Back in 2021 I wrote a blog on Lists and Power BI. Microsoft had just released the ability to visualise a list through the integrate tab. And at that time everything was pretty much good, except it had a fundamental issue where whilst it generated the report on top of List, that report didn't appear in the Power BI service itself. I know, I know. It kind of sounds like one of those first world problems right - and I guess to some extents it is given that the report could be created after all. But for me, who uses Lists as data sources, and wanted them in the service, in a workspace alongside other reports and then to pull then back through into the Power BI App in Teams, it was kind of a frustrating situation being that close. Today, I am probably a bigger user of the Desktop App than the service, connecting to Lists and then publishing them to the service. And this scenario probably pushed me to being more of a Desktop user than a Service user all up. But now we have the ability to export the list directly into Power BI as a dataset. This is massive. So let's go building.
Category: Microsoft Lists
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Returning to Video Playlists with Teams, SPO, Lists and Stream
Not much time to shoot the breeze this evening. I'm still in the thick of it. And with the MCT Connect Conference, MWCP and a whole load coming into focus like a tidal wave next month, it's going to be wild. The word bedlam springs to mind. Nevertheless, one of the things I wanted to write about, and then completely forgotten about, and then remembered as I raked over the coals in the tenant has been the new Lists template for video playlists. You see, I did write about a way to do playlists back in june last year. To me, that seems like a few weeks ago. But Microsoft now have something out of the box. And so I am going to deploy it, and populate it, and then I am going to stick that in a tab and a personal app. Now prior to this - full transparency - I haven't tried this out previously. I haven't even attempted it given what I got spinning on the plate, so this will be a pretty functional off the cuff affair.
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Applying to access a Blocked App. Built in and Custom.
Teams now has over 1,700 apps which are integrated and available to manage via the Teams Admin Centre. This is scary because - to me at least, I can measure the passing of time based upon that number. I can remember saying in one conference that Teams has over 300 apps. In another, Teams has over 500 apps. 700. 1000. You get the picture. And in that time, we've seen functionality introduced such as permissions and app setup policies, the ability to block apps, the ability to control custom apps. We've seen attestation, app settings, the ability to buy subscriptions for apps via the TAC and a complete facelifting of the store to which you can now customize. This week I am going to look at a new functionality for users needing to request use of a blocked app. Back in the day - when an admin blocked an app - that app would simply disappear from the app store altogether. Microsoft changed this experience because if the apps disappear completely, they posit it actually encourages Shadow IT and self-sign up outside of the ecosystem leading to sprawl, data leakage and issues with data sovereignty. So, the current experience as it stands is that users can now see the blocked app; but request it from the admin. The admin then has to permit it use. Now, the new functionality we are concerned with allows the admin to set a workflow to direct the user to an external system to perform the request as opposed to it running through Teams. With such a detailed explanation you may think this sounds like niche functionality, but actually this is quite an important part of governance. We are fixing one problem with visibility, but we also need to make it easy for admins and organisations to make a judgement call on the use of that app
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Lookup Columns in Lists. Surfacing in Power BI.
I had an enquiry from a co-worker this week. It was as follows: they had access to two lists that they used daily. These lists were in two different teams' channels. However, they wanted to bring some of the data from one list into another to 'make their life easier'. On top of this they wanted - as a bonus - to display the data visually. However, they were not permitted to amalgamate the lists due to others using them and the business wanted them separate. So how could we solve this to make things easier? This is almost a textbook case for using lookup columns. What we need is a list relationship, where information from one list (the source list) can be used in another list (the target list). List relationships let you join information from two lists and keep it consistent while people edit and delete list items. Sound good? It is. However, there is four really important things to know with lookup columns before we get going. First, they don't currently support all column types. Whilst Single Line of Text, Date and Numbers are supported, other types such as Choice and Currency are not. Secondly, they are only supported in the same SharePoint site. In Teams land that means only if the lists are in public channels in the same team or if both lists are in the same private channel. No cross team. No cross public and private channels. Third, if you are using large lists then lookup columns may not be a solution. At that point we may be looking at something like SQL and Power Apps. But the biggest one - number four - is this. A lookup column does not automatically add values from a source list. A lookup column allows you to add values held in a source list. In other word the source list seeds values for the target - but they have to be added manually. This is an important distinction. Here is how to create a list with lookup columns to another list. And as a bonus, connect that List to Power BI to report on it
Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Let’s build a Playlist Portal in Teams using Stream and Lists – and bringing Lists to a Personal App
What is cool about Microsoft 365 is the synergy between applications. Standalone they are strong apps in and of themselves - but as a former architect there is a real enjoyment about making them work together to produce something which is greater than the sum of it's parts. Now, the last few evenings I have been focusing on Microsoft Stream - long overdue given I used to write about it quite a bit back in the day. I talked about redirecting to the new Stream Web App experience, I talked about the fundamentals of building a video portal and surfacing that in Teams. A little bit before that I wrote on the new chapter functionality and how this will make videos more easily searchable. Now, I am going to take a different tack and bring another app into the fold which is Microsoft Lists. Like Stream, Lists is another app in 365 which I love, and which I use often. Now what this can be used for is to make a Playlist. A Playlist by definition is 'a list of pieces of music chosen by someone to listen to on their computer, phone, etc.' So a playlist could easily apply to video. Let's see if we can make one up
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