Utilizing Microsoft Graph search with SharePoint On-line

SharePoint’s function as an enterprise content material administration system could also be an old style one, however that doesn’t imply the platform is frozen in stone. Over time, Microsoft provides new options, and deprecates and removes outdated ones. The corporate has even begun to spin off what have been SharePoint options into separate functions.

As SharePoint transitions from a method of working to a different, these modifications usually require us to rewrite and rework our functions and extension code. SharePoint is at present starting one such transition, shifting away from its personal search APIs to a brand new mannequin based mostly on the Microsoft Graph.

Thankfully, one of many fundamental causes for the success of SharePoint is its adaptability, backed by its personal extensibility framework and an easy-to-learn programming mannequin. 

Why use the Microsoft Graph?

Whereas there’s no end-of-life date for the present search APIs, new performance will solely be accessible by means of the Microsoft Graph. So it’s price beginning to rewrite code now, particularly because the Microsoft Graph is essential to offering grounding for the Microsoft Copilot AI assistants for Microsoft 365. These modifications apply not solely to SharePoint, but in addition to OneDrive.

As a part of this alteration all searches will undergo a single API. Meaning the code you write for SharePoint additionally will work with different Microsoft 365 companies, together with Outlook, wherever there’s a search index. Utilizing a standard search API for all of your Microsoft 365 content material is smart, particularly with Microsoft’s concentrate on AI, the place that content material will present grounding for generative AI and giant language fashions.

Establishing a widespread search API for all Microsoft 365 companies begins a long-overdue transfer away from the getting old folder metaphor. With good search capabilities and efficient metadata tagging, there’s no actual want for a man-made construction to assist navigate recordsdata. As a substitute, data is delivered as wanted from a single index, offering a clear bridge throughout utility silos.

Looking out with the Microsoft Graph API

The Microsoft Graph API is a typical REST API, utilizing POST with a JSON payload. Every JSON payload is made up of a set of requests, which run towards entities, and which include queries. Queries are strings, they usually can be utilized to scope your requests. Thus you possibly can embody particular SharePoint websites in your tenant or exclude sections of your tenant that you just don’t need searched.

There are some minor points that have to be thought-about when constructing a question. For instance, as a result of a OneDrive for Enterprise retailer is known as a SharePoint entity, it should be queried otherwise from a private OneDrive retailer.

After getting constructed your fundamental question JSON, you can begin to refine its operation. You possibly can type the outcomes utilizing acquainted pagination methods, or instance, and you may apply further filters, equivalent to a particular time window.

Observe you’re not restricted to the hierarchical construction of graph queries, as a result of you should utilize Microsoft’s Key phrase Question Language (KQL) as a part of your queries. Queries can then be aggregated, providing the power to assemble advanced queries that work throughout totally different Microsoft 365 entities. This method permits you to gather not solely the paperwork associated to a question, but in addition related emails and lists of individuals.

You’re not restricted to looking solely Microsoft Graph information both. For those who use a Graph connector to hyperlink line-of-business methods into your Graph occasion, Graph searches can extract all types of enterprise information—HR, ERP, CRM, and extra. Along with a library of prebuilt connectors, Microsoft gives instruments you should utilize to construct your personal customized connectors for bespoke functions, or to work with legacy information in mainframes or minicomputers.

Consider the underlying Microsoft Graph as a dynamic, continually up to date index to your non-relational information. As new content material is saved in Microsoft 365 and in platforms like SharePoint On-line, that index routinely updates and makes your content material accessible throughout your Microsoft 365 tenant and to your entire customers.

Working with the KQL in Microsoft Graph

When you’ve bought fundamental queries underneath your belt, you’ll need to transfer to extra superior methods of working with the Microsoft Graph. That is the place you possibly can reap the benefits of current expertise utilizing the Key phrase Question Language (which isn’t to be confused with Microsoft’s different KQL, the large-scale information question language, Kusto).

KQL permits you to use free textual content as the premise of a question, searching for phrases or phrases in content material, with help for easy wildcard completions. Along with looking textual content, KQL permits you to use doc metadata to limit searches to particular recordsdata and authors. You possibly can combine and match restrictions to construct extra advanced queries, utilizing parentheses to group search phrases the place you might need used an AND assertion in SQL or comparable question languages.

There are some KQL necessities that may appear complicated at first. For instance, dates and instances have to be expressed in ISO 8601 format, so you employ the YYYY-MM-DD sample for a date and YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss for date and time (the T is used because the delimiter between information and time). There’s even the choice of utilizing relative instances, so “at present” and “this yr” are legitimate question phrases and can ship totally different outcomes when run on totally different days. Different helpful choices embody Booleans, proximity operators, and the ONEAR operator, which makes use of the order of the phrases to return outcomes.

For those who’re utilizing KQL in Microsoft Graph queries, it’s a good suggestion to use KQL to construct question templates. These offer you a ready-made KQL question, so all you want do is go in your particular search time period. This may be particularly helpful in case you’re programmatically setting up the JSON payload of a search, utilizing a prebuilt question, and passing the search time period as a question string.

One API to go looking all of them

We’ve gotten used to treating SharePoint as a stand-alone device, however it’s now one of many foundational applied sciences for Microsoft 365 and the Energy Platform. Utilizing the Microsoft Graph to question throughout the whole platform is a crucial change, one which goals to encapsulate the whole work output for a person or a staff, throughout all of the instruments they use of their day-to-day work.

There’s but another excuse for utilizing a single search API: It may assist be sure that regulated information is being accessed by approved customers. Wrapping your Microsoft Graph queries in a role-based authentication scheme helps be sure that entry to information is audited, and that customers can entry solely the information permitted for his or her function or their group.

Once more, there’s no end-of-life date for the outdated SharePoint search instruments, so that you’re free to maintain utilizing them. Nevertheless, now that Microsoft’s improvement assets are centered on the Microsoft Graph, you would possibly use this as a possibility to begin rewriting current SharePoint functions and extensions, in addition to experimenting with the cross-application capabilities of the Microsoft Graph.

In spite of everything, now we have lots of information saved within the Microsoft Graph, so we would as properly use it. Looking out throughout SharePoint, Outlook, and OneDrive provides you unified entry to maybe your organization’s largest data base, permitting you to extract data and insights you won’t have discovered in any other case. That will be the perfect cause of all to make the shift.