FileMaker tips, techniques, and news.
By Gayoung Moon Posted on December 17th, 2018 in FileMaker, Free Downloads
Outlook and Microsoft Office are one of the most popular business software packages and services on the planet, with Outlook.com alone boasting over 400 million users in 2018. And with the Microsoft Graph API, integrating with Outlook and its calendar has never been easier. In this article we will walk through how to use the Microsoft Graph API to automatically create events in Outlook Calendar using FileMaker, streamlining event and scheduling management in your FileMaker solution by eliminating double data entry.
You must have Office 365 to use this article's integration, as the Microsoft Graph API does not support Outlook hosted on Exchange Server. Also make sure you have admin access to your Office 365 subscription if you have a business or school user account.
Make sure you create Azure AD Tenant first if you are using a personal account and not work school account. Similar to other API integrations, you need to create an app first. Go to the application registration portal and add an app (Note: the video shows old application registration page. New process will have you start from Azure portal as of May 1st, 2019). Click New Registration, give it any name, and select account type depending on who will be connecting to this application.
Then click on Certificates & secrets tab and create new client secret. Don't have expiration date unless there's specific reason to do so.
Microsoft Graph requires that each user give the app permissions to be able to push and pull data to and from their Outlook Calendar. Before users can give permissions, you need to set up the default permissions on the application registration page. There are two types of Microsoft Graph permissions: delegated permissions and application permissions. For purpose of this article, we will be using delegated permissions to talk to Outlook Calendar as a user instead of as an application.
For this Outlook Calendar Integration you will need to add the following delegated permissions:
Once you have your API information, you will need to authenticate your solution with the Microsoft Graph API to connect to Outlook Calendar. The sample file at the end of the article has the calls & web viewers that you can reference to set up initial authentication between Outlook and your new Graph application.
When the user clicks Connect button, they will be asked to log in to their Outlook account and approve delegated permissions for the application.
After the user logs in, a FileMaker script parses the redirected page's URL for the client ID and auth codes that will be used for requests to Outlook.
Microsoft Graph API supports multiple types of requests such as HTTP POST, GET and DELETE. You can perform all actions by using native the Insert from URL[] script step and giving it a valid URL and cURL options including required fields within the JSON body specified by the documentation.
Here's a sample request body to create a calendar event. Note how the DateTime element is formatted. For more details, refer to Microsoft Graph's properties under the event page.
{ "End" : { "DateTime" : "2018-12-12T11:00:00", "TimeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time" }, "Start" : { "DateTime" : "2018-12-12T10:00:00", "TimeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time" }, "Subject" : "Test 123" }
If you make a successful request, the API will return a JSON-encoded body. You can check if you encountered any errors by looking at the following function after the Insert from URL[ ] step:
Get ( LastExternalErrorDetail )
This function will return 200 on success; otherwise the API encountered an error. If your call was successful, you'll get response a JSON-encoded response body like below with event ID and change key that you will need to use when updating events:
{ "@odata.context" : "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users('gmoon%40dbservices.com')/calendar/events/$entity", "@odata.etag" : "W/\"eyoqZr4V6UOE23scd9kKdQABYJFSxw==\"", "attendees" : [], "body" : { "content" : "", "contentType" : "text" }, "bodyPreview" : "", "categories" : [], "changeKey" : "eyoqZr4V6UOE23scd9kKdQABYJFSxw==", "createdDateTime" : "2018-12-11T18:26:21.48905Z", "end" : { "dateTime" : "2018-12-12T17:00:00.0000000", "timeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time" }, "hasAttachments" : false, "iCalUId" : "040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00800000000525905047F91D4010000000000000000100000002EF55A9CBBF9F8429AA5DF86AE8FB2CF", "id" : "AQMkADAwATM3ZmYAZS0wYTI1LWI1N2ItMDACLTAwCgBGAAADVUTIWkB8vk_xO5-ko1YImAcAeyoqAGa_FelDhNt7HHfZCnUAAAIBDQAAAHsqKgBmvhXpQ4Tbexx32Qp1AAFghoJ2AAAA", "importance" : "normal", "isAllDay" : false, "isCancelled" : false, "isOrganizer" : true, "isReminderOn" : true, "lastModifiedDateTime" : "2018-12-11T18:46:23.4155607Z", "location" : { "address" : {}, "coordinates" : {}, "displayName" : "", "locationType" : "default", "uniqueIdType" : "unknown" }, "locations" : [], "onlineMeetingUrl" : null, "organizer" : { "emailAddress" : { "address" : "example@outlook.com", "name" : "Gayoung Moon" } }, "originalEndTimeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time", "originalStartTimeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time", "recurrence" : null, "reminderMinutesBeforeStart" : 15, "responseRequested" : true, "responseStatus" : { "response" : "organizer", "time" : "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z" }, "sensitivity" : "normal", "seriesMasterId" : null, "showAs" : "busy", "start" : { "dateTime" : "2018-12-12T16:00:00.0000000", "timeZone" : "Eastern Standard Time" }, "subject" : "4 PM Test", "type" : "singleInstance", "webLink" : "https://outlook.live.com/owa/?itemid=AQMkADAwATM3ZmYAZS0wYTI1LWI1N2ItMDACLTAwCgBGAAADVUTIWkB8vk%2BxO5%2Fko1YImAcAeyoqAGa%2BFelDhNt7HHfZCnUAAAIBDQAAAHsqKgBmvhXpQ4Tbexx32Qp1AAFghoJ2AAAA&exvsurl=1&path=/calendar/item" }
The Microsoft Graph API can help streamline your event and scheduling workflow by giving you the ability to sync your Outlook calendar flawlessly with your FileMaker solution. Contact us if you need help integrating your FileMaker solution with your Outlook Calendar!
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Gayoung is a certified FileMaker and web developer who takes pride in her work and is driven to provide exceptional solutions for clients. The combination of her friendly nature and willingness to go the extra mile sets her apart in her field of expertise.