Build integrated user experiences with new capabilities of SharePoint and OneDrive

Office Add-ins team

Today, at Microsoft Build 2017, we announced upcoming previews of new APIs and extensible user experiences available for developers across Office, including SharePoint and OneDrive. Following on the recent availability of the SharePoint Framework, new webhooks, and SharePoint Graph APIs previews, these announced capabilities extend the power of developers building on SharePoint to build more compelling sites, applications, and business processes. Discover these new improvements across SharePoint and OneDrive APIs, command surfaces, and user experiences.

Deeply Customize the User Experience of SharePoint

The SharePoint Framework launched in February, and since then, many customers and partners have been working to deploy engaging new experiences, featuring rich and responsive client-side web parts built with the SharePoint Framework. Web parts provide the most prominent way to present key information and tools to users.
Since then, we’ve also been working to improve and expand the SharePoint Framework. SharePoint Framework Extensions let developers extend the user experience of SharePoint, including ways to customize more facets of the SharePoint experience, including notification areas, the toolbars of SharePoint, and the views of list data.


SharePoint Framework Extensions, including a custom banner (top of page), extended menu options, and a custom field view (in this case, a blur effect to hide sensitive information.)

SharePoint Framework Extensions add new capabilities to extend the user experience of SharePoint within modern pages and document libraries, while leveraging the familiar tools and libraries for client-side development coming from the SharePoint Framework. Specifically, SharePoint Framework includes three new Extension types:

  • ApplicationCustomizers allow developers to add script to the page, as well as access well-known HTML element placeholders and extend them with custom renderings
  • FieldCustomizers can be used to provide modified views to data for fields within a list
  • CommandSets let developers extend the command surfaces of SharePoint to add new actions, along with client-side code that can be used to implement behaviors

Taken together, it is now possible to more deeply tailor your SharePoint sites to provide enhanced status and notification updates within banners, or perhaps display extended metadata relevant to a site. For items within a list, you can adjust both the presentation, as well as add new options for users to work with list items. These Extensions can be built just like SharePoint Framework Web Parts — including using Yeoman to create new Extension projects, TypeScript to write JavaScript code, and featuring your choice of frameworks for building a user experience.

SharePoint Framework Extensions will be available in Preview, coming soon. As with all Previews, we look forward to using your feedback to update and improve Extensions to make them ever-more useful.

Build more engaging dashboards with Web Part Connections

Web parts empower users to build tailored dashboards for their teams and organizations by adding from a list of web parts – including both Web Parts that come with SharePoint as well as developer-created web parts.

Newly announced SharePoint Framework Web Part Connections let developers build more connected, compelling web parts that can work together to share information – for example, a detailed information web part can pull additional context from a list web part on the same page.

Developers can leverage a new API to discover capabilities across web parts in the page, and to subscribe to events and changes. This makes it easy for developers to create sets of web parts that work well together, all while supporting letting SharePoint users customize their pages and mix and match parts as they desire. Support for Web Part Connections will be included in preview form, coming soon.

Integrate your Apps Directly into OneDrive and SharePoint with updates to File Handlers

SharePoint and OneDrive provides ubiquitous cloud file storage for many businesses and organizations; providing a focused experience for working with files is crucial. File Handlers let developers connect and register custom behaviors for files, based on the type of file.

Today, we also announced version 2 of our File Handlers functionality, in preview, that let developers connect and register views and custom actions for files. For example, a city planner may use a specific file format to store area plots within a geospatial boundary, along with web-based software to help them view and edit those plots on a map. With File Handlers version 2, that editor and viewer can be directly integrated into OneDrive and SharePoint along with relevant actions, saving users across the organization valuable time as they work across tools.

Access SharePoint data anywhere with enhancements to Microsoft Graph APIs

Every user experience – ranging from file handlers, to SharePoint Framework web parts, to mobile applications – uses APIs at their foundation to access and work with data.

Microsoft Graph provides API access to broad data from within an organization, spanning across a range of resources including users, groups, OneNote, e-mails, calendar invites, and more. Microsoft Graph provides a single, straightforward REST-based API and set of SDKs for working with the data across services and into mobile applications. Access to data from OneDrive and SharePoint are also featured, and growing, within Microsoft Graph.

Today, at Build, we announced the General Availability of SharePoint site APIs. Developers can use the Site APIs to discover and work through site hierarchies, as well as access the associated base folder (Drive) for a site to support working with files in libraries.

We are also updating the preview of SharePoint list APIs. Today, and over the upcoming weeks, SharePoint List Preview APIs will gain new capabilities for creating lists, content types, and site columns, as well working with the fields of existing lists. Be sure to read our updated Graph documentation around these features to discover API updates and new functionality.

Finally, because the data stored in Microsoft Graph is so critical to building out engaging web applications, today we are announcing new APIs (GraphHttpClient) for accessing Microsoft Graph within the SharePoint Framework-developed web parts and extensions. These APIs make it easy within script to tap into the broad array of data coming from Microsoft Graph, including scenarios like pulling in profile information or lists of users within a group. Support for these SharePoint Framework Graph APIs will be included in preview form, coming soon.

We invite you to explore all of the new SharePoint and OneDrive extension opportunities – in particular, new Microsoft Graph APIs and File Handler experiences which are available today. Soon, we will expand the set of extension options within the SharePoint Framework with SharePoint Framework Extensions Preview, and will launch a developer feedback. Stay tuned to the SharePoint Developer site for updates. We look forward to seeing the sites and applications you build with these tools, and hearing your feedback.

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