Category Archives: Software

MS Graph usage reports: Site vs Team vs Group activity

Microsoft Graph provides very useful reports via MS graph reports API:

  • getOffice365GroupsActivityDetail – details about Microsoft 365 groups and activity
  • getSharePointSiteUsageDetail – details about SharePoint sites and usage
  • getTeamsTeamActivityDetail – details about Microsoft Teams and activity by teams

Also we know, that Teams sites are group-based, and you can have private and shared channels under Teams – but these sites are not actually group-based and there are group-based SharePoint sites with no Teams behind.

And activities might be different – update document or just visit home page, provide permissions and update channel properties etc.

So the question is what kind of activity at what level is recorded at which report?

TBP

How to create an old document in SharePoint

Sometimes, mostly during PoC or testing policies like retention policy or lifecycle policy you would need some documents created and updated weeks, months or even years ago.

But if you create or upload a document in SharePoint library – it will be just a regular new document. So, how to get old documents in the new environment?

I see two options:

  1. Sync with OneDrive
    If you sync a library with your local folder (done Microsoft by OneDrive desktop app) and put some old document in your synced folder – the doc will be synchronized back to SharePoint library with Created and Modified properties preserved.
  2. Make the document older with PowerShell
    With “Set-PnPListItem” PowerShell command you can update not only such properties like Title, but also “Created By”, “Modified By” and even date and time document was created and modified via “Created” and “Modified”.
    Optionally you can play with document history with “-UpdateType” parameter.
    UpdateType possible values are:
    • Update: Sets field values and creates a new version if versioning is enabled for the list
    • SystemUpdate: Sets field values and does not create a new version. Any events on the list will trigger.
    • UpdateOverwriteVersion: Sets field values and does not create a new version. No events on the list will trigger

Manage Microsoft 365 groups membership with PowerShell and Graph API

As SharePoint or Teams admin you can manage Microsoft 365 groups (create, update, delete, manage membership etc.) having your admin role activated. I use Azure registered app with “Group.ReadWrite.All” Microsoft Graph API delegated permission and Microsoft.Graph PowerShell module.

When a user was not a group member or group owner – and is added to the group members – user gets notification “You’ve joined the <Group Name> group” via e-mail that comes from a group e-mail address.

When a user is added to the group owners (or elevated to group owner if user was a group member) – user does not get notification.

When a user was a group owner and now is added to the group members – user does not get notification.

All the actions are logged into Microsoft 365 audit log under your personal Id.

Script samples:

# This script is just a sample to demonstrate basic technique on deletion m365 groups with PowerShell and MS Graph
# please do not run this script as is, but update it upon your needs

# authentication with personal Id
#  app must have as minimum "Group.ReadWrite.All" Microsoft Graph API delegated permission
#  user must have SharePoint admin (or Teams admin) roles activated
Connect-MgGraph -ClientId $clientid -TenantId $tenantId 
Get-MgContext | Select-Object Scopes -ExpandProperty Scopes

# sample data
$groups = @()
$groups += [PSCustomObject]@{GroupId = '443d22ae-683a-4fe4-8875-7bd78227a026' }
$groups += [PSCustomObject]@{GroupId = 'e5805388-c18c-48c0-b42d-6223cf8f3d82' }

# Get Groups
foreach ($group in $groups) {
    Get-MgGroup -GroupId $group.GroupId
}

# add members to the group
$groupId = '443d22ae-683a-4fe4-8875-7bd78227a026'
$userId = 'df74e0d3-d78c-495b-b47a-549437d93cf7' # Adele
New-MgGroupMember -GroupId $groupId -DirectoryObjectId $userId

# add Owner to the group
$groupId = '443d22ae-683a-4fe4-8875-7bd78227a026'
$userId = 'eacd52fb-5ae0-45ec-9d17-5ded9a0b9756' # Megan
New-MgGroupOwner -GroupId $groupId -DirectoryObjectId $userId

# Delete group
# add Owner to the group
$groupId = '443d22ae-683a-4fe4-8875-7bd78227a026'
Remove-MgGroup -GroupId $groupId

https://github.com/VladilenK/m365-PowerShell/tree/main/KBA/Ownerless-Groups

Microsoft 365 ownerless group policy to send more than 10,000 notifications

It is known that a single Microsoft Exchange account is not sending more than 10k emails per day.

It is also know that once activated – Microsoft 365 groups ownerless policy will be sending notifications for all groups in scope to specified number of group members within 24 hours.

The question is: what if there are more than 10,000 notifications to send (e.g. 4,000 ownerless groups and the policy is configured to send notification to 3 members per group – that gives us 12,000 notifications to send)? Would the policy send 10k notifications and the rest 2k notifications the next day?

I’m conducting an experiment. I created 10k groups in my lab tenant with one owner and 3 random members. Then I configured a policy that is sending notification to a 3 most active members (in this case – random members). And then I made all these groups ownerless by deleting the single owner Id from Azure AD (Microsoft Entra).

Here is what I got from users perspective:

useruser groups
number
got messages
day 1
got messages
day 2
got messages
total
1 Roger50121374
2 Dick50391349
3 Bob51083412
4 Bapu49081376
5 Stas49961437
6 David49591377
total10325

Here is what audit log says:

Events “OwnerlessGroupNotified” day 1: 4949
Events “OwnerlessGroupNotified” day 2: 95
Events “OwnerlessGroupNotified” total: 5044
Each event details says 3 members were notified.

It seems like groups are selected by policy in random order.

Massive E-mails sending was started 43 minutes after midnight UTC

“OwnerlessGroupNotified” were logged at the rate of
1925 events during 1-st hour,
2029 events during 2-nd hour,
785 events during 3-rd hour,
176 events during 4-th hour,
26 events during 5-24 th hour,
95 events during next 25-48 hours
so max rate was one event every 3 seconds in the beginning (or 1 e-mail per second) …

TBC…

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins…

Scenario

You are trying to register an application at SharePoint site with appregnew.aspx page and you are getting an error or notification message “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal“.

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn't allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator

Or you are trying to provide ACS-based permissions for an application to SharePoint site with appinv.aspx page and you are getting “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint administrator.

Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn't allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator

You can still view and even delete your apps permissions from /_layouts/15/appprincipals.aspx page:

Reason

This is due to a recent update to Microsoft 365 (tenant governance security measures enhancement MC660075) implemented by Microsoft in Aug/Sep 2023. According to the update, only tenant administrators can create or update ACS service principal by default.

The root cause for this is that the Microsoft is pushing developers out of that legacy ACS-based SharePoint Apps-only service principals towards Azure-registered applications with Sites.Selected API permissions as they are more secure etc.
In Nov 2023 Microsoft announcement retirement of ACS principals.

Key differences between ASC and Sites.Selected are:

ACS-based SharePoint app/permissionsApps registered in Azure with Sites.Selected API permissions
Support authentication with client secret only, Secrets are valid for 1 year exactly.Support authentication with client secret and/or certificate, custom expiration time.
Support granular access to SharePoint site, e.g. to site collection or web (subsite) or a specific list or library.Support only access to entire site collection (but Microsoft says granular access is coming)
Support only classic SharePoint REST API and CSOMSupport both – classic SharePoint REST API and CSOM and Microsoft Graph API
App id (client id) is created via appregnew.aspx at a specific SharePoint site by site collection administrator (disabled in Sep 2023).App id (client id) is created in Azure portal (Entra Id), API Sites.Selected permissions are configured via Azure portal (Entra Id) and require tenant admin consent.
Permissions for the app to a site are provided at the site by site collection administrator via appinv.aspx page (disabled in Sep 2023).Permissions for the App to to a specific SharePoint site are provided via Graph API by SharePoint admin with PowerShell script.

Solution #1 – switch to Sites.Selected

  1. Register an application in Azure (via Entra Id – Azure portal GUI, PowerShell script or your company’s specific helpdesk/servicedesk request)
  2. Update the app so both – MS Graph API Sites.Selected and SharePoint Sites.Selected permissions are configured, then
  3. API permissions must be consented – so you’d seek/request your tenant admin consent
  4. Obtain and upload client certificate (recommended) or generate client secret
    (at this moment you should be able to authenticate to tenant)
  5. Request access for the app to a specific SharePoint site – your SharePoint service admin should be able to do that
    (at this moment you should be able to authorize to your SharePoint site).
  6. Validate your app has access to the target SharePoint site with PowerShell
    (check validation scripts below under References).
  7. Use recommended by Microsoft technique, code samples are available for the most popular languages/platforms – Python, C#, Java etc. (check below under References).
  8. Secure your certificate and/or secret. It is not a good idea to use hard-coded secrets, so consider using special services/storages for secrets (aka Vaults)

If you are hosting your application in Azure – consider using managed identity.

Step-by-step guide with screenshot – how to get app with Sites.Selected permissions

Video guide on using Sites.Selected to access SharePoint as application:

There are 3-rd party (and Microsoft) apps developed using classic approach (examples – Azure data Factory, Alteryx). So in some cases Sites.Selected permissions are not enough to get access to SharePoint.

Solution #2 – admin to register/update an ACS app

This option is acceptable if you have existing application that require ACS-based access.
This option is not recommended for new development, as ACS is deprecated and scheduled for retirement.

Microsoft (MC660075 in Message Center): “site collection admin will be unable to register app or update app permissions through above pages unless authorized explicitly by the SharePoint tenant admin” and “With this update site owners will not be able to register/update apps unless the tenant admin explicitly allows it.”

That is incorrect. Site collection admin cannot register app (appregnew) or provide permissions to the app (appinv) anymore. Tenant admin does not authorize site collection admins. Instead tenant (or SharePoint) admin can register an app or provide permissions to the app at a specific site (not changing the entire default behavior back…). But there was no such option (!) in the middle of October 2023, when this feature was enabled at all tenants. Even having a SharePoint admin or tenant admin permissions – if you tried to register an app with AppRegNew.aspx – you got the same error message “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to…”.

Later (Checked today – Nov 6, 2023) it seems like Microsoft has implemented it! E.g. now SharePoint or tenant admin is able to register an app with AppRegNew.aspx or update it with AppInv.aspx at any specific site collection. SharePoint or tenant admin must also be among this site collection admins.

It is ok (and I’d say the preferred way) to provide ACS permissions to the app registered in Azure, so do not register apps in SharePoint anymore (do not use AppRegNew.aspx).

Bottom line: if ACS-based permissions are required for app here you go:

  • register application in Azure (Entra id)
  • activate your SharePoint service/tenant admin role
  • ensure you are also target site collection administrator
  • navigate to the site appinv.aspx page – e.g.
    “https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx”
    and us Azure registered app (client) Id. E.g. for lookup provide
    • Azure registered app (client) Id for – click lookup
    • localhost as app domain
    • https://localhost as redirect url
    • Permission Request XML – depending on permissions you need, e.g. for full app access to entire site collection:
<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">  
   <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection" 
    Right="FullControl" />
</AppPermissionRequests>

Solution #3 – step back (not recommended)

It is possible to switch back this new default behavior that prevents site collection admin to register/update apps at SharePoint. This is done with PowerShell command

Set-SPOTenant -SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled $true

To run this command – you’d need to be a SharePoint service or tenant admin.

But this will be a step back on your journey in improving m365 tenant safety, as after that you’ll have a self-registered service principals out of control again. So devs will be using it not being aware of ACS retirement and when Microsoft switch off ACS – it will be a disaster, as all app will stop working. That is why Microsoft implemented this feature to soft-disable ACS and allowed us 2 years to redesign or apps and migrate from ACS to Entra Id apps with Sites.Selected. So this solution is not recommended.

In case you really need an exception to provide an ACS-based service principal – there is Solution number 2.

Full text of Microsoft’s MC660075 message

(Updated) SharePoint admin control for App registration / update

Tag
MAJOR UPDATE ADMIN IMPACT FEATURE UPDATE

Message Summary
Updated August 30, 2023: We have updated the content below for clarity. Thank you for your patience.

This is an enhancement to the security measures for administrative governance that modifies the default procedures for SharePoint app registration via AppRegNew.aspx page and permission updates via AppInv.aspx page. Following the implementation of this change, site collection admin will be unable to register app or update app permissions through above pages unless authorized explicitly by the SharePoint tenant admin.

Upon attempting to register an application on AppRegnew.aspx page, a notification will be displayed stating “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator.”

Similarly, upon attempting to update app permissions on AppInv.aspx page, a notification will be displayed stating “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint tenant administrator.”

Kindly note that app registration and permission update via Microsoft Azure portal are not impacted by this change.

When this will happen:

The rollout process is scheduled to commence in late August and is expected to conclude in mid-September.

How this will affect your organization:

With this update site owners will not be able to register/update apps unless the tenant admin explicitly allows it.

To modify the default behavior, the tenant administrator must execute the following shell command to explicitly establish the flag as TRUE, thereby superseding the default value of FALSE. The service principal can only be created or updated by the tenant administrator by default. However, when the flag is set to TRUE, both the SharePoint tenant admin and site collection admin will be able to create or update the service principal through SharePoint.

The shell command is: Set-SPOTenant -SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled $true

Note: The property ‘SiteOwnerManageLegacyServicePrincipalEnabled’ becomes visible in tenant settings after SharePoint Online Management shell is updated to 16.0.23710.12000 or a later version. But before this rollout, the value will always be TRUE even explicitly set to FALSE. It will only automatically be switched to FALSE as the default value after the rollout is launched.

What you need to do to prepare:

No proactive measures are required to prepare for this change. Nevertheless, it is advisable to inform your users of this modification and update any relevant documentation as necessary.

References

Sites.Selected API permissions for SharePoint access

Sites.Selected permissions are required for the non-interactive application to get access to a specific SharePoint site using Microsoft Graph API and/or SharePoint API.

Below are the steps to get access to SharePoint site with Sites.Selected API permissions:

1. Register an application in Azure (via Azure portal GUI, PowerShell script or helpdesk/servicedesk request), e.g. with GUI you’d login to portal.azure.com,
the search for “App registrations” and select “+ New registration”:

2. Update the app “API permissions” – so both – MS Graph API Sites.Selected and SharePoint Sites.Selected application API permissions are configured:

Provide or request tenant admin consent for your API permissions. Finally your app registration “API permissions” should look like:

3. Under Certificates and secrets – generate client secret, copy secret value to safe location.

4. At the Overview page – grab your app client id and tenant id :

At this moment, having tenant id, app (client) id and client secret – you should be able to authenticate against Microsoft 365 tenant with app-only authentication path.

But! Having just Sites.Selected API permissions configured for app does not mean your app has access to SharePoint site. Access for the app to a specific site is provided by SharePoint team using PowerShell script or Graph API calls. That leads us to the next step.

5. Request access for the app to the SharePoint site (your SharePoint service admin should be able to do that via PowerShell script or Graph API calls )
Here is the Graph API

6. Once your SharePoint tenant/service admin confirmed that access has been provided – you can use app client id and client secret to work with SharePoint from your code using Graph API.
If any concerns – you can validate your app access to the target SharePoint site with simple PowerShell scripts: here is the sample code

7. Secure your certificate and/or secret
You do not hard-code secrets. Consider using vault to keep certificate/secret. If you host your application in Azure – consider using managed identity.

Note 1: Sites.Selected API permissions allows you call Microsoft Graph API with client Id and client secret. Calling SharePoint API with client secret is not supported. You have to use client id and certificate to call SharePoint API having app with Sites.Selected permissions.

Call SharePoint API with client Id and client secret is possible only if ACS-based permissions are provided for the app to the site, which is not recommended (see below).

Comparison between Azure Apps and Entra Id Sites.Selected API permissions vs SharePoint app-only spn and ACS-based permissions.

Note 2: ACS-based permissions are going to be deprecated soon:
Your SharePoint admin doesn’t allow site owners to create/update ACS principal ⋆ Vladilen Microsoft 365 engineer

Update:
Microsoft announced decommissioning of ACS permissions. So do not use ACS for any new development.

It might be acceptable to provide ACS permissions for existing custom apps or 3-rd party or Microsoft apps/web apps (e.g. Alteryx, Azure Data factory) – apps that only support client id and secret and using SharePoint API under the hood – but just to not to break business processes and being aware of ACS EOL and planning a replacement of theses apps before 2026.

References

SharePoint AppRegNew.aspx and AppInv.aspx

There are well-known SharePoint app-only service principals and ACS-based permissions. It is kind of old-school way – introduced as part of Add-Ins for SharePoint 2013 – to get unattended access to SharePoint site (application access, i.e. access without user presence). Such apps are called daemon apps or service apps or background jobs etc…

Microsoft announced retirement of ACS in 2026 and takes measures to stop using ACS in new and existing tenants. For you to smoothly switch to new, recommended Entra Id based service principals and permissions – it is important to know some details about classic app-only service principals and ACS-based permissions.

As you know, any access is a two-step procedure:

  • Authentication, when systems ensures you are indeed the one you claim you are
  • Authorization, when system grants you access to the resource, as it knows that this id is allowed to access such and such resource with these permissions

So, when it comes to deprecated SharePoint app-only service principals and ACS-based permissions, AppRegNew is responsible for authentication and AppInv is responsible for authorization.

AppRegNew.aspx

To get a SharePoint app-only service principal – you’d need to register a new one at any SharePoint site using the AppRegNew.aspx page. This page is not available from GUI, so you’d need to type the Url manually. You’d need to be a site collection admin to register a new app.

Let say, your site Url is “https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite“.
Then this appregnew page’s Url would be
“https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite/_layouts/15/appregnew.aspx

If you go to this page, you’ll see (*) something like

You’d click generate client id, then generate client secret and type your app display name. I usually use “localhost” as app domain and “https://localhost” as redirect Url.

If all good – you’d get app id (client id) and app secret (client secret) and you’d be able to authenticate to your SharePoint site.

AppInv.aspx

Providing permissions for your SharePoint app-only service principal to your SharePoint site is done using AppInv.aspx page. This page is also not available from GUI, so you’d need to type the Url manually again. You’d need to be a site collection admin to use this page.

Let say, your site Url is “https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite“.
Then this appinv page’s Url would be
“https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx

If you go to this page, you’ll see (*) something like

At this moment – you need to enter app (client) id here and click lookup – so all the app metadata would be populated, then you’d need to enter Permission Request XML.
Via this “Permission Request XML” you are specifying exact permissions your app will have in this site. E.g. you can specify scope – all site collection or one specific subsite (web) or even one specific list or library. Also you can specify permissions level – e.g. read, read/write, manage or full control. This is tricky, but let me share some examples with you.

Permission Request XML for the app to have full control over entire site collection:

<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">  
   <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection" 
    Right="FullControl" />
</AppPermissionRequests>

Permission Request XML for the app to have read access to a subsite (web):

<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">  
  <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection/web" 
   Right="Read" />
</AppPermissionRequests>

Permission Request XML for the app to have read/write access to a list/library:

<AppPermissionRequests AllowAppOnlyPolicy="true">  
   <AppPermissionRequest Scope="http://sharepoint/content/sitecollection/web/list" 
    Right="Write" />
</AppPermissionRequests>

Any mistake in XML might prevent app access, so be very careful.

Finally, your AppInv.aspx page would look like

If you specify scope as web – you’d do it on the specific web url, e.g.
“https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite/SubSite/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx”

If you specify scope as list – you’d do it on the specific web url, e.g.
“https://YourTenant.sharepoint.com/teams/YourSite/SubSite/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx”
and after you click “Save” – there will be a page – you’ll be asked to choose a list from available web lists.

After all, you’ll be asked to confirm that you trust the app:

And after that your app (SharePoint app-only service principal) will have access (ACS-based access) to you site.

AppPrincipals.aspx

From site settings page (/_layouts/15/settings.aspx) you should be able to see apps registered on your site with “Site app permissions” or “Site collection app permissions” links available via GUI. That would be “appprincipals.aspx” page.

Unfortunately, you cannot see you app permissions here or your secret expiration time. Some date can be pulled via PowerShell with Get-PnPAzureACSPrincipal

Possible complications

After Microsoft announced retirement of ACS – you can see this message on appinv and appregnew pages:

You might also see “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to create an Azure Access Control (ACS) principal” message at appregnew page and “Your SharePoint tenant admin doesn’t allow site collection admins to update app permissions. Please contact your SharePoint administrator.” at appinv page.

That’s because a recent update to Microsoft 365 (MC660075) pushed by Microsoft in Aug/Sep 2023 changes default behavior so only tenant administrators can create or update ACS service principal by default.

If you are facing issues above – or you want to switch to modern Entra Id service principals, but by some reasons you need ACS-based permissions – here is the article on “Entra Id vs ACS for SharePoint and how to survive during transition period

References