We are excited to announce a preview of new Microsoft Viva Connections Toolkit for Visual Studio Code, targeted to simplify the development process on building experiences for the Microsoft Viva Connections with SharePoint Framework (SPFx).
This extension was built in the partnership with our Microsoft 365 & Power Platform community team and it is technically an abstraction layer for the features available from the Microsoft provided SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator and the CLI for Microsoft 365. This is a preview release of the toolkit which is using production ready tooling for the operations. Used versions are SPFx 1.16.1 and CLI for Microsoft 365 v6.1.
Please give us feedback in the GitHub issue list and in the social media around the features you’d like to see and if this is useful for you. Your input will help us to define the next steps on this journey. We also always welcome new contributors in our open-source tooling and this GitHub repository does welcome your contributions. Reach out if you are interested 👋
Key features in the Viva Connections Toolkit
- Environment validation
- Install technical dependencies
- Wizard based creation of new solutions for Viva Connections
- Connect to your development tenant for easy operations directly from the VS Code
- Start from existing scenario or community provide sample
- Scenario guidance using CodeTour for Azure and Microsoft Graph scenarios
- Updating solutions using CLI for Microsoft 365
- Perform gulp tasks using UI based tasks
- Access documentation and community channels easily
See more detailed introduction from the following video which is part of a video playlist around the Viva Connections Toolkit.
Please see the following videos for additional details around the Viva Connections Toolkit
- Install Viva Connections Toolkit VS Code extension – David Warner (Microsoft)
- Validate and install required tooling for Viva Connections development – Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft)
- Create your first Viva Connection extensions with VS Code – David Warner (Microsoft)
- Debugging your Viva Connections extensions with VS Code extension – Hugo Bernier (Microsoft)
- Use the Viva Connection Toolkit scenarios to create your solution – Hugo Bernier (Microsoft)
- Deploy and publish your Viva Connections extensibility to production – Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft)
- Use Viva Connections Toolkit with any SPFx solution – Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft)
Frequently asked questions
Is this tooling provided by Microsoft or by the community?
Viva Connections Toolkit is provided by the Microsoft 365 & Power Platform community through the open-source patterns, with a partnership of Microsoft. There’s no direct support provided for this tooling from Microsoft, but it’s using the Microsoft supported SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator behind the scenes.
I’m already using SPFx Yeoman generator for development tooling – what’s in it for me?
Viva Connections Toolkit can be used with any SharePoint Framework solutions to increase developer productivity and is targeted for abstracting the requirement to understand the command line tooling. All the commands and operations which are provided by the Viva Connections Toolkit are available either from the SharePoint Framework yeoman generator or from teh CLI for Microsoft 365. This means that you can create Viva Connections extensibility also without it, so it’s not a requirement for the development as such, but rather provided to simplify onboarding for new developers.
What’s the relationship with the Microsoft Teams Toolkit?
Microsoft Teams Toolkit is a great Microsoft provided extension streamlining the development of the Microsoft Teams solutions. We are working on a full alignment on the toolkits internally to avoid any confusion on the use cases. Microsoft Teams toolkit focuses for the Microsoft Teams extensibility and Viva Connections Toolkit for the Microsoft Viva Connections extensions and more broadly SharePoint Framework extensions. We are evaluating different options for the future direction with these tools depending on the feedback and input we get around the Viva Connections Toolkit from our partners and customers.
Additional resources and support 🤝
- Viva Connections Toolkit in VS Code marketplace
- Viva Connections Toolkit in GitHub
- Viva Connections Toolkit issue list for reporting any issues and feedback
- Overview of Viva Connections Extensibility
- Microsoft Learn – Extend Microsoft Viva Connections
- Microsoft Learn – Extend Microsoft SharePoint – Associate
- CLI for Microsoft 365 – SharePoint Framework Upgrade tooling from previous versions to latest
- Viva Connections extension samples build with SharePoint Framework
If you are looking to build experiences for Microsoft 365, we strongly recommend joining our community calls and other Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community activities covering Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Teams, Power Platform, Microsoft Viva, OneDrive, SharePoint and more… More details here https://aka.ms/community/home 🚀
And, follow us on @Microsoft365Dev)/Twitter to stay up to date on Microsoft 365 Platform announcements.
Happy coding! Sharing is caring! 🧡
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