Create Office365 Connection

Establishes a connection between the studio and the Office 365 application

This activity establishes a connection between the Robot studio and the registered application in the Microsoft Azure account using Microsoft Graph API. The output of this activity (Connection) is used as input in the Connection Id property field of all the Office 365 activities.

In order to establish an authenticated connection, we need to first register our Office 365 application in the Azure Active Directory using personal, work, or school Microsoft Office 365 accounts. When registering the application we need to assign the Microsoft Graph API permissions that specifies the resources that the bot can access. After the Office 365 application registration, the Azure Active Directory provides an Application or client id that is used to get the required information on the registered app for initiating authentication.

Authentication

• Application Id: String Argument Required Specifies a unique application or client id provided by the Azure Active Directory after app registration. The application id is an instance of the Office 365 app. An organization can have multiple application ids for the same account, ie; registering one or more applications in the same Office365 account. Each of the application ids has its own permission and authentication requirements.

• Tenant Id: String Argument Required Specifies a unique directory or tenant id provided by the Azure Active Directory after app registration. It's required when using multi-tenant applications and the IntegratedWindowsAuthentication.

• Username: String Argument Specifies the username of your Office365 account.

• Password: String Argument Specifies the password of your Office365 account.

• Services: Specifies the service(s) that we grant API permission to at the time of app registration. The available options are:

  • Files - For using Files or Excel activities or both

  • Mail - For using Outlook activities

  • Calendar - For using Calendar activities

  • Groups - For using the Group activities

  • Shared - For using Planner activities

• Authentication Type: Specifies the type of authentication that is required for your registered application. The available options are :

  • InteractiveToken

  • UsernameAndPassword

  • IntegratedWindowsAuthentication

  By default the value is InteractiveToken

When setting up the connection for the first time set the Authentication Type to InteractiveToken so that we can authorize the required permissions in the consent dialogue box

IntegratedWindowsAuthentication or UsernameAndPassword authentication types do not work when Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled.

• Timeout: String Argument Specifies a unique directory or tenant id provided by the Azure Active Directory after app registration.

Output

• Connection: GraphServiceClient Variable Required Specifies an output variable to reference the Office 365 connection.

Interactive Token

The InteractiveToken authentication type can be used for attended automation and in scenarios where multi-factor authentication (MFA) is required. When the Office 365 Connection activity is run for the first time using the IteractiveToken authentication type, we are prompted to authorize access to the resources that we have granted permission to when registering our application in the Azure Active Directory via a consent dialogue box.

Integrated Windows Authentication

The IntegratedWindowsAuthentication authentication type can be used for both attended and unattended automation. This type can be applied to Windows-hosted applications running on computers joined to a Windows domain or Azure Active Directory.

Username and Password

The UsernameAndPassword authentication type can be used for both attended and unattended automation processes if Multi-factor authentication is not enabled. If this authentication type is selected the Username and Password property fields are required fields and the Tenant property field is required in the case of multitenant application and is optional for single-tenant applications.