Explore MS Graph

Question 1

What is MS Graph?

Answer 1

• Gateway to data and intelligence in MS 365
• Provides unified programmability model that you can use to access the data in 365

Question 2

What is the first component that facilitate the access and flow of data in 365?

Answer 2

• Graph API offers single endpoint “https://graph.microsoft.com”, can use REST APIs or SDKs to access and includes services that manage user and device ID, access, compliance and security

Question 3

What is the second component that facilitate the access and flow of data in 365?

Answer 3

• MS Graph connectors
• work in incoming direction, delivering data external to the MS cloud into MS Graph services and apps to enhance MS 365 experience such as MS search
• found in Google Drive, JIRA and salesforce

Question 4

What is the third component that facilitate the access and flow of data in 365?

Answer 4

• MS Graph data connect
• provides set of tools to streamline secure and scalable delivery of MS graph data to popular azure data stores

Question 5

What is MS Graph?

Answer 5

• RESTful web API that enables you to access MS cloud resources
• after app is registered and you have authentication tokens for a user or service you can make requests to the API
• Defines most of its resource and methods in the MS Graph metadata
• unless explicitly specified assume types, methods and enumerations are part of the microsoft.graph namespace

Question 6

How do MS Graph requests look?

Answer 6

https://graph.microsoft.com/<version>/<resource>?<query-params></query-params></resource></version>

Question 7

What do MS Graph responses contain?

Answer 7

• status code
• response message
• nextLink (if your request returns numerous data you need to page through it by using the URL returned in @odata.nextLink)

Question 8

What API methods does Graph API support?

Answer 8

• GET
• POST
• PATCH
• PUT
• DELETE
• GET and DELETE require no request body
• the others require a body specified in JSON format that contains additional info such as values for properties of the resource

Question 9

What versions does MS Graph have?

Answer 9

• V1.0 - Includes generally available APIs that use the newer v1.0 version for all prod apps
• beta - includes APIs that are currently in preview, might include breaking changes

Question 10

What can a resource be in relation to MS Graph?

Answer 10

• can be entity or complex type
• entities differ from complex types by always including an ID property
• URL includes the resource your interacting with such as “me”, “user”, “group” etc
• Top level resources often include relationships which you can use to access other resources e.g. “/me/messages” or “/me/drive”
• can also interact with resources using methods e.g. “me/sendmail”
• each resource might require different perms to access them

Question 11

What are query params in relation to MSGraph

Answer 11

• Can be Odata system query options or other strings that a method accepts to customise its response
• can filter the response for items that match a custom query or provide another param for a method

Question 12

What are MS Graph SDKs?

Answer 12

• designed to simplify building high quality efficient and resilient apps that access MS graph

Question 13

What do MS Graph SDKs contain?

Answer 13

• Service library that contains models and request builders that are generated from MS graph metadata to provide a rich experience
• Code library which provides a set of features that enhance working with all MS Graph services and embedded support for retry handling, secure redirects plus transparent auth. It also improves quality of apps interactions with MS Graph with no added complexity while leaving you in total control

Question 14

Which packages does the SDK come in?

Answer 14

• Microsoft.Graph - v1.0 endpoint
• Microsoft.Graph.Beta - bta endpoint
• Microsoft.Graph.Core - core library

Question 15

What is MSGraph client?

Answer 15

• designed to make it simple to make calls to MS Graph
• can use single client instance for lifetime of app
• to read info you need to create a request object and then run the GET method on the request
• $filter query param can be used to reduce the result set to only those rows that match provided condition, we also have an orderby param to

Question 16

How do we access data in MS Graph?

Answer 16

• need to acquire an Oatuh2.0 token and present it to MS Graph either as a HTTP authorization request header or in the graph client constructor when using the SDK
• use MSAL if using the SDK

Question 17

What are the best practicies for consent and authorisaiton relating to MS Graph in your app?

Answer 17

• Use least privilege
• Use correct permission type based on scenarios; use delegated if have user interaction
• consider the end user and admin experience; who is coming into the app, end users or admins? configure app to request the appropriate perms for user type
• Consider multi-tenant apps

Question 18

How does pagination work in MS Graph?

Answer 18

• When querying resource collections you should expect MS Graph returns the result set in multiple pages
• App should always handle the possibility of pages responses and use the @odata.nextLink property to obtain the next page of results until all results read

Question 19

What are evolvable enumerations in terms of MS Graph response?

Answer 19

• adding members to existing enumerations cna break apps already using these enums
• evolvable enums are a mechanism that MS Graph API uses to add new members to existing enums without causing a breaking change for apps

Question 20

What are some good practices for MS Graph interactions?

Answer 20

• app should make calls to MS Graph to retrieve data in real time as necessary
• should only cache and store data locally necessary for a specific scenario
• should implement proper retention and deletion policies