Introduction to the new build system

Microsoft recently made a new build definitions model with the release of Visual Studio 2015 (TFS 2015’s bits are not yet available but this new build service is already available on Visual Studio Online).

Just as a reminder the “old” build models were based on two artifacts:

• The build process template: defined via XAML, it allows you to configure the sequence for the build process.
• The build definition: links together the template, sources and some settings.

This methodology offers a wide range of possibilities to automate your build, packaging, testing and even deployment.

This article is targeting SharePoint full trust developers who have (will) developed a custom service (SPService) for SharePoint.

Indeed, if you are building a product for SharePoint like we’re doing at Negotium (www.oceanik.com www.theattributesolution.com ) you probably built a custom service application within your solution.

If that’s the case your custom service application probably relies on a dedicated custom SharePoint service to run its code (it can be a service within IIS or a windows service).

Hi everybody,

At Negotium we’re building multiple SharePoint products (www.oceanik.com www.theattributesolution.com …)

We’ve recently had a complex issue. Let’s say these two products have a common dependency (newtonsoft.json in our case). Now let’s say both products are installed on a single farm and that for some reason you have to uninstall one of them.

When SharePoint will retract the wsp, it will retract all dll’s that were included within it. Including the common dependency the other product still needs. That is going to break the other product.

At Negotium we recently came across a weird problem.

Let’s assume you previously built a Provider hosted app for SharePoint.

Now let’s assume you updated to the latest version of the SDK (April/May update)

Finally let’s assume your tenant has been updated recently (v16.0.4121.1212 or above)

It’s likely that you are loading SP.*.js files and MicrosoftAjax.js the way it used to be recommended by Microsoft per say: <HostWebUrl>/_layouts/15/jsfile.js or <AppWebUrl>/_layouts/15/jsfile.js.

Hi everybody,

For those who didn’t know it already, you can set the “appSettings” settings of your web application from the azure portal.

This technique has several advantages over the traditional xsl transformation:

• Only the admin knows the settings, they are not on the source control
• Rich UI experience
• Settings can be “slot relative” (checkbox on the right), this allows you to have something like “this setting has this value in staging and that value in production which have to remain with each slot, even if I swap the deployments”

I recnetly found a bug with that tool. Let’s say we define only appSettings keys in the web.config file because values are going to be set by the configuration service anyway.

This year again I have the opportunity to speak at the SPS NYC

https://www.spsevents.org/city/nyc/nyc2015

My session will be about the importance of metadata in your company.

We’ll start by some reminders around the theory and describe what are the advantages and disadvantages of different types of each. Then we’ll see what’s currently supported by SharePoint and what are the available tools. Finally we’ll talk about why it is so important that you set this up in your companies, how it can improve findability of content and how it will help you to move to the Graph.

This year again I have the opportunity to speak at the SPS Montréal

/montreal-sharepoint-saturday-2

I also had the occasion to help organize the event this year, it’s been an interesting experience so far and I’d like to thank Serge, Nico, Luc, Philippe, Seb, Fabrice and Alain for their implication in that project, it’s much more work than what we think!

My session will be about the importance of metadata in your company. (In French)

The SPBizConf (https://www.spbizconf.com/ ) will happen on June 17th and 18th of 2015.

This conference is mostly oriented towards business users (with a bit of technical content) and is free and online.

Don’t wait to sign up!

I’ll have the opportunity to give a session about the Graph. We’ll have a theoretical part to ensure everybody has got basis, a part talking about Microsoft’s Graph and Microsoft’s vision around the Graph to wrap up with a part with real business cases and explain how you could use it in your company.

American (US, Canada, Latin…) Microsoft MVP’s are organizing a two days free online conference on May the 14th and the 15th.

If you want to know which sessions will be available you can click here

https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-agenda.aspx

To register to the event https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-sessions.aspx

I’ll be the moderator for Sébastien Levert’s session “introduction to AngularJS applications in Office 365”

It’s a great opportunity to connect with experts from all around the world.

One of the best part of my job which is also the most difficult one is always having to learn new stuff.

It’s great to have the opportunity to learn new things every day, it keeps my job interesting and challenging through the years. It also adds a lot of pressure to deal with: we know that a developer who doesn’t try to stay up to date for a few years quickly becomes “obsolete”.