CloudAppie

MVP 2025, M365 Development

Albert-Jan Schot — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 09:03:13 +0000

Thankfull for the eleventh year of being an MVP, I have just received the awesome news that I have been re-awarded my 11th MVP award 🥳. M365 Development still is a big part of life, while everything is AI and Copilot a lot of the (community) work is still in the Microsoft 365 and Power Platform sphere, so awesome to check this one of again.

Retrieve Entra Agents with Microsoft 365 CLI

Albert-Jan Schot — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 19:30:57 +0000

Over the past few months, there have been quite a few announcements around Microsoft Entra ID. One of the more exciting ones is the introduction of Agent ID a new identity type designed specifically to help you secure and manage your AI agents.

With this new identity type, something new is also possible: you can now retrieve an overview of all registered agents in your tenant using CLI for Microsoft 365. Quite useful when you want to see what’s active, or has been created ages ago.

Accelerate Agent Building with Copilot Studio

Albert-Jan Schot — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 09:10:14 +0000

In this session, we focus on extending agents from Copilot Studio. Not just building an agent with low code, but how to go beyond the standard patterns and integrate agents directly into your own solutions.

You will learn how to:

Integrate Azure OpenAI and AI Foundry into Copilot Studio Agents
Enable advanced analytics with Application Insights
Build your own interface and leverage Copilot Studio Agents
Orchestrate Copilot Studio Agents using the Agent SDK

Are you ready to bring agents to the next level?

Running NVM on a Dev Drive with an ARM Device

Albert-Jan Schot — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 13:57:23 +0000

There’s nothing quite like the feel of a new device 🚀. I recently got myself a Surface Laptop, and it’s been a great experience so far. It’s fast, lightweight, and the battery life easily holds out through the day. Naturally, I wanted to get my dev setup just right, including a clean Dev Drive configuration from the get-go.

Developers introduction to Copilot Studio

Albert-Jan Schot — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 12:37:26 +0000

Let’s be honest: building intelligent agents shouldn’t be hard. And with Copilot Studio, it finally isn’t. In this session, Daniel and Albert-Jan take us on a hands-on tour through the art of crafting agents using Copilot Studio — a platform that puts flexibility and control back into the hands of developers. Whether you’re already knee-deep in API endpoints or just starting to explore conversational AI, this demo-packed walkthrough will show how you can go from “hmm, maybe” to “heck yes” in less than an hour.

Code your blog header image using Front Matter

Albert-Jan Schot — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:57:46 +0000

Inspired by Elio Struyf’s post Generate open graph preview image in Code with Front Matter, I decided I needed that in my life as well. The result? A slightly modified version that generates my blog header images. Automating this process ensures consistency and saves a bit of time. If you’ve ever wanted to streamline your blog header creation with a bit of code, this might be just what you need!

Graph Connectors: Licensing Insights and Copilot Use

Albert-Jan Schot — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:09:52 +0000

Microsoft Graph Connectors are awesome for bringing external (un)structured data into the Microsoft Search experience. So you can use them to enhance the enterprise search capabilities and surface content from third-party sources within Microsoft 365. But their utility goes beyond just search. Graph Connectors also feed data into Microsoft 365 Copilot, enabling AI-driven responses.

ESPC Copilot week: Building Copilot Studio plugins

Albert-Jan Schot — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 08:10:19 +0000

Get ready to supercharge your skills during Microsoft Copilot Week! A free online event packed with webinars designed to help you achieve more with Microsoft Copilot.

I’ll be kicking off Copilot Week with my own session, “Building Copilot Studio Plugins”, on Monday, April 7th at 11:00 CEST. In this session, you’ll discover what makes a Copilot Studio plugin, the different types you can build, and how to create your very first one. Whether you want your agent to reason over your content, interact with your systems, or act on your behalf, this session will give you the foundation to get started. Don’t miss this chance to take your Copilot skills to the next level—save the date and register now!

AITour: Build and extend agents

Albert-Jan Schot — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 15:04:44 +0000

Are you ready to dive in and start building your own agents? Join us for a hands-on 75-minute workshop at the Microsoft AI tour in Utrecht where you’ll get a high-level overview of Copilot Studio and learn how to create and extend your own agents. By the end, you’ll have the skills to build agents connected to knowledge, extend them with actions, and use tools like Copilot Studio and custom connectors. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn and build!

PowerPlatform: Source Code and Naming Tips

Albert-Jan Schot — Sat, 22 Feb 2025 16:29:07 +0000

As the tech world evolves, so does the need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices. Ron Jeffries once said, “Code never lies,” and with the new Source Code Integration in Power Platform, I can’t help but agree. This addition gives us the ability to peek into the actual code behind our solutions, which is a game-changer.

Celebrating Dad: The Ultimate MVP Journey

Albert-Jan Schot — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 12:58:20 +0000

I could hardly believe it when I heard the news. After all these years of working side by side in the Microsoft world, my dad is now an MVP! 🏆

It feels like just yesterday that I started my journey in tech, back at Tam Tam. It all started when my dad took me to a Microsoft event in Brussels, where I saw the Learning Gateway built on SharePoint 2007. That experience ignited a passion that would shape my career and my entire approach to technology, starting with building a trading solution on SharePoint 2003 for a Dutch bank, 10 years later becoming an MVP. Fast forward nearly 20 years, and it’s almost surreal to see him receive this prestigious recognition as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional.

Building a perfect pipeline

Albert-Jan Schot — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 09:47:20 +0000

Are you tired of manually moving your solutions to different environments? You should be using Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) principles! Using pipelines and source code integration you can ensure quality, automatically adhere to governance controls, and focus on building your solution. With in product pipelines, you can deploy all solution components (Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse entities and others) over multiple environments and implement approval before doing so. Source code integration will help you with keeping track of changes and can be used for approval of changes before deploying when working with Canvas Apps. By combining the in-product pipelines with Azure Devops pipelines you can even validate your source code for naming conventions and automatically keep track of change requests. Join this session to get started with building the perfect pipeline to and to enable your makers on building awesome solutions!

Power Platform Release Wave 1 2025

Albert-Jan Schot — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 13:25:50 +0000

Another year, another wave of updates 🚀. This release brings a fresh batch of features, enhancements, and of course, plenty of AI 🤖. With so much to explore, I’ve put together my top three of most exciting changes to keep an eye on. Not all updates are created equal, so here are the ones that stand out the most to me.

Power Platform Bootcamp - Automate naming conventions

Albert-Jan Schot — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 18:09:26 +0000

Ensuring consistency through proper naming conventions is crucial for error prevention and fostering collaboration among makers. However, this aspect is frequently neglected. That’s why automated validation becomes essential for verifying adherence to naming conventions. Join us as we unveil the power of automated validation, demonstrating how to seamlessly integrate naming convention rules into your pipelines.

Building Copilot Studio Plugins

Albert-Jan Schot — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 12:56:37 +0000

Back by popular demand, my session on Copilot Studio! And it can even get better! You can use Copilot Studio to build your own plugins. You might have heard of Large Action Models or Action Based Implementations of Large Language Models but even if you haven’t you must have a look at building plugins! Easily integrate your own systems and data without having to build the classic conversational flows. Join this session for a practical overview to get started! Learn more about plugins and how to build and optimize them as a developer. Of course, you will learn how plugins Integrate within the Microsoft 365 stack or with other Azure AI tools. A must have session to get started with Copilot Studio Plugins within your organization!