Building solutions using Serverless Azure Functions with SharePoint, AI, and Microsoft Flow

1. Knowing the formula
SHAREPOINT SOLUTIONS USING SERVERLESS FUNCTIONS

2. background
 Software (Services)
 Artificial Intelligence
 Databases
 Workflow
 Business Intelligence
 Mobile
 Infrastructure
 Scalability
 Business continuity
 High availability
 Reliability
 Business
 Fail fast with minimal
collateral damage
 Faster time to market
 Expanded capabilities
 Explosion of the Cloud Ecosystem
 Cloud computing has enabled a huge ecosystem of services and providers.
 Cloud can/has/will easily enable some of the main pillars of delivering IT services

3. Serverless Functions?
 A service that wakes up on events, loads and executes a block
of code then gradual decommission itself.
Listen for
Event
React to
Event
Provision
Function
De-
provision
Function

4. Serverless Functions
 Once the service is provisioned* it will load the code
associated with the service, execute, and return a result to the
caller
Load Code
Execute Code
Return Result
Provision
Function

5. So why is this cool?
 Reason for cool factor:
 We are using Azure -> (software, infrastructure & business)
 Discoverability
 Reusable
 Fast development, ramp up time
 And we pay (¢) just for execution time !!!!!!
Languages*
DevOps (CD)*

6. Leveraging Azure Functions with
SharePoint
 Formula 0 - (SPO + AzFn = Solution)
 Azure Functions can be triggered based on:
 Timer
 Events
 Azure Storage (Blobs, Queues, External File, External Table, Azure Table
Storage, Azure DocumentDB, Azure Moble Table Record, Bot
Framework, etc)
 Web (Web Hooks, Web Services, & Rest APIs)

7. Scenarios of Usage
Auto Image Tagger (InstaTag)
Currency Conversion

8. Auto Image Tagger = SP + AzFn + AI
“A.I. what is that a picture of?”
Mountain on tatooine
Mountain
24.2 km
!@#!@#

9. Usage: Auto Image Tagger
 Formula –> Image Auto Tagging = SPO + AzFn + AI
 Use Case: Tag images with keywords
 Goal: Improve the findability images and pictures.
 Business Issues and pain points:
 To much work tagging/updating attributes
 I can’t find anything!
 SP is just a big file share 
 Tagging is not my job !
  Utilization is down because we have required field on upload

10. Auto Image Tagger
 A.I. to the rescue – Once again thanks to the diverse ecosystem of hosted
and cloud services A.I. platforms are easily accessible.
 Formula Components
 SP = SharePoint Image Library
 AzFn = Azure Function (the new Timer Job)
 AI = Azure Cognitive Services
DEMO

11. Auto Image Tagger
 What’s Happening?

12. SP - Currency Converter
Of course we can do currency
conversion in SharePoint …
There’s a currency field right ????
Over promising Oliver

13. Usage: Currency Conversion
 Formula –> Currency Conversion = SPO + AzFn + Flow
 Use Case: Users want to enter their sales in their local currency. Management
wants all numbers reported in USD.
 Issues and pain points:
 Yes a workflow can be used, but logic becomes difficult
 Decouples the dependency on SP workflows
 Off load processing from your SP environment to another resource
 Custom business rules can be supported in AzFn.
 AzFn can be reused by other services
 Data is maintained in a Storage table (might be some performance gains)
 …

14. Currency Conversion - Architecture

15. Currency Conversion – MS Flow
 IFTTT/Connector/Workflow service
 A plug and play service that connects to MS applications to other 3rd
services
 WITHOUT CODING (SORT OF)!

16. MS Flow – Custom APIs
Can reference other services with
Custom APIs
But you need a little swagger!!!

17. MS Flow – Custom APIs
Custom API form
BTW don’t forget about the name
at the top!!!

18. MS Flow – Flow Currency Conversion
Hook into a SharePoint list event
Start flow when list item is created
DEMO

19. Azure Functions - Getting Started…
 Needed - Azure Subscription
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/functions/
 Free Account (60 days)
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/
 From Azure Portal …

20. AzFn - Creating One (Deployment)
 App Name
 Resource Group
 Try using an existing plan or group by
product/project billing
 Hosting Plan
 Consumption
 App Service Plan
 Location
 * Try keeping your resources together
 Storage Account
 Can use existing storage accounts

21. AzFn – Create the Function
 Can use
premade
function
 Choose
language
 Or Create
your own
custom
function
 Create!

22. AzFn - IDE
 Save / Run
 Test
 Logs
 Keys

23. AzFn – Keys & Logs
Keys – Authentication
Logs – Debugging & Troubleshooting

24. AzFn - Integrations
 Integrations with Storage accounts, database, other Azure services

25. AzFn – Management (Light)
 Enable/Disable Function
 Key Management
 Delete Function

26. AzFn - Monitoring
 Run logs and execution details

27. AzFn – Management (Advanced)
 Config Settings
 Continous
Integration
 Kudu (metrics)
 CORS
 Authentication

28. AzFn – API Management
 Public out your API
 Create a mock web API project in VS
2015 using Swashbuckle (latest
version)
 Generate the json file
 Upload the json file here

29. Need to know - to make life easier
 #r to include external libraries
 Use ASE to do advanced functionality
 Can deploy your own libraries
 Use ASE or FTP to deploy files to a bin directory
 Might need to create the bin directory

30. Pricing

31. Pricing
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/functions/
 Resource Consumption and Executions
 Consumption Plan
 Free Monthly grant of 1 Million requests and 400k resource consumption
 Functions can use – Customer App Service Plan @ regular plan rates
 Note: Storage account is created and charge at regular rates
 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑡ℎ 𝐸𝑥𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
 Total requested executions each month for all functions – (first million are free)
 Resource Consumption
 Observed resource consumption measured in Gigabyte Seconds
 Average Memory size (GB) * Function Exe (s)
 Free grant of 400k GBs monthly

32. Pricing – Resource Consumption

33. Pricing – Execution Billing

34. Pricing – Total Consumption
Total Monthly = Monthly Resource Consumption + Monthly Executions Cost
 $41.60 + $0.20 = $ 41.80
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?service=functions

35. Resources
 Introducing Azure Functions
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-azure-functions/
 Free Azure Function Account
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/
 Azure Function Pricing Calculator
 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?service=functions
 Subscription for Cognitive Services
 https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-US/subscriptions