #1 - ADD When Add is chosen, the scripts only adds distribution groups of the source user to the target user's list. Use this part of the script when a target user assumes new responsibilities that another user has but keeps the old responsibilities as well. In other words, the target user needs to have a combination of new and old distribution groups to perform job tasks. USE CASE #2 - REPLACE Essentially, the 2nd part of the script is a combination of the 1st part…

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PowerApps – using Checkbox controls with Multi-Valued Choice columns

At some point Microsoft PowerApps Team added support for fields with multiple values through a Combo Box control. However, as of this moment (2/3/2019) there is still no native support for Checkbox controls even when you configure your Choice column in SharePoint to have Checkboxes (allow multiple selections). There is a good article (https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/multivaluedchoicesinforms/) published by Carlos Figueira from PowerApps Team that shows how to implement Checkbox controls. The downside of it was using a Text column that imitates a Choice column. It's been a while since that article was published, so it's hard to say if anyone has done it differently. In this post I will explain how to pair Checkbox controls with a true Multi-Valued Choice column. Please note, in my example I will be using a PowerApps Form rather than PowerApps App; however, it shouldn't make any difference. Let's create a SharePoint List, name it TestList, add a TestListColors Choice column.…

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Script to remove a user from all distribution groups managed in the cloud

The purpose of this PowerShell script is to remove a user from all distribution groups. The script is interactive, it will show the list of groups first, then you have an option to process your request. While the same can be done using Exchange Admin or Microsoft 365 Admin Center, it is much faster using PowerShell. Note, the script only processes those distribution groups that are managed in the cloud. If you have some groups synced with Active Directory, those should be processed separately. $email = Read-Host "Please provide a user's email address to remove from all distribution groups" $mailbox = Get-Mailbox -Identity $email $DN=$mailbox.DistinguishedName $Filter = "Members -like ""$DN""" $DistributionGroupsList = Get-DistributionGroup -ResultSize Unlimited -Filter $Filter Write-host `n Write-host "Listing all Distribution Groups:" Write-host `n $DistributionGroupsList | ft $answer = Read-Host "Would you like to proceed and remove $email from all distribution groups ( y / n )?" While…

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SharePoint Document Library – show Path column in the view and make it clickable to open that path

How to add / show Path column in a view in a SharePoint Document Library appears to be a question with hundreds of different answers to it. The reasons for such a variety are: different versions of SharePoint (on premise, online, 2010, 2013); two Workflow variations ("old" workflow, Microsoft Flow); SharePoint Designer (2010, 2013); using Web Parts and more. Why would one need to see a Path column? Take a look at the two examples below; however, there might be more use cases. Example 1 - when searching for files. Example 2 - when using a view with "Show all items without folders" option selected Here is a test Document Library with a folder and some document in it: It's not possible to show Path column using out-of-the-box tools, the Path column is just not available to be selected: Although the Path can be seen if you open the details pane:…

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