Power Apps – Express Design (Build an app in seconds) – Figma to app

figma to app

In continuation with our first series – Power Apps – Express Design (Build an app in seconds) – Image to app, let us see how Figma app works.

Figma is a vector graphics editor and prototyping tool which is primarily web-based, with additional offline features enabled by desktop applications for macOS and Windows. The Figma mobile app for Android and iOS allows viewing and interacting with Figma prototypes on real-time mobile devices.

Figma to App bridges that gap between design and development, with Figma to App designers and developers can collaborate together to build an optimal experience for the end-users.

As a designer, you will simply create your design using Figma and then you upload that Figma file to Power Apps which will be taking care of converting your design into a working app.

Without further ado, let’s jump into the action.

Design in Figma

1. Go to the www.figma.com and create an account, then on the left navigation menu click on Community and look for a template named NETFLIX (first prototype)

NETFLIX

2. Click on Duplicate to load in the Designer tool – this is the place for all the customizations


3. Copy the URL from the URL Bar (see red circle in step 2 image).


4. Create a Figma personal access token using the following steps

  • On the Figma home page, click settings
  • Look for Personal access tokens, add a token description and create a new one
  • An important point to note is to copy the token
Figma settings
Personal access tokens

5. Go to Power Apps and create a Figma (preview) app

Figma (preview) app

And voila, once more – Power Apps has provisioned from Figma in a few minutes

Netflix by Power Apps

This is a huge productivity (design) saver that will allow businesses to roll out user-friendly, great-looking apps to their users in a short amount of time and effort.


API to app

At the time of writing this blog, the App-from-API feature is to be released in early July 2022.

Coming soon…

Power Apps – Express Design (Build an app in seconds) – Image to app

turn images and designs into apps using AI-powered express design

The need for Digitization is constantly growing and there are never enough resources (Cost-Scope-Schedule) to fulfil all the requirements, therefore Microsoft on 25th May during the recent Microsoft Build event, has introduced the “Express Design – Build an app in seconds” which is a new Power Apps features that accelerate the process for getting started by taking existing content (e.g.: a picture of your paper form, a screenshot of a design, a PPT, a PDF or a Figma design file) and converting them in working Power App with UI and data without requiring the maker to learn how to build an app.

This magic is done using Azure Cognitive Vision OCR model to recognize the text from your image as well as the Azure Computer Vision Object Detection model to recognize the controls on the image whether it’s a text input, a label or radio button, etc.

Azure Cognitive Vision OCR & Azure Computer Vision Object Detection model

After that, even though it’s optional, however, it’s recommended for you to set up the data through dataverse, so you will have your data stored in dataverse.

We have got three different options and we are going to see each one of them

  • Image to app
  • Figma to app
  • API to app

Image to app

Image to app

Let’s get started by building an Image to app

1. On Power Apps, click Create and select Image (preview)

Image (preview)

2. The Upload an image screen appears, where either you upload an image of your own or start with some sample images – in our case, let us upload the following Car Details Application Wireframe

Upload an image

Car Details Wireframe

3. After Azure identifies the component, tag and assign each component as per the requirements

Assign components

4. Next the system allows you to create a new table in Dataverse (recommended), or simply skip it for now.


5. In this step, map the column as per the required data type, review then create.

Columns mapping

And voila, in a few minutes – Power Apps has provisioned the app as per the given input!!!

Car details application

This is a whole new world of possibilities for the citizen developers, those architects or building technicians who are looking for a genuine alternative to building an app – truly it is Empowering every person and every business on the planet to achieve more.


Now, we are going to see how Figma to app works.

Team Collaboration on PowerApps

Introduction

The much-awaited feature has finally come in Power Apps which allows a team to work simultaneously in one Power Apps application.

Forget now locked for editing message now – this sounds exciting, isn’t 😊

locked for editing

Together, we are going to create a sample app in Power Apps and enable the collaboration with Azure DevOps.

Without further ado, let’s get started with step-by-step instructions.

1. Create a Help Desk application

Let’s assume our organization is in need of a Help Desk application.

To make our life easier Microsoft has come with a plethora of templates ready to be provisioned, so let us build the application.

  • In Power Apps left navigation Menu, click on + Create
  • Locate Start from template, and look for Help Desk
  • Provide a meaningful name and click create
  • and voila, in less than a minute our app is ready to use
Help Desk

Now let’s say our Help Desk Admin needs to have a customized report for the respective technology stream in the organization – for example SAP Report, Microsoft Dynamics Report, etc – (please note that we will not be implementing any report in this blog, this would be out of scope).

To make it simpler, we will have 2 screens so each developer can work simultaneously on the same application.

Power Apps Developer Screen

2. Connect with Azure DevOps

2.1 What is DevOps?

It is a compound of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), DevOps is the union of people, processes and technology to continually provide value to customers.

2.2 What does DevOps mean for teams?

DevOps enables formerly siloed roles—development, IT operations, quality engineering and security—to coordinate and collaborate to produce better, more reliable products. By adopting a DevOps culture along with DevOps practices and tools, teams gain the ability to better respond to customer needs, increase confidence in the applications they build and achieve business goals faster.

2.3 The benefits of DevOps

Teams that adopt DevOps culture, practices and tools become high-performing, building better products faster for greater customer satisfaction. This improved collaboration and productivity are also integral to achieving business goals like these:

The benefits of DevOps

2.4 Login or Sign Up For A Free Azure DevOps Account

Login to dev.azure.com or sign up for a free account, we need it to setup a repository which we are going to see in the next steps.

Once logged in, create a New DevOps Project.

Create a New DevOps Project

Provide a Project Name.

Create a New DevOps Project

Click on Repos, then Initialize the repository.

Initialize the repository

2.5 Keep a note of the Azure DevOps Git Repository URL and Branch

It should be as follows:

[https://dev.azure.com/organization_name/project_name/_git/repo_name]

for our case, it would be:

[https://dev.azure.com/organization_name/Help%20Desk/_git/Help%20Desk]

the branch name would be:

[main]

2.6 Create a DevOps Project Personal Access Token

A personal access token (PAT) as an alternate password to authenticate into Azure DevOps, it contains your security credentials for Azure DevOps. A PAT identifies you, your accessible organizations, and scopes of access. As such, they’re as critical as passwords, so you should treat them the same way.

In the DevOps Project, under the User Settings (top-right corner), click on Personal access tokens

Personal access tokens

Create a new personal access token

Personal access tokens

Make sure you copy the token and keep it securely

Personal access tokens

3. Connect Azure DevOps Git with Power Apps

It is time now to connect our application with the repository:

3.1 Enable the Git version control setting

In Power Apps, Go to File > Settings > Upcoming features and enable the Git version control setting:

Git version control setting

Once connected, click on the Git version control then connect.

Enter the value previously taken from the above step 2.5

Git version control setting

3.2 Sign in to your DevOps repository

Sign in to your DevOps repository using your DevOps username and your Personal Access Token – see step 2.6

Sign in to your DevOps repository

It creates a Directory for you if not found.

It creates a Directory for you if not found.

4 Collaborate with your team

4.1 Provide User Access or Grant User Access in the Organization Settings

We need to explicitly add the users who need to access the Organization/Projects. This is an extra security layer which is necessary for the Organization Administrator to perform.

4.2 Share the Help Desk app with your developer

Once the given user(s) have been provided access, now it is time now to share and collaborate, for that we need to share the app as co-owner

Share the Help Desk app with your developer

4.3 Login simultaneously to the app

Important note 1: we recommend closing and re-opening the main browser as it may result in an unwanted experience.

Important note 2: The second developer must login using his Active Directory Username and for the password use the Personal Token Access – see step 2.6


and voila, the second developer sees the same application and its artifacts.

Login simultaneously to the app

5 Commit changes and check for Git updates

Let’s say that the second developer (right screen) has to work on a Jira Report, therefore he adds the screen

Login simultaneously to the app

As his work is completed, he needs to commit so other developers can see his changes – this is done using the Sync button.

Commit changes and check for Git updates

Once committed, the other developers use the same button to sync the application and here is how it looks:

Login simultaneously to the app


5. Summary

This is a powerful and much-needed feature to deploy applications more quickly and seamlessly.

Additionally, Azure DevOps provide improved collaboration and productivity which lead to building better products faster for greater customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, this process allows the team to have complete code control such as code review, editing the code itself in a different application such as Visual Studio Code Editor, etc

Lastly, if you find this article useful, please share it with your friends. Every little bit helps. Thank you!

Update User Profile Picture across all Office 365 apps and Skype for Business using Power Apps, SharePoint, Graph Api & Azure Web Jobs – Part 2

There was a requirement that any user in the organization can update his/her profile picture across all Office 365 apps – the approach was quite straight forward: use Power Apps, save the user data in SharePoint and use Power Automate HTTP connector to do a POST using a Graph API endpoint – however, it seems now that the Power Automate HTTP is a Premium connector which becomes overpriced as all the users in the organization are going to use it, therefore used Azure Web Jobs which did the job well. Note that WebJobs provide an easy way to run scripts or programs as background processes in the context of your app.

Let’s get started.

This is the continuation of Part 1 (Power Apps & SharePoint)

B. Azure Web Jobs & Grap API

B1. Create an Azure Web App to host your code.

– Under Project Details, select Subscription and Resource Group.

– Under Instance Details, provide a descriptive Name, and set as follows – Publish: Code, Runtime stack: latest .Net version, Operating System: Window.

B2. Download the publish profile

Once the Web App is provisionned, Get the publish profile from the Overview menu.

B3. Create a Console Application using Visual Studio 2017 or later.

Once created, right-click on the Project and click Publish as Azure WebJob… to create the Web Job within Visual Studio.

– Provide a descriptive WebJob name.

– Select a WebJob run mode: Run Continuously or Run on Demand. (There is a Scheduled run option as well which we will see in the section B5).

B4. On the next Publish screen, Import the profile settings which you saved in steps B2.

B5. Change the Webjob run mode to Scheduled.

Open the webjob-publish-settings.json within Properties and change the code as follows:

Please note that Scheduled WebJob will be executed based on provided CRON expression. Click here to learn more about CRON Expression.

{
  "$schema": "http://schemastore.org/schemas/json/webjob-publish-settings.json",
  "webJobName": "WebJobUpdateProfilePicture",
  "runMode": "Scheduled",
  "schedule": "0 */1 * * * *"
}

B6. Replace Program class with the below code.

– The Program class filters all the SharePoint items which are not yet updated, based on the IsUpdated column.

– Thereafter, ProcessUpdateUserPicture class contains all Graph API (C#) related functions to updated the image to Office 365.

public class Program
    {
        #region Variables
        static StringBuilder logMessage;
        static string serviceAccount = "user@myorg.com";
        static string serviceAccountPWD = "myPassword";
        static string listName = "UsersProfileData";
        static string COLUMN_IS_UPDATED = "IsUpdated";
        static string COLUMN_EMPLOYEE_AS_TEXT = "EmployeePhotoAsText";
        static string COLUMN_TITLE = "Title";
        static string COLUMN_EMPLOYEE_UPN = "EmployeeUPN";
        #endregion

        /// <summary>
        /// Main Mthod
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="args"></param>
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Web Job started");
                ProcessProfileUpdation("url_of_your_sharepointsite");
                Console.WriteLine("Web Job Completed");
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Exception occured in Main - {0}", ex.ToString()));
            }
            finally
            {
            }

        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Use to process profile updation for all entered users photos
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="url"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static string ProcessProfileUpdation(string url)
        {
            try
            {
                //Authenticate
                using (var ctx = new Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext(url))
                {
                    var passWord = new SecureString();
                    foreach (char c in serviceAccountPWD.ToCharArray()) passWord.AppendChar(c);
                    ctx.Credentials = new SharePointOnlineCredentials(serviceAccount, passWord);

                    UpdateProfilePhoto(ctx);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Exception occured in Main - {0}", ex.ToString()));
            }
            return string.Empty;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Method used to update profile photo
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="ctx"></param>
        private static void UpdateProfilePhoto(ClientContext ctx)
        {
            try
            {
                //Get  List
                List oList = ctx.Web.Lists.GetByTitle(listName);

                //Filter the ones which are not yet Updated
                CamlQuery camlQuery = new CamlQuery();
                camlQuery.ViewXml = @"<View><Query><Where><Eq><FieldRef Name='IsUpdated' /><Value Type='Boolean'>0</Value></Eq></Where></Query></View>";

                ListItemCollection collListItem = oList.GetItems(camlQuery);

                ctx.Load(collListItem);
                ctx.ExecuteQuery();

                foreach (ListItem oListItem in collListItem)
                {
                    bool boolValue = Convert.ToBoolean(oListItem[COLUMN_IS_UPDATED]);

                    if (boolValue == false)
                    {
                        string employeePhotoAsText = oListItem[COLUMN_EMPLOYEE_AS_TEXT].ToString();
                        string employeeName = oListItem[COLUMN_TITLE].ToString();
                        string employeeUPN = oListItem[COLUMN_EMPLOYEE_UPN].ToString();

                        var base64Data = Regex.Match(employeePhotoAsText, @"data:image/(?<type>.+?),(?<data>.+)").Groups["data"].Value;
                        byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(base64Data);
                        System.IO.Stream imageStream = new MemoryStream(bytes);

                        Stream oldImageStream = new MemoryStream();
                        bool isUpdated = ProcessUpdateUserPicture.StartUpdation(ctx, employeeUPN, imageStream, out oldImageStream, logMessage);

                        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("ID: {0} \nEmployeeUPN: {1}", oListItem.Id, employeeUPN));
                        if (isUpdated == true)
                        {
                            oListItem["IsUpdated"] = true;
                            oListItem.Update();
                            ctx.ExecuteQuery();
                        }
                        oListItem.Update();
                        ctx.ExecuteQuery();
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine("Exception occured at UpdateProfilePhoto: - " + ex.ToString());
                Console.WriteLine("Exception occured at UpdateProfilePhoto: - " + ex.ToString());
            }
        }
    }

public class ProcessUpdateUserPicture
    {
        public static string accessToken = null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Use to update profile photo for each user
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="clientContext">clientContext</param>
        /// <param name="userId">employeeUPN</param>
        /// <param name="streamImage">IMage stream</param>
        /// <param name="logMessage">logMessage</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static bool StartUpdation(ClientContext clientContext, string userId, Stream streamImage, out Stream previousPhoto, StringBuilder logMessage)
        {
            bool isUpdated = false;
            previousPhoto = new MemoryStream();
            try
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine("Calling GetAuth()");
                try
                {
                    GraphServiceClient graphService = GetAuth(clientContext, logMessage);
                    logMessage.AppendLine("After Calling GetAuth()");
                    var result = graphService.Users[userId].Photo.Content.Request().PutAsync(streamImage); //users/{1}/photo/$value
                    do
                    {
                        logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Result status: {0}", result.Status));
                        Console.WriteLine("Result status: {0}", result.Status);
                        Thread.Sleep(20000);
                    } while (result.Status == System.Threading.Tasks.TaskStatus.WaitingForActivation);
                    if (result.IsCompleted == true)
                    {
                        if (result.Status == System.Threading.Tasks.TaskStatus.RanToCompletion)
                        {
                            isUpdated = true;
                            Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Profile updated for - {0} successfully", userId));
                            logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Profile updated for - {0} successfully", userId));

                        }
                        else
                        {
                            logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Profile process failed for - {0} \nException - {0}", userId, result.Exception.InnerException.Message));
                            Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Profile process failed for - {0} \nException - {0}", userId, result.Exception.InnerException.Message));
                        }
                    }
                }
                catch (Microsoft.Graph.ServiceException svcEx)
                {

                    var additionalData = svcEx.Error.AdditionalData;
                    logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Microsoft.Graph.ServiceException svcEx - {0}", additionalData["details"].ToString()));
                }

            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine(ex.ToString());
                Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
            }

            return isUpdated;
        }

       /// <summary>
        /// Access token for Graph API call
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="logMessage"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private static string GetAccessToken(StringBuilder logMessage)
        {
            try
            {
                Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.AuthenticationContext authContext = new Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.AuthenticationContext(Globals.AuthorityUrl, true);
                Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.ClientCredential creds = new Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.ClientCredential(Globals.ClentId, Globals.ClientSecret);
                Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.AuthenticationResult authenticationResult = authContext.AcquireTokenAsync(Globals.GraphResourceUrl, creds).Result;
                return authenticationResult.AccessToken;

            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Exception occured at GetAccessToken - {0}", ex.ToString()));
            }

            return null;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Method used for Graph API call
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="clientContext"></param>
        /// <param name="logMessage"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private static GraphServiceClient GetAuth(ClientContext clientContext, StringBuilder logMessage)
        {
            try
            {
                accessToken = GetAccessToken(logMessage);
                GraphServiceClient graphClient = GetGraphClient(clientContext, accessToken, logMessage);
                return graphClient;


            }
            catch (Exception ex)

            {
                logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Exception occured at GetAuth - {0}", ex.ToString()));
                //CustomLogs.LogError(clientContext, string.Format("Exception from GetAuth"), ex);
            }
            return null;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Method used for Graph API call
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="clientContext"></param>
        /// <param name="graphToken"></param>
        /// <param name="logMessage"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static GraphServiceClient GetGraphClient(ClientContext clientContext, string graphToken, StringBuilder logMessage)
        {
            try
            {
                DelegateAuthenticationProvider authenticationProvider = new DelegateAuthenticationProvider(
                (requestMessage) =>
                {
                    requestMessage.Headers.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", graphToken);
                    return Task.FromResult(0);
                });
                return new GraphServiceClient(authenticationProvider);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                logMessage.AppendLine(string.Format("Exception from GetGraphClient - {0} ", ex.ToString()));
            }
            return null;
        }

    }

B7. Deploy the code to the Azure Web App.

In Visual Studio, right-click on the Project, choose to Publish as Azure WebJob then click on Publish to deploy the code.

Once successfully deployed, in the Azure Web App, the job entry must be present within WebJobs – the job is run to scheduled every 15mn in this case.

To ensure the job has run successfuly, click on Logs to see more details.

Cheers!

Update User Profile Picture across all Office 365 apps and Skype for Business using Power Apps, SharePoint, Graph Api & Azure Web Jobs – Part 1

There was a requirement that any user in the organization can update his/her profile picture across all Office 365 apps – the approach was quite straight forward: use Power Apps, save the user data in SharePoint and use Power Automate HTTP connector to do a POST using a Graph API endpoint – however, it seems now that the Power Automate HTTP is a Premium connector which becomes overpriced as all the users in the organization are going to use it, therefore used Azure Web Jobs which did the job well. Note that WebJobs provide an easy way to run scripts or programs as background processes in the context of your app.

Let’s get started.

A. Power Apps & SharePoint

A1. Create a new blank app with a Tablet layout preferably.

A2. Insert an Add picture control to upload the image.

Set the OnSelect property as follows

Set(CapturedPic, UploadedImage1.Image);
Set(vImg,JSON(UploadedImage1.Image,JSONFormat.IncludeBinaryData));
If(Value(Text(Len(vImg) * .00000073,”[$-en-US]##.##”)) >= 4, Notify(“Please choose an image less than 4 Mb”),””);

A3. Insert an Image control to validate the uploaded image.

In the Image property, set it as CapturedPic

A4. Add some labels to make the app more descriptive as follows:

It is preferable to show the image size in a label, the reason being is that Graph API support only an image size less than 4Mb, to show the size set the Text as: “Image size: ” & Text(Len(vImg)*.00000073,”[$-en-US]##.##”) & ” Mb”

A5. Now comes the submission of data to SharePoint

On the OnSelect button, add the following code

//Used for delegation purpose
ClearCollect(
    userImage,
    imgCapture.Image
);

//Checking whether the entry of the same user exists in the list
ClearCollect(
    IsEntryExists,
    Filter(
        UsersProfileData,
        EmployeeUPN = CurrentUser.Email
    )
);

//If so then Update otherwise Add
If(
    CountRows(IsEntryExists) > 0,
    Patch(
        UsersProfileData,
        LookUp(
            UsersProfileData,
            EmployeeUPN = CurrentUser.Email
        ),
        {
            Title: User().FullName,
            EmployeeDisplayName: CurrentUser.FullName,
            EmployeeUPN: CurrentUser.Email,
            EmployeeMail: Office365Users.MyProfile().Mail,
            EmployeePhotoApproval: If(
                chkApprove.Value = true,
                "yes",
                "no"
            ),
            IsUpdated: false,
            UserLanguage:Lower(Language()),
            EmployeePhotoAsBase64: First(userImage).Url,
            EmployeePhotoAsText: Substitute(
                JSON(
                    imgCapture.Image,
                    JSONFormat.IncludeBinaryData
                ),
                """",
                ""
            )
        }
    ),
    Patch(
        UsersProfileData,
        Defaults(UsersProfileData),
        {
            Title: User().FullName,
            EmployeeDisplayName: CurrentUser.FullName,
            EmployeeUPN: CurrentUser.Email,
            EmployeeMail: Office365Users.MyProfile().Mail,
            EmployeePhotoApproval: If(
                chkApprove.Value = true,
                "yes",
                "no"
            ),
            IsUpdated: false,
            IsDeleted: false,
            UserLanguage:Lower(Language()),
            EmployeePhotoAsBase64: First(userImage).Url,
            EmployeePhotoAsText: Substitute(
                JSON(
                    imgCapture.Image,
                    JSONFormat.IncludeBinaryData
                ),
                """",
                ""
            )
        }
    )
);

//Reset all controls and notify
Set(
    CapturedPic,
    Blank()
);
Reset(chkApprove);
Reset(AddMediaButton1);
Notify("Photo submitted successfully - please check after sometimes in Delve portal.");

This is the structure of the SharePoint list

The application should like as follows

Next: Part 2 – Azure Web Jobs & Grap API

MCT

In the year 2010 when I took MOSS 2007 Training conducted by an MCT who is now my friend – I admired him for being in such a high position – Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) are the premier technical and instructional experts in Microsoft technologies.

I never in my life dreamed that one day I will become a Microsoft Certified Trainer which has provided me with immense satisfaction and I intend to honour that trust from Microsoft.

As an active MCT now, I will get exclusive benefits as an MCT including access to the complete library of official Microsoft training and certification products, substantial discounts on exams, books, and Microsoft products.

In addition, MCTs will be able to use Microsoft readiness resources to help enhance their training career and engage with other MCT members in an online community forum. They will also receive invitations to exclusive Microsoft and local MCT community events.