Introduction

SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. SharePoint is primarily used as a document management/storage system and when integrated with Beekeeper, can allow your employees to instantly gain access through the Beekeeper App!

By using Beekeeper's Document Library, your employees can browse and view files of png, jpg, gif, pdf, xls, xslx, doc, docx, ppt, and pptx type that are 10MB or less. This integration is also built so employees are able to access and view content without a Microsoft license. Once configured by an administrator, employees can use their mobile device to directly view these files without having to download or save them locally!

Overview

This article will walk through the steps required  to integrate from both the Microsoft side and the Beekeeper side. This process does require some passing of credentials between you and a Beekeeper CSM or CSE so please feel free to reach out for assistance at any point to your respective CSM or support@beekeeper.io.

This will be a walkthrough of 3 parts:

We will start with the authorizing a Beekeeper application within Azure Active Directory so that a connection can be established between your Beekeeper Document Library and Sharepoint.

Then we will cover how to retrieve the correct ID's for your specific Sharepoint Site. This will require some help from the Microsoft Graph Explorer which we will get into later.

Finally, we will configure your specific Sharepoint Site to be readable by the Beekeeper platform so your employees can gain seamless access.

The three stages above are all geared toward generating the credentials required for a successful integration. Those credentials are summarized in the table below and this will act as a template for this integration.

Credential Template

App Registration in Azure Active Directory

How it works

The Sharepoint integration needs a token to call a web API on behalf of itself (not on behalf of a user). It uses the standard OAuth 2.0 client credentials grant.

Applications that acquire a token for their own identities:

• Are confidential client applications. These apps, given that they access resources independently of users, need to prove their identity. They're also rather sensitive apps. They need to be approved by the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant admins.
• Have registered a secret (application password or certificate) with Azure AD. This secret is passed in during the call to Azure AD to get a token.

App Setup Steps

1.) Login to your Microsoft 365 admin center and select Azure Active Directory from the main menu.

2.) Within Azure Directory admin center select Azure Active Directory from the main menu and App registrations from the sub menu.

3.) Click on the item New registration.

4.) Supply a unique name for the Sharepoint integration. Select the option Accounts in any organizational directory (Any Azure AD directory - Multitenant) for Supported account types. No value is required for Redirect URI. Afterwards click on button Register.

5.) Remember the values for Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID. These values are needed when configuring the integration within Beekeeper! Click on button View API permissions.

Use the Application (client) ID and the Directory (tenant) ID to fill out the credential template

6.) Click on button Add a permission and select Microsoft Graph API.

7.) Click on Application permissions and select the following permissions from the list:

- Files
    - Files.Read.All
    - Files.ReadWrite.All
- Sites
    - Sites.Read.All

8.) Afterwards click on button Grant admin consent for .... These settings ensure that no approval is needed by a particular user compared to normal OAuth flow.

9.) Select Certificates & secrets from the menu.

10.) Click on button New client secret. Add an optional description and specify when the secret should be expired.

11.) Afterwards copy the secret to the clipboard. When the dialog is changed the secret isn't accessible anymore! The secret is needed when configuring the integration within Beekeeper.

These 11 steps should have successfully gathered these first 3 fields.

Retrieving Sharepoint Site ID's

How it works

Using your Office 360 login, your companies URL and intended Sharepoint Site Name we will use the Microsoft Graph Explorer to retrieve the SiteID, FolderID and DriveItemID for your specific Sharepoint site. We will be filling out these particular values in the credential template. 

Setup Steps

1.) To retrieve your Base URL, first log onto Sharepoint and navigate to your homepage. Your Base URL will be the section of the URL that is highlighted.

2.) Open a web browser with the URL https://developer.microsoft.com/graph/graph-explorer to open the Graph Explorer and sign in.

3.) Obtain the SiteID and DriveID using the URL:

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/<URL>:/sites/<Site Name>?expand=drive

Note: Change the URL and the name of the requested site in the URL!

Example:

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/beekeeperpartners.sharepoint.com:/sites/Testsite-1?expand=drive

4.) Obtain the DriveItemID using the DriveID you just acquired, and the path to the desired folder you wish to connect to integrate with Beekeeper.

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/<DriveId>/root:/<Path to folder>

Note: Change the URL and the name of the requested site in the URL!

Example:

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drives/b!xrH_F8VeqkmhqXgtL7YFXJM_ynj7unNEjM43g93Vjg9htGz8yO8ITp2kCiTy0AJT/root:/sharepoint-test-data/Projekt-B

These 4 steps should help retrieve the 4 templated fields below.

Allow external sharing of Sharepoint to the Beekeeper App

To do this, login to SharePoint admin center and select Active sites from the main menu. In the list of available sites select the needed site and click on button Sharing. Repeat this configuration step for every site needed. 

You've completed the app setup!

If you would like to go into more detail about app setup from the Microsoft side, see the resources below.

• Overview about Microsoft identity platform
• Details about app registration

Setup Within Beekeeper

This last step is where we will get the Beekeeper Folder ID and complete the credential template. Once the credential template is completed, reach out to your CSM/CSE or support@beekeeper.io to enable the connection.

1.) Purchase and Enable the SharePoint Integration

As this is a marketplace add-on, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or support@beekeeper.io for pricing and enablement.

Create an Integration Folder

In the Dashboard, create an integration folder in your Document Library by clicking Add New and choosing Create Integration Folder.

3.) Set Up a Connection to SharePoint

This step will be performed once during the initial setup and involves choosing the directories you wish to make available to your employees. As this is an add-on marketplace application, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or support@beekeeper.io to initially set up the connector. 

Once this is done, use the integration folder ID from the URL to select the desired folder.

4.) Set Access Permissions

Finally, configure the folder with your desired Name, Parent folder and Access settings.

5.) Get the Beekeeper Folder ID

Once you see the Integration Folder in you Document Library, click into the folder. In the URL, copy the value that comes after 'documents/' and add it into the Credentials Template.

Now that your Credential Template is complete, reach out to your CSM/CSE or support@beekeeper.io and they will generate a secure file drop for you to share the credentials with.

Please use the following example credentials to check the format of the ID's you gathered.

Example Completed Credential Template

How to Use

1.) Access Integration Folder

Integration folders are visible by the SharePoint logo on the folder icon.

2.) Browse Content

All files and sub-folders of the connected SharePoint folder will be visible in the Dashboard of the Document Library. A SharePoint label in the navigation bar indicates that the files in the folder come from SharePoint. 

3.) Change Files

A link to the mirrored SharePoint folder helps you quickly make changes to the files and folders in SharePoint. Additionally you can change the configuration to link to another folder in SharePoint. Once set up, any change made to a document in SharePoint will be automatically updated for all employees accessing that document in Beekeeper.

FAQ's

1.) Are all files mirrored?

As most non-desk end-users don’t have wifi at their workplace, documents need to load fast and not drain a private data package too much. Due to this, the Document Library has a limit of 10MB per file. Larger files will not be mirrored in the Document Library. The supported file types are the following: png, jpg, gif, pdf, xls, xslx, doc, docx, ppt, pptx. This ensures that users can easily read the files on their mobile phone. Files that don't satisfy this condition will still appear but they will not be accessible.

2.) Are the actual files from SharePoint copied over to Beekeeper?

No. The integration makes the document visible using a link that goes straight to SharePoint. As the integration itself is connected to SharePoint, the user does not need a SharePoint license to be able to see content.

3.) What is a Marketplace app?

The Beekeeper Marketplace offers lots of different integrations to third party systems and other standalone extensions for Beekeeper. Each of these apps can be bought and installed separately to extend the value that Beekeeper brings to you. 

4.) Can I also sync files back to SharePoint?

No. SharePoint remains the master system. This reduces the likelihood of duplicates appearing and makes it clear to everyone where documents should be managed.

5.) What changes for the user? Do they see if a file or folder comes from SharePoint?