#SharePoint customization

[technorucs]

SharePoint Customization For Seamless Business Operations

SharePoint has become the cornerstone for organizations looking for efficient collaboration, document management, and workflow automation. However, many businesses look for SharePoint customization to unlock all of its capabilities. This article discusses the benefits of SharePoint customization, particularly in the context of SharePoint Online, and looks at the services available to help organizations tailor the platform to their unique needs.

Understanding SharePoint Customization:

Sharepoint customization means that the capabilities and functionalities offered by the application can be changed for business-specific purposes. This involves very basic design alteration, workflow automation, and interaction with other systems used in businesses. The main aim is to enhance user experience, improve productivity, and ensure that the platform supports the organization's operational objectives.

Benefits of SharePoint Customization:

Improved User Experience: SharePoint site design and layout are customized to reflect the branding of the organization, and thus they are intuitive for users. Personalization may result in increased user adoption and satisfaction.

Improved Collaboration: The tailoring features of navigation menus, document libraries, and communication sites improve team collaboration without having to be on the same premises. The ability to custom workflow and forms reduces the burden in processes for the teams.

Efficient Business Process: Routine tasks are automated using custom workflows that reduce manual efforts and minimize errors. This enhances more efficient business processes and lets the employees work on higher-value activities.

Better Data Management: Customizing lists, libraries, and metadata ensures that data is organized in a way that makes sense for the organization. This improves data retrieval and reporting capabilities, aiding in better decision-making.

Scalability and Flexibility: Customized solutions can be designed to scale with the organization. Thus, when the business needs evolve, SharePoint remains a very useful tool. Flexibility in integrating new features and technologies will also be accommodated as they come up.

SharePoint Online Customization:

With the increasing adoption of cloud services, SharePoint Online customization has become particularly significant. Sharepoint Online has good features out-of-the-box. However, its customizations have made it easier for organizations to:

Implement Client-Side Solutions: Server-side codes cannot be used on SharePoint Online; hence the implementation of changes are done with client-side technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. This allows the creation of dynamic and responsive user interfaces.

Use SharePoint Framework (SPFx): SPFx is a page and web part model that offers full support for client-side SharePoint development. This allows developers to build responsive applications that run flawlessly within SharePoint Online.

Integration with Power Platform: PowerApps and Power Automate are tools that may be integrated into SharePoint Online in order to generate custom forms, automate workflows, and add new functionality to the platform without significant coding.

SharePoint Customization Services:

Due to the complexities involved in customization, most organizations seek professional services for SharePoint customization Services.

Technical Know-how for Custom Development: Professionals have the necessary technical expertise for developing custom solutions that meet a specific business requirement, thus making the customizations both effective and efficient.

Integrative Capability: They integrate SharePoint with other business systems in order to have a cohesive digital ecosystem that finally enhances productivity as a whole.

Support and Maintenance: Customization services often include support and maintenance to ensure that the customized solutions keep on working well as the platform evolves.

Training and user adoption strategies - The service provider may provide for training programs that enhance the users in adopting the newer features and functionalities developed.

Best Practices in Customizing SharePoint:

To ensure successful customization, consider the following best practices:

Define Clear Objectives: Understand the specific business needs that customization should address.This clarity will guide the development process and ensure that the end solution aligns with organizational goals.

Involving stakeholders would be an aspect of planning when involving the eventual users and all other stakeholders toward gathering critical knowledge and making all feel more proprietorial. Useful input may originate from them by identifying where, how things might be going wrong.

Ensure Compliance and Security: The customizations must adhere to organizational policies and industry regulations to maintain data security and compliance. This includes implementing proper access controls and data protection measures.

Plan for Future Upgrades: Design custom solutions with future updates in mind to avoid compatibility issues. This forward-thinking approach can save time and resources when implementing platform upgrades.

Test Thoroughly: Conduct comprehensive testing to identify and resolve any issues before full deployment. This will ensure that the customizations are working correctly and do not break any existing processes.

Provide Training: Provide training sessions so that the users feel comfortable with the new features and can use them properly. This ensures user adoption and maximizes return on investment.

Conclusion:

SharePoint customization is the avenue through which an organization can modify the platform according to its own needs, making it more usable and enhancing the user experience, better collaboration, and streamlined workflows. Whether in-house development or by professional services, SharePoint customization can truly unlock its potential and provide an easily scalable flexible solution that keeps pace with an organization.

Proper best practice and the adoption of available tools will ensure your business comes up with a SharePoint system that will not only cater to present needs but also adapt to future challenges and opportunities.

Customization of your SharePoint strategy, therefore, will help see to it that the platform becomes a strong foundation for your business's digital workplace. It will enhance productivity while encouraging innovation.

To make the most out of SharePoint customization, working with experienced service providers will help deliver the required expertise and support in effective and sustainable solutions for the organizations.

Businesses position themselves to make the most of SharePoint capabilities when they invest in customization by creating a tailored environment that supports unique workflows.

SharePoint customization is a way through which organizations can adjust the platform for their unique needs, enhance the user experience, improve collaboration, and streamline workflow. Whether developed in-house or through professional services, customizing SharePoint can unlock all its potential in providing a scalable and flexible solution that grows with the organization.

Keeping abreast of the latest best practices while utilizing tools within the means is a key move that ensures successful business building from a SharePoint-based environment: for the moment - and far forward into the challenges and opportunities still to come. Adding custom work to your approach will give a robust underpinning for innovation in a better, faster SharePoint for the overall digital workplace.

For organizations to gain the maximum advantage of SharePoint customization, experienced service providers help organizations implement the most effective and sustainable solutions through the right amount of expertise and support.

In the investment that a business does on customization, they position themselves to fully leverage SharePoint's capabilities to create a tailored environment that supports their unique workflows and

[softwarefrim]

Custom SharePoint Development vs. Out-of-the-Box Solutions: Which Is Right for You?

Find out if a tailored SharePoint experience or a standard solution better suits your organization’s needs.

[drogsdracca]

5 Ways to make your SharePoint Site more user Friendly

Looking to make your SharePoint site more user friendly?  

Here are 5 tips that you can try out. 

Discover how custom SharePoint development solutions from Evolvous can help you enhance the usability and performance of your SharePoint site.

Visit https://evolvous.com/sharepoint-custom-solutions/ to know more.

[rmmtechnologiespvtltd]

🌟 Enhance Your SharePoint Experience with Elegance! 🌟

A great #SharePoint-UI boosts user participation within SharePoint systems. With SharePoint Elegance, we focus on creating intuitive designs that improve collaboration and streamline communication, helping teams work more effectively.

Explore how our solutions can elevate your SharePoint environment!

[bizsolution]

Discover a variety of customizable SharePoint web parts designed to improve collaboration, streamline workflows, and boost productivity across your organization. Explore how our solutions can tailor SharePoint to meet your unique needs.

[risolutor2024]

[technorucs]

The Ultimate Guide to SharePoint Customization in 2025

Introduction

Microsoft SharePoint has evolved into a powerful platform for enterprise content management, collaboration, and digital workplace solutions. While SharePoint offers a wide range of out-of-the-box features, organizations often require SharePoint Customization to meet their specific business needs. Whether it’s building workflows, developing custom web parts, or personalizing the user interface, customizing SharePoint can significantly enhance productivity and user engagement.

In this article, we’ll delve deep into the technical aspects of SharePoint customization, exploring various options for SharePoint Online Customization, strategies for SharePoint Intranet Personalization, and how to develop SharePoint Custom Solutions tailored to unique enterprise requirements.

Why Customize SharePoint?

SharePoint's core strength lies in its flexibility. However, standard features might not align perfectly with your organizational workflow, compliance needs, or branding guidelines. Customization helps:

Streamline business processes through automated workflows.

Improve UI/UX with personalized dashboards and navigation.

Integrate third-party systems and data sources.

Reinforce company branding on intranet portals.

Types of SharePoint Customization

There are two primary methods of customizing SharePoint:

1. No-Code/Low-Code Customizations

These are built using SharePoint's built-in tools and require minimal developer effort:

Power Automate Workflows: Automate business processes.

Power Apps: Create custom forms or apps.

Modern Web Parts: Use reusable web parts like document libraries, calendars, and custom lists.

SPFx (SharePoint Framework): A low-code development model to build client-side extensions using React/TypeScript.

2. Full-Code Customizations

Ideal for complex requirements where out-of-the-box features fall short:

Custom Web Parts and Extensions

Custom APIs using Azure Functions or Azure Logic Apps

Integration with Line-of-Business (LoB) systems

Advanced branding using PnP templates and CSS/HTML

SharePoint Online Customization: Best Practices

SharePoint Online Customization has unique challenges compared to SharePoint Server, primarily due to Microsoft 365's cloud-first model and continuous updates. Here are some best practices:

1. Use the SharePoint Framework (SPFx)

SPFx is the recommended way to create modern web parts and extensions in SharePoint Online. It leverages open-source tools like Node.js, Gulp, and React.

2. Avoid Farm Solutions and Full-Trust Code

These are deprecated in SharePoint Online. Use sandboxed solutions or client-side scripting.

3. Leverage Power Platform

The Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI) is tightly integrated with SharePoint Online, allowing low-code solutions for automation, analytics, and UI improvements.

4. Use PnP Provisioning Engine

The Patterns and Practices (PnP) Provisioning Engine allows you to define custom site templates and provisioning logic using XML or JSON configurations.

SharePoint Intranet Personalization Techniques

An intranet is often the central hub of internal communication, and SharePoint Intranet Personalization ensures that it remains relevant and user-focused. Here’s how you can technically personalize SharePoint intranets:

1. Audience Targeting

Modern web parts like Quick Links, Hero, and News support audience targeting. This allows you to display content based on Azure AD groups.

Technical Setup:

Enable audience targeting in web part settings.

Assign Azure AD groups to the content block.

2. Personalized Dashboards with Microsoft Graph

Microsoft Graph API can fetch user-specific data (e.g., documents, emails, tasks) and render it dynamically on intranet pages.

Use Case:

Show recent documents or pending tasks for the logged-in user.

3. Custom Navigation and Branding

Use the SharePoint Look Book or create SPFx extensions to control headers, footers, themes, and navigational layouts.

4. Localization and Language Variants

Create multilingual experiences using SharePoint’s multilingual publishing capabilities. Customize content and labels based on user’s preferred language.

Developing SharePoint Custom Solutions

Developing SharePoint Custom Solutions often involves integrating SharePoint with enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, or HR platforms. Here’s a breakdown of technical considerations:

1. External Data Integration via Business Connectivity Services (BCS)

BCS enables the integration of external data sources like SQL, SAP, or custom APIs into SharePoint lists.

2. Custom Forms with Power Apps

Replace InfoPath forms with Power Apps. Customize list forms or create standalone apps that can be embedded in SharePoint pages.

3. Custom Connectors

Use Azure API Management to create custom connectors that integrate third-party platforms like Salesforce, ServiceNow, or SAP with SharePoint.

4. Security and Governance

All custom solutions must adhere to governance policies. Use Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center to monitor and control data access.

SEO Optimization Tips for SharePoint Portals

Customizing SharePoint for intranet use doesn’t mean ignoring SEO, especially for public-facing SharePoint sites.

Tips:

Use H1-H5 tags properly in custom master pages or modern site templates.

Optimize images with ALT text and descriptive filenames.

Ensure fast load times with optimized SPFx packages.

Use metadata and page descriptions for better indexing.

Add breadcrumb navigation using SPFx components or PnP libraries.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Over-customizing can make migration and updates difficult.

Ignoring mobile responsiveness in custom web parts.

Lack of proper version control in SPFx solutions.

Hardcoding values instead of using dynamic tokens or configuration settings.

Conclusion

SharePoint Customization offers powerful capabilities for building enterprise-grade solutions that are tailored to your business workflows and employee experience. Whether you're enhancing collaboration through SharePoint Online Customization, improving user engagement with SharePoint Intranet Personalization, or building complex SharePoint Custom Solutions, understanding the technical framework is key to long-term success.

Customizing SharePoint the right way ensures scalability, maintainability, and a strong return on investment.

[techasoft-pvt-ltd]

🖥️ How To Create A Page In SharePoint: A Step-By-Step Guide 👨‍💻

SharePoint is a versatile platform that enables organizations to create and manage their intranet, team sites, and communication sites. Pages play a pivotal role in SharePoint, allowing you to share information, documents, and collaborate effectively. Whether you're a SharePoint site owner, administrator, or content creator, knowing how to create a page is essential. Let's dive into the step-by-step guide.

[cloudrevoluteus]

Based on business specific requirement custom workflow SharePoint can be Created.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Billionaire-proofing the internet

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people.

It's hard to overstate how badly the labels behaved. Like, there was the Swarthmore student who was the maintainer of a free/open source search engine that indexed files available in public sharepoints on the LAN. The labels sued him for millions and millions (the statutory damages for digital copyright infringement runs to $150,000 per file) and, when he begged for a settlement, said that they would accept his life's savings, but only if he changed majors and stopped studying Computer Science.

No, really.

What's more, none of the money the labels extracted from teenagers, grandparents (and the dead) went to artists. The labels just kept it all, while continuing to insist that they were doing all this because they wanted to "protect artists."

One thing everyone agreed on was how disgusted we all were with the labels. What we didn't agree on was what to do about it. A lot of us wanted to reform copyright – say, by creating a blanket license for internet music so that artists could get paid directly. This was the systemic approach.

Another group – call them the "individualists" – wanted a boycott. Just stop buying and listening to music from the major labels. Every dollar you spend with a label is being used to fund a campaign of legal terror. Merely enjoying popular music makes you part of the problem.

You can probably guess which group I was in. Leaving aside the futility of "voting with your wallet" (a rigged ballot that's always won by the people with the thickest wallet), I just thought this was bad tactics.

Here's what I would say when people told me we should all stop listening to popular music: "If members of your popular movement are not allowed to listen to popular music, your movement won't be very popular."

We weren't going to make political change by creating an impossible purity test ("Ew, you listen to music from a major label? God, what's wrong with you?"). I mean, for one thing, a lot of popular music is legitimately fantastic and makes peoples' lives better. Popular movements should strive to increase their members' joy, not demand their deprivation. Again, not merely because this is a nice thing to do for people, but also because it's good tactics to make participation in the thing you're trying to do as joyous as possible.

Which brings me to social media. The problem with social media is that the people we love and want to interact with are being held prisoner in walled gardens. The mechanism of their imprisonment is the "switching costs" of leaving. Our friends and communities are on bad social media networks because they love each other more than they hate Musk or Zuck. Leaving a social platform can cost you contact with family members in the country you emigrated from, a support group of people who share your rare disease, the customers or audience you rely on for your livelihood, or just the other parents organizing your kid's little league game.

Hypothetically, you could organize all these people to leave at once, go somewhere else, and re-establish all your social connections. Practically, the "collective action problem" of doing so is nearly insurmountable. This is what platform owners depend on – it's why they know they can enshittify their services without losing users. So long as the pain of using the service is lower than the pain of leaving it, the companies can turn the screws on users to make their lives worse in order to extract more profit from them. This is why Musk killed the block button and why Zuck fired all his moderators. Why bear the expense of doing something nice for users if they'll still stick around even if you cut a ton of headcount and/or expensive compute?

There's a way out of this, thankfully. When social media is federated, then you can leave a server without leaving your friends. Think of it as being similar to changing cell-phone companies. When you switch from Verizon to T-Mobile, you keep your number, you keep your address book and you keep your friends, who won't even know you switched networks unless you tell them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

There's no reason social media couldn't work this way. You should be able to leave Facebook or Twitter for Mastodon, Bluesky, or any other service and still talk with the people you left behind, provided they still want to talk with you:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

That's how the Fediverse – which Mastodon is part of – works already. You can switch from one Mastodon server to another, and all the people you follow and who follow you will just move over to that new server. That means that if the person or company or group running your server goes sour, you aren't stuck making a choice between the people you love who connect to you on that server, and the pain of dealing with whatever bullshit the management is throwing off:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

We could make that stronger! Data protection laws like the EU's GDPR and California's CCPA create a legal duty for online services to hand over your data on demand. Arguably, these laws already require your Mastodon server's management to give you the files you need to switch from one server to another, but that could be clarified. Handing these files over to users on demand is really straightforward – even a volunteer running a small server for a few friends will have no trouble living up to this obligation. It's literally just a minute's work for each user.

Another way to make this stronger is through governance. Many of the great services that defined the old, good internet were run by "benevolent dictators for life." This worked well, but failed so badly. Even if the dictator for life stayed benevolent, that didn't make them infallible. The problem of a dictatorship isn't just malice – it's also human frailty. For a service to remain good over long timescales, it needs accountable, responsive governance. That's why all the most successful BDFL services (like Wikipedia) transitioned to community-managed systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/#high-on-your-own-supply

There, too, Mastodon shines. Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko has just explicitly abjured his role as "ultimate decision-maker" and handed management over to a nonprofit:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/

I love using Mastodon and I have a lot of hope for its future. I wish I was as happy with Bluesky, which was founded with the promise of federation, and which uses a clever naming scheme that makes it even harder for server owners to usurp your identity. But while Bluesky has added many, many technically impressive features, they haven't delivered on the long-promised federation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

Bluesky sure seems like a lot of fun! They've pulled tens of millions of users over from other systems, and by all accounts, they've all having a great time. The problem is that without federation, all those users are vulnerable to bad decisions by management (perhaps under pressure from the company's investors) or by a change in management (perhaps instigated by investors if the current management refuses to institute extractive measures that are good for the investors but bad for the users). Federation is to social media what fire-exits are to nightclubs: a way for people to escape if the party turns deadly:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes

So what's the answer? Well, around Mastodon, you'll hear a refrain that reminds me a lot of the Napster wars: "People who are enjoying themselves on Bluesky are wrong to do so, because it's not federated and the only server you can use is run by a VC-backed for-profit. They should all leave that great party – there's no fire exits!"

This is the social media version of "To be in our movement, you have to stop listening to popular music." Sure, those people shouldn't be crammed into a nightclub that has no fire exits. But thankfully, there is an alternative to being the kind of scold who demands that people leave a great party, and being the kind of callous person who lets tens of millions of people continue to risk their lives by being stuck in a fire-trap.

We can install our own fire-exits in Bluesky.

Yesterday, an initiative called "Free Our Feeds" launched, with a set of goals for "billionaire-proofing" social media. One of those goals is to add the long-delayed federation to Bluesky. I'm one of the inaugural endorsers for this, because installing fire exits for Bluesky isn't just the right thing to do, it's also good tactics:

https://freeourfeeds.com/

Here's why: if a body independent of the Bluesky corporation implements its federation services, then we ensure that its fire exits are beyond the control of its VCs. That means that if they are ever tempted in future to brick up the fire-exits, they won't be able to. This isn't a hypothetical risk. When businesses start to enshittify their services, they fully commit themselves to blocking anything that makes it easy to leave those services.

That's why Apple went so hard after Beeper Plus, a service that enhanced iMessage's security by making conversations between Apple and Android users as private as chats that were confined to Apple users:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

It's why Elon Musk periodically freaks out and suspends users who list their Mastodon userids in their Twitter bios:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/15/elon-musk-suspends-mastodon-twitter-account-over-elonjet-tracking/

And it's why Meta will suspend your account if you link to Pixelfed, a Fediverse-based alternative to Instagram:

https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

Once upon a time, we had a solid way of overcoming the problem of lock-in. We'd reverse-engineer a proprietary system and make a free, open alternative. We've been hacking fire exits into walled gardens since the Usenet days, with the creation of the alt.* hierarchy:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

When the corporate owners of Unix started getting all weird about source-code access and user-modifiability, we didn't insist that Unix users were bad people for sticking with a corporate OS. We reverse-engineered Unix and set all those users free:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Project

The answer to Microsoft's proprietary SMB network protocol wasn't a campaign to shame people for having SMB running on their LANs. It was reverse-engineering SMB and making SAMBA, which is now in every single device in your home and office, and it's gloriously free as in speech and free as in beer:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/samba-versus-smb-adversarial-interoperability-judo-network-effects

In the years since, a thicket of laws we colloquially call "IP" has grown up around services and products, and people have literally forgotten that there is an alternative to wheedling people to endure the pain of leaving a proprietary system for a free one. IP has put the imaginations of people who dream of a free internet in chains.

We can do better than begging people to leave a party they're enjoying; we can install our own fucking fire exits. Sure, maybe that means that a lot of those users will stay on the proprietary platform, but at least we'll have given them a way to leave if things go horribly wrong.

After all, there's no virtue in software freedom. The only thing worth caring about is human freedom. The only reason to value software freedom is if it sets humans free.

If I had my way, all those people enjoying themselves on Bluesky would come and enjoy themselves in the Fediverse. But I'm not a purist. If there's a way to use Bluesky without locking myself to the platform, I will join the party there in a hot second. And if there's a way to join the Bluesky party from the Fediverse, then goddamn I will party my ass off.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

[lazeecomet]

The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes

Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background

WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent

As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.

the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file

later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.

this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.

now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us

so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!

select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]

if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.

You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers

NOBODY in the field like this.

But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue

see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate

This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.

this gave me an idea

and i checked

and Power Automate had hooks for KQL

KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs

I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did

the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.

it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams

it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too

it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs

it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV

it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint

it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)

if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min

it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files

it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)

and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully

I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.

about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file

it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage

SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job

now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).

im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it

[stuarttechnologybob]

How do businesses use Microsoft technologies?

Microsoft Technologies Services

In today’s fast-paced and modern digital world, businesses rely on powerful tools and resources to stay productive, secure, and competitive. Microsoft Technologies provides many solutions that help organizations streamline operations, improve communication, and grow efficiently. Companies across all industries, from small startups to large enterprises, use Microsoft tools to power their success.

Enhancing Team Collaboration and Productivity -

One of the most common uses of Microsoft Technologies is to improve how teams work together. Microsoft 365 tools like Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive make it easy for employees to share files, hold virtual meetings, and manage tasks in real time—no matter where they are.

Cloud Computing with Microsoft Azure -

Businesses use Microsoft Azure to host websites, applications, and databases in the cloud. Azure allows companies to scale their IT resources and tools up or down based on the objective demand, which lower costs and increases flexibility. It also supports data backup, disaster recovery, and AI-driven services.

Managing Customer Relationships -

Microsoft Dynamics 365, resources assists the companies to handle out their sales, customer service, and marketing in one place at a time. With insights powered by data and automation, businesses can build stronger customer relationships and make smarter decisions faster with the assistance of Microsoft Technologies.

Improving Security and Compliance -

With cyber threats on the rise, Microsoft Technologies offers built-in security tools to help protect sensitive data. Features like multi-factor authentication, data encryption, and compliance tracking help businesses meet industry regulations and secure their systems.

Automating Processes with Power Platform -

Tools like Power Automate and Power Apps allow businesses to create custom apps and automate repetitive tasks without writing complex code. This helps save time and lets employees focus on more important work.

Businesses use Microsoft Technologies to stay efficient, connected, and secure in a digital-first world. Whether through cloud computing, team collaboration tools, or business intelligence platforms, Microsoft remains a trusted partner for organizations looking to grow and succeed. Additionally, Microsoft and its tools support the organization with remote work offerings and hybrid environments setup, and digital transformation with ease. Their solutions helps out the businesses to stay agile and alert, adaptive to change quickly, and remain competitive in the ever-evolving market as leads towards stand out of the domain in the industry.

Partnering with Experts for Microsoft Technology -

Businesses can rely on shifting their existing system and operating structure to new mediums as if for Microsoft tools with companies and experts like Suma Soft, IBM, and Cyntexa for a hassle-free Microsoft rollout journey.

As these set of industry leaders and experts assure a smooth transition with custom solutions offerings with its adaptation into the system with advanced security measures, and ongoing support, allowing the companies to maximize the benefits of their modern digital infrastructure.