Microsoft 365

Note

Disclaimer: This page discusses a Microsoft-developed open source package, which was at version 2.3.4 at the time of this writing. Readers should refer to the Microsoft365R package documentation developed by Hong Ooi for the most up-to-date information.

Introduction

Microsoft 365 is a subscription extension of the Microsoft Office product line with cloud hosting support. The Microsoft-supported method for interfacing with R is the Microsoft365R package which was developed by Hong Ooi and has extensive documentation. It supports access to Teams, SharePoint Online, Outlook, and OneDrive.

This article describes approaches for authentication to Microsoft 365 using the Microsoft365R R package for use with the Posit professional products. Examples for interacting with data from SharePoint and writing data in pins format to SharePoint are included.

Authentication Options in Microsoft365R

Note

Discussion between the developers and the Global Azure Administration team about your organization’s content and security requirements should determine the approaches supported.

There are four main authentication approaches supported by Microsoft365R that can be used depending on how the developer wants to access the Microsoft resources.

Method	auth_type	Permissions	Capability
User Sign-in Flow: Default	default	User	Interactive only (local IDE and Workbench, interactive Shiny content)
User Sign-in Flow: Device Code	device_code	User	Interactive only (local IDE and Workbench)
Service Principal / Client secret	client_credentials	Application	Interactive and non-interactive (same as above plus scheduled content)
Embedded Credentials	resource_owner	User	Interactive and non-interactive (same as above plus scheduled content)

Authentication Background

Authentication for Microsoft365R is through Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform through a registered application. This grants developers access to the underlying Microsoft API for programmatic access to Microsoft resources.

Within this page “application,” also referred to as “app,” refers to a specific part of the Microsoft Authentication Flow. The application is used to:

1. Obtain an ‘OAuth 2.0’ token by authenticating the requesting user or system
   
2. Provide token to access protected APIs for interacting with Microsoft resources

Simple Oauth 2.0 Flow Diagram Example

Microsoft365R will use a pre-existing app, “d44a05d5-c6a5-4bbb-82d2-443123722380”, by default that is pre-configured for use with the RStudio IDE and interactive use. Depending on your organizations security it may be blocked and need the Azure Global Administrator to grant access. This default application does not support scheduled reports or development / deployment outside of the RStudio IDE without additional configuration.

A custom app will need to be registered if the default app is blocked or the content being developed is being run outside of the RStudio IDE and/or in a non-interactive context. Depending on the organization’s security policy the custom app registration can be done either by the developer or the Azure Global Administrator. The steps for registering a custom app are provided in this Microsoft page with additional details below.

Under the hood, Microsoft365R is using the AzureAuth and AzureGraph packages, also developed by Hong Ooi, for authentication, token management, and access to the Graph API. In some cases, for example with troubleshooting or to remove interactive prompts in scheduled content, calling those packages directly to manage tokens is useful.

Authentication Configurations

Depending on your organization’s security policy these steps may be able to be done by the developer, may require support from your Azure Global Administrator for some steps, or may need to be entirely handled by your Azure Global Administrator. The steps for registering a custom app are provided in this Microsoft page.

User Sign-in Flow: Default

A custom app can be created or the default app registration “d44a05d5-c6a5-4bbb-82d2-443123722380” that comes with the Microsoft365R package can be used. The user permissions will need to be enabled as detailed in the app registrations page. Depending on your organization’s security policy, access to your tenant may need to be granted by an Azure Global Administrator. Additionally, Redirect URLs will need to be added through Azure under App Registrations -> select your app -> Authentication -> Platform configurations -> Mobile and desktop applications ->Add URI as well as also enabling nativeclient.

For adding Redirect URLs, which will give a typical web-app authentication experience for interactive applications:

• For RStudio Desktop the URL is: http://localhost:1410/.
• For content hosted in shinyapps.io this would be of the form https://youraccount.shinyapps.io/appname (including the port number if specified).
• A SSL certificate will be required for non-local connections. This means that the Connect and Workbench URLs will need to be HTTPS. A wildcard could be used where appropriate for server-wide access.

User Sign-in Flow: Device Code

A custom app can be created. User permissions will need to be enabled as detailed in the app registrations page. Depending on your organization’s security policy, access to your tenant may need to be granted by an Azure Global Administrator.

Enabling the device code workflow is through the App Registration dashboard in Azure -> click on the created app -> Authentication -> Allow public client flows and setting Enable the following mobile and desktop flows to yes. The device code workflow does not need Redirect URLs. Instead, this method provides a code and a link for the developer to access in a separate browser window (or even on a separate device) for sign-in.

Service Principal / Client Secret

A custom app will need to be registered in Azure with Application permissions. The permissions can be based off of the user permissions but can be assigned as needed for the application and to comply with any security restrictions.

Application permissions are more powerful than user permissions so it is important to emphasize that exposing the client secret directly should be avoided. As a control, using environment variable’s for storing the client secret is recommended. Connect allows Environment Variables. The variables are encrypted on-disk, and in-memory.

Adding environment variables can be done at the project level with securing deployment through the Connect UI.

Embedded Credentials

A custom app will need to be registered in Azure with User permissions as specified in the app registrations page. Depending on your organization’s security policy, access to your tenant may need to be granted by an Azure Global Administrator.

The credentials being embedded can be a user or a service account, as long as access to the desired content inside Microsoft 365 has been granted. Creating service accounts per content is recommended to enable faster troubleshooting and easier collaboration. As a control, the Username / Password should never be exposed directly in the code, instead using Environment Variables. The variables are encrypted on-disk, and in-memory.

Adding environment variables can be done at the project level with securing deployment through the Connect UI.

Authentication Examples Using Microsoft365R

User Sign-in Flow: Default

The user sign-in flow option provides the typical web browser authentication experience. A user will need to be available to interact with the authentication pop-up in order to which makes this an option for interactive applications (such as the local RStudio IDE, Workbench, or an interactive Shiny app), but not applicable for scheduled content. The details are discussed in the auth vignette.

library(Microsoft365R)

site_url = MySharepointSiteURL
app = MyApp

site <- get_sharepoint_site(site_url = site_url, app = app)

User Sign-in Flow: Device Code

In some interactive cases it may be easier to use the device code flow where the user is prompted with a code and a link which is opened in a separate screen for logging in. For example for using a Workbench instance that was deployed without an SSL certificate. This does require interaction from the user and as such will not be applicable for scheduled content nor hosted content. The details are discussed in the auth vignette.

library(Microsoft365R)

site_url = MySharepointSiteURL
app = MyApp

site <- get_sharepoint_site(site_url = site_url, app=app, auth_type="device_code")

Service Principal / Client Secret

Content in a non-interactive context (such as scheduled reports) won’t have a user account available for interactive authentication. There are several approaches outlined in the vignette, with the Service Principal via using a Client Secret discussed in this section being the Microsoft recommended approach.

• Application permissions are more powerful than user permissions so it is important to emphasize that exposing the client secret directly should be avoided. Instead the recommended approach is to store it as an Environment Variable which can be done through the Connect UI.
• Use of the Microsoft developed package AzureAuth may be needed for fully removing console prompt elements so a script can be run in a non-interactive context, for example by explicitly defining the token directory with AzureAuth::create_AzureR_dir().

library(AzureAuth)
library(AzureGraph)
library(Microsoft365R)

tenant = MyTenant
site_url = MySharepointSiteURL
app = MyApp

# Add sensitive variables as environmental variables so they aren't exposed
client_secret <- Sys.getenv("EXAMPLE_SHINY_CLIENT_SECRET")

# Create auth token cache directory
create_AzureR_dir()

# Create a Microsoft Graph login
gr <- create_graph_login(tenant, app, password=client_secret, auth_type="client_credentials")

# An example of using the Graph login to connect to a SharePoint site
site <- gr$get_sharepoint_site(site_url)

Embedded Credentials

Content in a non-interactive context (such as scheduled reports) won’t have a user account available for interactive authentication. There are several approaches outlined in the vignette. In cases where the additional access that comes with Application level permissions isn’t appropriate for the organization’s security requirements the embedded credentials approach can be used.

• The credentials embedded will need to be granted access to the desired content and can either be a user or a service account. Working with your Azure Global Administrator to create service accounts per content is recommended to enable fast troubleshooting and easier collaboration.
• Sensitive variables such username / password should be embedded as Environment Variables so that they aren’t exposed in the code directly. This can be done through the Connect UI. See the example here.
• Use of the Microsoft developed package AzureAuth may be needed for fully removing console prompt elements so a script can be run in a non-interactive context, for example by explicitly defining the token directory with AzureAuth::create_AzureR_dir().

library(AzureAuth)
library(AzureGraph)
library(Microsoft365R)

tenant = MyTenant
site_url = MySharepointSiteURL
app = MyApp

# Add sensitive variables as environmental variables so they aren't exposed
user <- Sys.getenv("EXAMPLE_MS365R_SERVICE_USER")
pwd <- Sys.getenv("EXAMPLE_MS365R_SERVICE_PASSWORD")

# Create auth token cache directory, otherwise it will prompt the user on the console for input
create_AzureR_dir()

# create a Microsoft Graph login
gr <- create_graph_login(tenant, app, 
                    username = user, 
                    password = pwd,
                    auth_type="resource_owner")

# An example of using the Graph login to connect to a SharePoint site
site <- gr$get_sharepoint_site(site_url)

Troubleshooting Authentication Failures

In the case of authentication failures clearing cached authentication tokens/files can be done with:

library(AzureAuth)
library(AzureGraph)

tenant = MyTenant

AzureAuth::clean_token_directory()
AzureGraph::delete_graph_login(tenant="mytenant")

SharePoint Examples

Microsoft365R

The authentication method used in this example could be swapped out for any of the examples shown above. The documentation on Microsoft365R contains extensive examples beyond what is included below.

library(Microsoft365R)
library(AzureGraph)
library(AzureAuth)

site_url = MySharepointSiteURL
tenant = MyTenant
app = MyApp
drive_name = MyDrive # For example by default this will likely be "Documents"
file_src = MyFileName.TheExtension

# Add sensitive variables as environment variables so they aren't exposed
client_secret <- Sys.getenv("EXAMPLE_SHINY_CLIENT_SECRET")

# Create auth token cache directory, otherwise it will prompt the the console for input
create_AzureR_dir()

# Create a Microsoft Graph login
gr <- create_graph_login(tenant, app, password=client_secret, auth_type="client_credentials")

# An example of using the Graph login to connect to a SharePoint site
site <- gr$get_sharepoint_site(site_url)

# An example using the SharePoint site to get to a specific drive
drv <- site$get_drive(drive_name)

# Download a specific file
drv$download_file(src = file_src, dest = "tmp.csv", overwrite = TRUE)

# Retrieve lists of the different types of items in our SharePoint site. Documents uploaded under the 'Documents' drive are retrieved with list_files(). 
drv$list_items()
drv$list_files() 
drv$list_shared_files()
drv$list_shared_items()

# Files can also be uploaded back to SharePoint
drv$upload_file(src = file_dest, dest = file_dest)

Microsoft365R and Pins

Microsoft resources can be used for hosting data in pins format using pins::board_ms365(). The authentication method used in this example could be swapped out for any of the examples shown above.

library(Microsoft365R)
library(pins)

site_url = MySite
app=MyApp

# Create a Microsoft Graph login
site <- get_sharepoint_site(site_url = site_url, app=app, auth_type="device_code")

# An example getting the default drive 
doclib <- site$get_drive()

# Connect ms365 as a pin board. If this folder doesn't already exist it will be created on execution. 
board <- board_ms365(drive = doclib, "general/project1/board")

# Write a dataset as a pin to SharePoint
board %>% pin_write(mtcars, "mtcars", description = "This is a test")

# View the metadata of the pin we just created 
board %>% pin_meta("mtcars")

# Read the pin
test <- board %>% pin_read("mtcars")

Other Microsoft 365 Related Resources

There are a few cases not covered in this article where the below resources may be useful:

• For readers interested in directly interacting with the Graph API, the Microsoft page on Working with SharePoint sites in Microsoft Graph is a useful starting reference.

• For Python users the Microsoft REST API is the Microsoft-developed and recommended method for accessing Microsoft 365 resources. Note that SharePoint access is using the older SharePoint 2013 REST API.

• Mapping SharePoint, OneNote, or other systems as a network drive to the hosting server could be considered, using a third-party developed program such as expandrive. Note that this method also relies on application registration and it is unclear to this author how authentication is handled.