Wednesday 27 February 2019

Office365 SharePoint : Converting Enterprise System Data using Azure Integration Account Map Component and Logic Apps

This article explains the advantages of using Azure Integration account along with Azure Logics App for integrating enterprise systems with Office 365 SharePoint.  


Azure Integration Account & Logic Apps:


Azure Integration account provides ways to store and manage the components/artifacts, that includes agreements, maps, schemas, etc. In this article, let us look at leveraging maps component and also look at advantages of using it.  

Maps component is used for mapping the data from one system into another system. The mapping of two systems, those using different form of data. These scenarios are handled by using liquid template mapping or XSLT mapping formats. Here in this article, liquid templates are used for mapping the data. 

Azure Logic apps is leveraged to explain the enterprise integrations scenarios, along with usage of Azure Integration account’s map. In the scenarios explained below, I have shown the data flow between HTTP service and SharePoint for easy understanding. 



Business Scenario & Mapping:


We are considering two services. One HTTP services that uses JSON for representing the data, and other SharePoint REST API that again uses JSON to represent the data. But there is variation in format that is being used between these two services. Say for example, we are using services to move the book details from one HTTP post request to SharePoint. The following picture depicts the data transformation. 
Data Representations between two services/systems
Data Representations between two services/systems considered
Note: Assume HTTP service as another system, which posts data. For our easy/better understanding, i have simplified the logic with simple data representations.

Saturday 9 February 2019

Analyze Office 365 SharePoint online Data using Azure Data Lake Storage and Analytics Service – Part II

In this article, we will understand how Microsoft flow can be configured to push the data from Office 365 SharePoint list into Azure Data Lake Storage service. We could also understand, how the data can be analyzed using the Azure Data Lake Analytics service.

In the previous article, you could understand the benefits of using Azure Data Lake Storage & Analytic services. Also, it helps configuring these two Azure services.


Setting up Microsoft Flow 


  • Login to the Microsoft Flow Portal. Go to my flows, and select create flow from blank option. The following snapshot shows the flow being configured.
MS Flow steps to push Data From SharePoint to Azure Data Lake Storage
MS Flow steps to push Data From SharePoint to Azure Data Lake Storage

Friday 1 February 2019

Analyze Office 365 SharePoint online Data using Azure Data Lake Storage and Analytics Service – Part I

This article series helps you understand pushing the data from SharePoint online into the Azure Data Lake Storage, then making data available for analytics services. We could get to know the benefits of using Azure Data Lake storage and Data Lake analytics service.


The following steps are created and configured for the flow.
  • Create Azure Data Lake Storage 
  • Create Azure Data Lake Analytics 
  • Configure Microsoft Flow to push data into Azure Data Lake Storage 
  • Configure Azure Data Lake Analytics service to process the storage data. 

Note: There might be plenty ways to integrate the data into the Azure Data Lake storage. But here, let us leverage Microsoft flow for easily pushing data from one system to another. It is just a two step process.


Why Azure Data Lake Storage & Analytics? 


Before building the solution, let us know the benefits of using these services. Azure Data Lake storage is primarily used for processing big data analytics. The services/solution works around big data, can be easily integrated with the Azure Data Lake storage service. This will be optimized storage for big data work analytics workloads. The data stored into the Azure data lake store, are in the form of hierarchical file system.