Have you learnt the SharePoint Framework yet? (You're gonna need to)

We're about to hit day #3 of the Collab365 SharePoint Summit and this day is aimed at SharePoint developers!! Specifically, we're going to cover the SharePoint Framework, Microsoft Graph and deployment.

Before I give you information on how to get started and learn the SharePoint Framework (for free), it's worth a quick recap of why we need to know it in the first place.

A recent #Collab365 SharePoint Summit Survey has shown that 68% of organisations (who use SharePoint) are now using the cloud-hosted version of SharePoint (SharePoint Online).

If so many of us are moving to the Cloud, what does this mean for development? In the older, on-premises version of SharePoint (2007, 2010, 2013, 2016), developers would write application code that was processed and run on the server.

The benefit of this model was that it allowed developers to do anything they wanted. There were very few restrictions.

However, with all the flexibility there was a big downside...

If a developer wrote code that was poorly written or had a security issue then this had the potential to bring down SharePoint. Obviously, this would be bad for that single organisation, but would only affect them.

However, if you port that model to SharePoint Online, where thousands of businesses are using shared hardware to access SharePoint, then it wouldn't be good. For example, if slow / "memory-hogging" code was allowed to run "on the server" (in SharePoint Online) this would not only affect the tenant where it was running but other tenants as well.

For this reason, (and a number of others), Microsoft introduced the SharePoint Framework. The SharePoint Framework gives developers a way to extend and build on top of SharePoint, but the difference this time means that all of the code runs in the client (on browsers). When these applications need data from other Office 365 Services (including SharePoint), they need to use pre-defined API's that Microsoft support, throttle and monitor.

This allows Microsoft to scale to very large numbers with no risk that a naughty developer can bring down their service.

Although the SharePoint Framework was built by Microsoft to facilitate the production of these new "client-side applications", it does come with a learning curve.

In short, if you are a SharePoint developer and want to continue developing on top of SharePoint, you are going to need to master the SharePoint Framework. After all, that 68% figure I shared early is only going to get bigger!

If you join us today, for free we can really help kick start your knowledge.

The Summit is all online and starts in a short while (if you're reading on 12th September).

Here are the sessions:

1. Understand and Get Started with the SharePoint Framework Development Story - Andrew Connell MVP
2. SharePoint Framework, SharePoint and Teams - Dipti Chhatrapati Microsoft Regional Director
3. Getting started with the SharePoint Framework building a web-part - Kevin McDonnell
4. Azure Devops; Build, Deploy and Test - Kirti Prajapati
5. Extend the Reach of your SharePoint Framework Solutions with the Power of Microsoft Graph - Bill Ayers MVP

You can register for the Collab365 SharePoint Summit (for free) here : https://content.collab365.community/sharepoint-summit-2019/register-c365-sharepoint-summit/

As a bonus, we also had Brian T Jackett from Microsoft introduce us to the Microsoft Graph. You can watch this session here.

Master the SharePoint Framework Online course.

We've also partnered with Andrew Connell to bring you his world-leading, evergreen course on SPFx. If you want to master SPFx development .. get access to his course through the link here (and get an insane number of Collab365 bonuses).