topic Re: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released! in Digital Exchange

New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:46:00 GMT

All,

A new connector is available, on the Digital Exchange, for working with Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook. This is a complete design of the previous Microsoft Graph API - Outlook connector.

The new connector is implemented as a traditional VBO (Visual Business Object), so there are no issues with being able to download and save attachments directly from the connector. This connector has similar actions to the legacy Outlook VBO, but since it leverages Microsoft Graph API, behind the scenes, it does not require Outlook to be installed locally on the runtime resource.

Some things to be aware of:

The legacy Outlook VBO exposed multiple actions (i.e. Basic, Advanced, and Expert) for retrieving emails from the Inbox or Sent Items folders. The new VBO simplifies and consolidates these multiple actions into a single action that support OData $search and $filter options. Refer to the documentation for links to further Microsoft information about using these properties.
Microsoft limits the size of attachments when sending emails via the Graph API. Their documentation is a little confusing on what the actual max size is. The Graph API documentation implies that singular file attachments can be up to 150MB each, but Exchange Online limits the overall size of a Message (i.e. headers, body, attachments, etc all together) to no more that 150MB. In our testing, the latter appears to be the actual case.

You can find the new connector at the following link:

Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook

#BPTechTips #DigitalExchange #Outlook

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

hkhader — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 06:09:00 GMT

Dear Eric,
I am using this VBO to send email. Even my access token is valid, it throws exception as "Access token is empty". The same code works well using "Microsoft Graph - Outlook". Can you please help?

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Halid Mohamed Niyaz Abdul
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 13:16:00 GMT

Hello @hkhader,

When you use the Microsoft 365 - Outlook VBO are you calling the Authenticate action before any other actions? Similar to what I've shown below:

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

hkhader — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 14:19:00 GMT

Hi Eric, yes I did the same. I feel the access token is not passed while invoking the sendMail action.

Because all other stages passed inside SendMail action also access token is not expired.

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Halid Mohamed Niyaz Abdul
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 15:03:00 GMT

What version of the Utility - HTTP VBO are you using? If you look at the Post JSON action, do you see inputs titled Use Bearer Token and Bearer Token?

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

hkhader — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 07:10:00 GMT

Hi Eric, It works after updating the Utility - HTTP VBO. Somehow I missed to update the dependencies.
Thanks for your support.

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Halid Mohamed Niyaz Abdul
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:55:00 GMT

Hi @ewilson

After installing and setting up the Azure authentication correctly - I am loving this vbo

However having a little issue with the Move Mail action, when I try to run with all the config set up correctly eg folder id's and message id I get a fail message:

The original message has this flagged as false not null:

Although the action has failed effectively and I don't get any info about the success of the move nor a response message - the message does get moved into the desired destination folder. I can probably use an exception handler to pick up and resume the action, but this doesn't feel right?

Using Blue Prism v6.10.1, downloaded all the suggested supporting vbo's from the DX as far as I know.

Regards
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:02:00 GMT

Hi @Kirk Russell,

I think I know what the problem is. This stems from what I consider to be a bug in how the Outlook REST endpoints, on the Graph service, represent a mail object (specifically the isDeliveryReceiptRequested element). In a nutshell, Microsoft doesn't set a value for this flag unless it is specifically set by the underlying mail system which to me is wrong. If it's not specifically set, it should automatically be False in my opinion.

We'll get a fix added to the code to account for the issue. I'll post an update once we've pushed it to the DX.

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:29:00 GMT

Thanks @ewilson for the quick response

Glad you have an idea what this needs already.

I perhaps naively assumed the mail item would be just moved as is with all current properties.

I'll keep my eye out for the update.

Cheers
Kirk

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Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:33:00 GMT

@Kirk Russell,

You are correct. The mail is moved, but then as part of the response we convert the returned JSON into a BP Collection as we've received a lot of feedback from user about that being easier to deal with than the raw JSON. It's that conversion step that's failing because of the missing flag initialization.

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
------------------------------

RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:58:00 GMT

Thank for explaining @ewilson

I never did get the new POP3 vbo working with authentication by the way - not sure what I was doing wrong there, but along the way found this vbo and happy to use this instead as much better functionality.

Cheers
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 15:38:00 GMT

@Kirk Russell,

Here's something you can try with the Outlook VBO. Go to the Initialise action and open the Note stage. Then go to the Global Code tab. If you scroll down to about line 173, you should see this:

We want to change the code of the foreach loop to look like this:

foreach (KeyValuePair<string, JToken> kv in o)
{
	try
	{
		dr[GetKey(kv)] = DeserialiseGeneric(kv.Value, true);
	}
	catch
	{
		if (kv.Key == "isDeliveryReceiptRequested")
			dr[GetKey(kv)] = false;
	}
}

So the final code should look like this:

Give that a try and see if it addresses your exception.

Regarding the POP3 VBO, there are additional permissions that have to be administered via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center Portal on the specific user account you're trying to use. Below are some screenshots that show where to go to enable SMTP/POP access on a user account.

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
------------------------------

RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 08:18:00 GMT

Thanks @ewilson

Really appreciate the quick code fix there. Yes that resolved the exception and gives the success flag as True and the collection of the "new" message details.

Brilliant thank you.

I'll check in with our IT team about the permissions on the user I was trying POP3 out on - thanks for the tip.
Regards
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
NHS Dorset
------------------------------

RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

ewilson — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 10:42:00 GMT

@Kirk Russell,

Glad to hear that addressed the issue. We've updated the VBO with the same change and just pushed it to the DX as v1.1.1.

Cheers,

------------------------------
Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
------------------------------

RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

AnthonyMullen — Sun, 22 Jan 2023 14:38:00 GMT

Hi all

I recently wanted to try testing this VBO.
I have downloaded the dependencies etc but I am confused about the MSAL.NET dependency.
It comes in a zip file with a dll named Microsoft.Identity.Client.dll
Where should I put this DLL?

Thanks in advance

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Anthony Mullen
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 08:02:00 GMT

Hi Anthony

I put it in the folder:

C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate

On the Management Server and all the virtual workers individually ( or you can just do the ones you wish to use the VBO with)

It is working really well in a number of our production automations.

Regards
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 08:10:00 GMT

Hi Anthony

Sorry forgot to add - I restarted the worker/server after adding the dll

Regards
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

AnthonyMullen — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 08:49:00 GMT

Hi @Kirk Russell

Thank you for pointing this out. I got this working on a dev env so appreciate your help.
I have it working correct with Azure app with Application permissions but I would like to get it working with Delegated permissions with NO user interaction.

I see in the docs it says

"You may select Delegated Permissions if your security policies
require your Digital Workers to use user-specific Azure Active Directory identities. If you choose
to use Delegated Permissions, you must ensure that your Azure administrator grants consent
upfront. There is no support, within the Outlook VBO, for performing a OAuth2 User Consent
flow, so the administrator must pre-approve the delegated access."

What does this mean exactly? I have a dev env in Azure but I am new to Azure. Is this meaning that I can say "Allow user A access without having to follow OAuth2 Flow"

If you have this working it would be great to know how you accieved this please?

Thanks in advance

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Anthony Mullen
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

Kirk.Russell — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 09:07:00 GMT

Hi Anthony, glad you got it working.

We have been using it only with Application permissions not the delegated user ones.

But I believe the consent granted upfront this refers to is an action you do on the permissions in the Azure AD app itself - see page 17 and 18 of the VBO user guide. Our Azure AD administrator did this for us on the Application permissions as well just in case.

Regards
Kirk

------------------------------
Kirk Russell Senior Robotics Developer
NHS Dorset
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RE: New Connector for Microsoft Office 365 - Outlook Released!

AnthonyMullen — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 10:42:00 GMT

Ok great

thanks again for help with this.

Kind Regards

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Anthony Mullen
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