Author Archives: The team who must be named

The Art of Wizardry: Harnessing Magical APIs to Claim the ‘Thieving Bastards’ Badge AND Dataminer

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In the spirit of Hogwarts, where collaboration and resourcefulness reign supreme, we embarked on a quest to claim the coveted ‘Thieving Bastards’ badge. This badge celebrates the clever use of third-party solutions to enhance our magical creations. Just as the greatest wizards rely on ancient spells and enchanted artifacts, we too must harness the power of existing tools and APIs to weave our digital enchantments.

To bring our Hogwarts-inspired intranet to life, I delved into the vast realm of third-party APIs, selecting the most potent tools to aid students in their daily adventures.

  • The Entur API: The Floo Network of Transportation
    Much like the Floo Network enables swift travel across the wizarding world, the Entur API provides real-time transportation data. By integrating this powerful API, students can easily plan their journeys to Diagon Alley with minimal hassle.
  • Weather API: The Divination Crystal Ball
    Professor Trelawney may have her crystal ball, but we prefer data-driven forecasting. With the weather API, students can prepare for their daily adventures, be it sunny strolls around the castle grounds or braving the rain on their way to Herbology class.
  • Harry Potter Database: The Restricted Section of Knowledge
    No Hogwarts intranet would be complete without a comprehensive spellbook. By utilizing a Harry Potter-themed database, students can look up spells, potion recipes, and magical creatures with ease, ensuring they are always equipped for any magical challenge.
  • OneFlow API
    Handling magical agreements and contracts has never been easier with the Oneflow API. Much like the enchanted scrolls used at Hogwarts, this API allows for the seamless management of digital contracts, ensuring that all agreements—from Hogsmeade permission slips to Quidditch team sign-ups—are securely handled and stored.
  • Mining for Gold: Claiming the ‘Dataminer’ Badge Beyond integrating third-party solutions, we have also used these APIs to extract valuable insights and present them in an engaging way. By combining transportation schedules, weather forecasts, and magical data, our intranet transforms raw information into actionable intelligence. Students can now see the best routes to Diagon Alley considering the weather conditions or discover spell recommendations based on current atmospheric factors. This fusion of external data with our own enriches the user experience and adds real business value to our solution.

Introducing DobbAI: Where Pro-Code Meets Low-Code

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Say hello to DobbAI, our AI-powered assistant with the charm and wit of a real house-elf, ready to serve your workplace needs. From fetching information to assisting with complex tasks, DobbAI is designed to make data as accessible as asking a simple question.

DobbAI exemplifies #ProCodeNoCodeUnite by blending Microsoft’s Copilot Studio, Power Platform, and React to create a seamless, engaging, and efficient experience.

What is DobbAI?

DobbAI is more than just an AI tool—it’s a Talk-to-Your-Data CoPilot, seamlessly integrated into our workplace ecosystem.

Here’s what makes it special:

  • Charming and Knowledgeable: Like a helpful house-elf, DobbAI delivers witty, accurate responses to queries.
  • Deeply Integrated: It’s fully connected to the intranet, housed on SharePoint, so it can fetch everything from the dinner menu in the Great Hall, Class Schedules, and Academic Calender Information, to the standings of the House Cup (pulled from a SharePoint list, of course).
  • Effortless Access: The AI is published to a custom website channel, providing an iframe that integrates flawlessly with our React PCF (PowerApps Component Framework) component, meticulously deployed to the Power App solution.

Whether you need a quick answer, task automation, or AI-driven insights, DobbAI has you covered.

Low-Code Meets Pro-Code: How It Works

DobbAI demonstrates how low-code platforms can work in harmony with custom-coded solutions to deliver advanced, scalable functionality:

  1. Low-Code Magic (Power Platform)
    • Power Apps: Provides a no-code interface where users interact with DobbAI, asking it to retrieve data, complete tasks, or run reports with just a few clicks.
  2. Pro-Code Brilliance (SPFx and APIs)
    • SPFx Customizations: Extend SharePoint’s capabilities by embedding DobbAI into the site using modern web parts. These include pro-code components like advanced data handling and a rich user interface for AI-driven analytics.
    • Azure Active Directory V2 Authentication.

Low-Code Power

  • Copilot Studio: DobbAI’s foundation starts in Copilot Studio, where its capabilities are defined and fine-tuned to serve users effectively.
  • Power Platform:
    • Power Apps hosts DobbAI, making it easily accessible to all users in our organization.

Pro-Code Customizations

  • React PCF Component: The iframe provided by DobbAI’s custom website channel is integrated using a React PCF component, enabling advanced UI customization and smooth user experiences within Power Apps.
  • SharePoint Integration: By connecting to SharePoint via Microsoft Graph API and SharePoint REST API, DobbAI taps into the heart of our intranet for data retrieval.
  • Azure Active Directory V2 Authentication.

Oneflow Sponsor: How Hogwarts Used Modern E-Signature Technology to Transform the Triwizard Tournament Contract

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The Triwizard Tournament is a cornerstone of magical tradition, uniting wizards from across schools to test their courage, skill, and determination. But behind the thrill of dragons and enchanted mazes lies a less glamorous necessity: the contract.

Historically, Triwizard contracts were crafted on enchanted parchments, sealed with wax, and signed in person using magic quills. While effective, this process was rigid, time-consuming, and lacked the flexibility to address modern challenges, such as accommodating remote students or managing last-minute revisions.

This year, Hogwarts took a progressive step by using a modern e-signature solution to create and manage the Triwizard Tournament contracts. Here’s how it brought magic and efficiency together.

The traditional process for handling contracts came with a few inefficiencies:

  1. No Easy Revisions: Any clarification or adjustment required creating an entirely new document, leading to delays.
  2. Limited Accessibility: Students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang needed to be physically present to review and sign contracts.
  3. Time-Intensive Process: The Goblet of Fire’s enchanted signing process, while impressive, wasn’t built for speed or collaboration.

Hogwarts adopted a modern e-signature platform: ONEFLOW, to streamline the process of creating, managing, and signing tournament contracts. While we didn’t integrate APIs or build custom features, the ready-to-use solution provided all the tools needed to simplify contract management.

Here’s how it worked:

1. Creating the Contract

Using the platform, Hogwarts staff easily crafted a professional, clear, and detailed contract. The solution’s user-friendly interface allowed them to include all necessary clauses and conditions while ensuring the document remained easy to understand.

2. Sharing with Students

The platform made it simple to share the contract with students digitally. No more waiting in line at the Goblet of Fire—students could access the contract on their enchanted devices from anywhere, be it a Hogwarts dormitory or a carriage at Beauxbatons.

3. E-Signing the Agreement

Once the students reviewed the document, they could sign it seamlessly with a digital signature. The e-signature solution ensured the signatures were secure, authenticated, and just as magically binding as the Goblet of Fire’s original enchantments.

4. Automated Document Management

The platform’s features helped Hogwarts staff keep track of signed agreements, send reminders, and store all documents in an organized, secure manner.

Share == Care

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PART 1 – Code, dataset or api is made available for other teams

Introduction

In the spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing, we are excited to announce that the Hogwarts Academic Calendar SPFx Web Part is now available on GitHub. This project showcases the Hogwarts Academic Calendar using a rich calendar view built with React and react-big-calendar

Project Overview

The Academic Calendar is a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web part designed to display events in a calendar format. It leverages modern front-end technologies to provide a seamless and responsive user experience. Key features include:

  • Displaying events in a calendar view
  • Detailed event information on click
  • fast serve command line utility, which modifies your SharePoint Framework solution, so that it runs continuous serve command 10-15x times faster, than the regular gulp serve.

You can find the complete source code and detailed instructions in the GitHub repository.

Getting Started
To get started with the Academic Calendar SPFx Web Part, follow the instructions in the README. The README provides a comprehensive guide on how to clone the repository, install dependencies, build, bundle, and deploy the solution to your SharePoint environment.

Conclusion

By making the Academic Calendar SPFx Web Part available on GitHub for other teams, we aim to promote a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. We encourage other teams to explore the repository, provide feedback, and contribute to the project.

Together, we can build better solutions and share knowledge across teams. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions.

PART 2 – A sensible contribution(pull request) on a compeeting teams solution.

Here I decided to extend the hand of hospitality to our dear friends at The Team Who MUST Be Named. My contribution came in the form of a PR, where i noticed they had not had time to implement some error handling for their method darkledger/src/components/DarkLedger.tsx

This seemed like a sensible contribution. Here is the implementation:

Withcher 4 – The wild badge hunt. An Exciting Journey Through Challenges and Triumphs

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Long time since the last badge hunt…

In the fast-paced and exhilarating world of hackathons, few events shine as brightly as the ACDC Hackathon. This year, participants from all corners of the tech community gathered with one goal in mind: to push the boundaries of innovation and creativity. Amidst the coding sprints and problem-solving marathons, a unique and thrilling aspect stood out – the quest for badges and achievements.

Collecting badges in the ACDC Hackathon isn’t just about a sense of accomplishment; it’s a testament to the skills, perseverance, and collaborative spirit of the participants. From early morning brainstorming sessions to late-night debugging frenzies, every moment was a step closer to earning those coveted badges that symbolize mastery and ingenuity.

Join us as we delve into the journey of collecting badges and achievements in the ACDC Hackathon. We will explore the different challenges faced by the participants, the strategies they employed, and the unforgettable moments that defined their path to success. Whether you’re a seasoned hacker or a curious onlooker, this blog post will give you an insider’s view of what it takes to excel in one of the most dynamic and rewarding hackathons around.

When entering the HogWorkPlace Power App for the first time, you’ll be greeted by a landing page that seamlessly integrates with your house. Using Azure AD groups, we represent each house in vivid detail.

But wait, what’s that in the corner? It’s DobbAI, your personal AI house-elf assistant, ready to cater to your every need. DobbAI is a Copilot Studio agent, imbued with the charm and wit of a real house-elf. Its knowledge is deeply integrated with the rest of the intranet housed on SharePoint. Curious about tonight’s dinner? Simply ask DobbAI to fetch the menu from a SharePoint list.

For us, SharePoint isn’t just a repository; it’s the lifeblood of our data, securely storing and managing it alongside connectors to tables in Dataverse for seamless solution engagement. When you interact with DobbAI, you’ll authenticate using the robust Azure Active Directory V2 method. The AI is then published to a custom website channel, providing an iframe that seamlessly integrates with our React PCF component, all meticulously deployed to the power app solution.

But wait! There’s more to this dance we call “client-side salsa”. Within SharePoint, you’ll find an embedded Viva Engage and SPFx web part that displays the Hogwarts academic calendar, keeping you updated on both school events and social engagements. And lastly a Daily Proft newsfeed. All available via the canvas app, or just ask Dobby for directions 😉

Sketch it up – HogWorkPlace

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When planning HogWorkplace, we initially didn’t know what it should look like. To get a clearer idea, we decided to sketch it by hand. Our goal was to create an intranet on a SharePoint site for both Hogwarts and the other house common rooms. We wanted to incorporate AI and CoPilot Studio, which led us to develop DobbAI. DobbAI is available on all SharePoint sites within HogWorkplace.

We aim to create a PowerApp that visualizes Hogwarts and the Hogwarts Express, making it clickable to navigate to different features on the SharePoint site. We sketched these drawings and pictures to visualize our thinking.

Hogwarts: The main SharePoint site, showcasing Hogwarts, the Hogwarts Express, and DobbAI.

Visual Design: A more detailed design of the castle, DobbAI, and the train.

Features: Showcasing the rest of the features on the Hogwarts SharePoint site, including a button to find your common room, conversation posts from Viva Engage, and a Hogwarts Academic Calendar that displays the yearly calendar. Clicking on an element in the calendar provides additional information.

DobbAI Interaction: Demonstrating how DobbAI will look once you interact with it. It’s a chatbot where DobbAI answers your questions based on its knowledge. We’ve integrated all the SharePoint sites, documents, lists, etc., of HogWorkplace into its knowledge base. You will only receive answers and access to information that your signed-up user has permission to read, ensuring no sensitive data is shared. When you get an answer, you also receive the source of the information and, in some cases, a navigation link to the relevant location if it suits the prompted question.

HogWorkPlace – Your Magical Gateway to Knowledge and Convenience 

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The Team Who Must Not Be Named is claiming the Early Delivery Badge!

We are planning to create a modernized intranet to assist Hogwarts students with onboarding, occasional questions, finding information, and making their day faster and easier. We have named our intranet ‘HogWorkplace’. HogWorkplace will be a visual map where students can easily navigate and find the information they seek at Hogwarts. This is important because it can be challenging for new students to find information, as it is displayed in various areas. Our group has experienced difficulties finding information, especially during the onboarding period when joining our company, which is why we believe information should be gathered quickly and effectively. HogWorkplace will have several navigation points, including the Room of Requirement, Hogwarts Library, and the Great Hall. 

The Room of Requirement is a place where students can book a reading/study space and also reserve equipment they may need. The Hogwarts Library is where students can find information such as suitable books for their magic courses, blog posts, written articles, or recordings of classes. In the Hogwarts Library, users also have a ‘Restricted section’ where students have their own personal space for their ToDo’s for the day, Planner for the days ahead, or OneNotes containing their class notes. The Great Hall is where students can find the daily lunch menu for today and the week ahead. Navigating around can sometimes be difficult to find the specific places where the information is gathered. Perhaps there is a special tool that can help with that? 

With the evolution of AI and especially Copilot, we have decided to incorporate Copilot into our solutions. We will be using Copilot Studio to create our AI. However, we needed a mascot for our helpful AI… but who should it be? 

House elves are commonly used in families as helpful creatures that assist with chores or other needs. We have decided to honor the work they do by choosing one of them as a mascot for our intranet. HogWorkplace introduces the AI ‘DobbAI’, a tribute to the free elf, Dobby. DobbAI will help students with navigation, questions, or other needs they may have. DobbAI can obtain information by students prompting questions to it. It can also write to your local apps like OneNote, ToDo, or Planner if you ask DobbAI to create daily reminders or notes, which will be placed in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library. 

The grind never stops 💪 starting up early to claim the morning glory badge 😴


Team Who Must Not Be Named is claiming the Remarkable Teamspirit badge