Outlook REST API v1.0, Office 365 Discovery, and Live Connect API deprecation

Over the last few years, we have been investing in services that help developers access information in Office 365 in a simple and intuitive way. As we make progress in this journey, some technologies become obsolete, because they no longer provide the best way to interact with Office 365 data. When this occurs, we follow our service deprecation policy and announce these services as being deprecated. Today, this is the case for v1.0 of the Outlook REST API, the Office 365 discovery service, the Live Connect APIs, and Live SDK.

Version 1.0 of the Outlook REST API

Version 1.0 of the Outlook REST API was launched in 2015 to provide API access to mail, calendar, contacts, and other data from Exchange Online, with support for Basic Authentication. Over time, we’ve released major enhancements in Outlook REST API v2.0 and Microsoft Graph, both of which provide richer features, and better performance and reliability than Outlook REST API v1.0. Both Outlook REST API v2.0 and Microsoft Graph use OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization, which is a more secure and reliable way than Basic Authentication to access data.

Today, we are announcing that on November 1^st, 2018, we will stop supporting Basic Authentication in Outlook REST API v1.0. Additionally, starting on November 1^st, 2019, we will decommission the Outlook REST API v1.0 in favor of Microsoft Graph and Outlook REST API v2.0. This means that new or existing apps will not be able to use Basic Authentication in Outlook REST API v1.0 starting November 1^st, 2018 and will not be able to use Outlook REST API v1.0 at all starting November 1^st, 2019.

If you have been using the Outlook REST v1.0 API in your app, you should plan on transitioning to Microsoft Graph-based Outlook REST APIs to continue accessing Exchange Online data. For more information and details on how to make the transition, please refer to the following articles:

Office 365 discovery service and Office 365 discovery service SDK for .NET

Office 365 discovery service and Office 365 discovery service SDK for .NET were launched in 2015 to help find the SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange and Azure AD endpoints for a given user. The service is part of a multi-step flow required to locate and call into individual Office 365 endpoints. Now developers can use Microsoft Graph to access Office 365 data in a single endpoint, reducing the complexity and improving the performance of applications connected to Office 365.

Today, we are announcing the deprecation of the Office 365 discovery service and Office 365 discovery service SDK for .NET in favor of using the Microsoft Graph. Deprecation begins on January 10^th, 2018. Newly registered apps will not be able to access the Office 365 discovery service. Existing apps can continue to use the service until November 1^st, 2019. From November 1^st, 2019 onward, the Office 365 discovery service will be fully decommissioned, and no apps will be able to use the service anymore.

We are also announcing the deprecation of the following client libraries that were in preview and that provided access to the individual service endpoints in Office 365: Office 365 SDK for Android, Outlook SDK for Android, Orc for Android, AAD Graph SDK for iOS, Office 365 SDK for iOS, Outlook SDK for iOS, Office 365 discovery SDK for iOS, OneNote SDK for iOS, Orc for iOS, Office 365 SDK for Java, Orc for Java, Orc for Java Shared, Cordova Files and discovery Plugin. These preview client libraries will be removed shortly. We recommend that you use Microsoft Graph and the associated Microsoft Graph SDKs instead.

If you have been using the Office 365 discovery service, you should plan on transitioning to use Microsoft Graph to access Office 365 data directly. If your app requires SharePoint APIs that are not yet available in Microsoft Graph, update your code to use Microsoft Graph to discover your service endpoints, for example:

Discover the OneDrive endpoint (aka SharePoint MySite):

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/drive/sharepointIds/siteUrl

Try it in Graph Explorer.

Discover the SharePoint root site:

GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/root/sharepointIds/siteUrl

Try it in Graph Explorer.

For more information and details on how to make the transition, please review the following articles:

Live Connect APIs and Live SDK

Live Connect APIs and Live SDK were launched in 2011 to provide a common API for profile, email, calendar, and files for Microsoft consumer services. These APIs have been superseded by Microsoft Graph which provides access to all this information and more, for both consumer and enterprise services. Today, we are announcing the deprecation of Live Connect APIs and Live SDK in favor of using Microsoft Graph.

The Live Connect APIs and Live SDK will be fully decommissioned on November 1^st, 2018 and will no longer be available to new or existing apps. Some functionality of the Live Connect APIs will stop working before the API is fully decommissioned. In particular, the profile, contacts, and calendar APIs will stop returning user data on December 1^st, 2017.

If you have been using Live Connect or Live SDK in your app, you should plan on transitioning to Microsoft Graph to continue to access user data. For more information and details on how to make the transition, please see Transitioning from Live SDK to Microsoft Graph.

Next steps

The deprecation of these APIs follows our service deprecation policies. We understand changes like this may cause some inconvenience, but we are confident it will ensure more secure, reliable, and performant experiences for our customers.

We recommend you use Microsoft Graph to directly access Office 365 data. Microsoft Graph has full functional parity with the OneDrive endpoint, and is close to functional parity with the Azure AD Graph, SharePoint sites and lists, and Outlook v2.0 endpoints. We are working to close the remaining functional gaps, so please let us know via UserVoice if any of these gaps are impacting your transition or adoption of Microsoft Graph. Also, we’re here to help if you need it. If you have questions, please let us know in Stack Overflow with the [MicrosoftGraph] tag.

Thank you in advance for updating and opening your apps to a wider range of useful and intelligent features on Microsoft Graph. We are extremely excited about the growing opportunities that Microsoft Graph offers to developers. And, we remain fully committed to continue our journey to empower developers to access Office 365 data in a super simple way.

Happy coding!

Yina Arenas, Venkat Ayyadevara and Ryan Gregg

Microsoft Graph & Office 365 Program Managers