Prerequisites
- The latest version of the DeliverPoint SPFx app installed in your SharePoint Online tenant app catalog.
- The DPAzureDeploy zip file, which you will find in the DeliverPoint Download package in the Scheduled Reports folder.
- An Azure billing subscription of some kind, and the authority from your organization to purchase additional Azure services. During the deployment, you will need to select a Database Service and an App Service within your tenant, both of which have a charge associated with them.
- Up-to-date SharePoint Online Management Shell installed on your computer.
- The following Authentications will occur during deployment, so the account performing the deployment must have the correct privileges. These authentications will each take place in a browser tab, so it will go most smoothly if you log in to your tenant in a browser instance, and keep that browser open during deployment.
- Authenticate to Microsoft Azure to deploy/configure the Database anďWeb App services. The user must have the necessary permissions to deploy/configure services.
- Authenticate to the SharePoint Online tenant to set up Entra ID app (with user having permissions to set up Entra ID App).
- Authenticate to the SharePoint Online tenant with SharePoint Administrator account to configure DeliverPoint scheduled job settings (DeliverPoint property pane settings). If your account is a Global Admin, you should add the SharePoint Admin role from within Entra ID.
- Authenticate to the SharePoint Online Management Shell for setting up the DeliverPoint service URL.
Run the deployment wizard
Unzip the DPAzureDeploy.zip file to a computer with which you can connect to your Azure tenant. Run the DeliverPointAzureDeploy.exe file that you will find in the unzipped DPAzureDeploy folder.
NOTE: If any errors occur during the process, they will be recorded in a log file called DPDeploymentLogs.log within the logs folder in the extracted DPAzureDeploy folder. You can submit this log to Lightning Tools support (help@lightningtools.com) for assistance.
After you click OK, a browser tab will open and you will be prompted to log in with your Azure credentials. You can then close that tab and return to the DeliverPoint Deployment application.
Basics tab
You should now be able to select the appropriate Subscription, Resource Group, and Region, similar to the below example. You can select an existing Resource Group, or if you wish to create a new Resource Group for the DeliverPoint Scheduled Report application, you can type in a name here, and the wizard will create it for you. If you are creating a new Resource Group here, then the wizard will display that name in red and marked as (New) to indicate that it will be created.
Click Next to move to the DeliverPoint Database tab.
DeliverPoint Database tab
Here, you can select whether to create a new SQL Azure database, or to use an existing database. By default, “Deploy New Database” is selected, but you can untick the box to display a dropdown to select an existing database if you've already created a DeliverPoint database (i.e. if you are updating the application).
To create a new DeliverPoint database on a new Azure SQL server (if this is the first time you are setting this up), first enter the Database Server Name you wish to give the SQL server (all lower-case alpha characters), and then the Database Name you wish to give the DeliverPoint database on that server.
Next, you must choose the Database Service Tier you wish to use. Estimated costs are shown for each tier to help you make this decision. The DeliverPoint database is only used to store configuration information (not report results) for each of your Scheduled Reports, so the size of the database will be minimal. The database will be accessed each time a Scheduled Report is created or run, so the number of monthly transactions will depend upon the number and frequency of your organization's Scheduled Reports (not based on the number of results in the reports). After estimating your Scheduled Report volume and frequency, you may wish to select one of the Standard DTU-based tiers, which are fairly inexpensive (DTU = Database Transaction Unit). Note that if you later find that you need to change your pricing tier, you can easily do that in the Azure Portal.
Next, you must select a Database Backup Storage Type. Please see this Microsoft documentation for details on the available choices. Note that if you selected a DTU-based pricing tier for your database, then Point-In-Time-Recovery backup is included in that price.
Here are example settings for an organization running a few weekly and monthly DeliverPoint Scheduled Reports:
Click Next to move on to configure the Web Application.
DeliverPoint Web Application tab
DeliverPoint uses an Azure web application to connect to SharePoint Online and to trigger the Scheduled Reports. Assuming you are creating a new Web Application (unless you are updating the package), you can enter any name you wish to use as the Web Application Name.
Next, you must select an App Service Tier. Again, price estimates for each tier are shown within the wizard. Note that the Free and Shared plans are not available to select, because the DeliverPoint Job Processor webjob requires the App Service to be “Always On”, and that option isn't available in the Free and Shared tiers. DeliverPoint Scheduled Reports run under a single app. The RAM requirement will depend on the size of the largest Scheduled Report that would be running at a given point in time, as the results will be retained in memory until they are written to a JSON file. You may wish to begin by selecting the least expensive Basic tier, and increase it if necessary later.
Finally, you will enter your SharePoint App Catalog Url, where you have already added the DeliverPoint SPFx app. This is so the wizard can update the DeliverPoint app's configuration to support Scheduled Reports. This URL is typically something like https://YourDomain.sharepoint.com/sites/AppCatalog, but it may be slightly different in your tenant. You can locate the app catalog in the SharePoint Admin Center under More Features > Apps.
Here are example settings:
Click Next to review your settings.
Review + Deploy tab
On the last tab, you can review the settings and pricing tiers you have selected. You may return to any tab to make changes before deploying. When you're ready, click Deploy. Note that if this process is interrupted at any point, if you leave the wizard open, then it will pick back up where it left off after the issue is resolved.
During deployment, you'll see a progress bar and a log of actions taken by the deployment wizard as it sets up the resources in your Azure portal. During deployment, you will be prompted to log in a few additional times. The deployment process may take 10 or 15 minutes.
One final authentication is to connect to your SharePoint Online tenant with the SharePoint Online Management Shell.
At the end, you will see that deployment has been successful!
Click OK, and close the DeliverPoint Deployment wizard.
Test the Scheduled Report deployment
To test that the Schedule Report feature is working, navigate to any SharePoint site that you are an owner of. We recommend testing with a small site to begin with, to quickly test the basic functionality. Later, you can move on to testing your larger reports that were likely the reason for your wanting to set up this feature.
Click the DeliverPoint icon in the upper right corner, and hover over the Schedule option. You should now see that the Scheduled Report selections are no longer greyed out as they were before.
Select to Schedule a Discover Permissions report. Because you selected this from the DeliverPoint icon, the scope will be the current site.
The report scheduling panel will open on the right side of the page. For testing purposes, leave all of the report options as the defaults (including the Frequency of Now rather than a recurrence), and click Schedule.
You should see this message at the bottom of the report scheduling panel:
Close the report scheduling panel.
Using the default settings as above, your report will be available from within the DeliverPoint console when it's ready. To find it, again click the DeliverPoint icon in the upper right corner, but this time, select DeliverPoint (the first option) to open the DeliverPoint console.
On the Schedule menu, select Scheduled Reports.
You should see your test report listed, and if it has completed successfully, you will see a green checkmark (Generated) in the Status column. If it is still running, you will see a Status of Scheduled.
To view the report in the current DeliverPoint browser window, click on the Open icon. You should see a complete Discover Permissions report, with sections for Sites, Lists, and Items.
Congratulations! You may now proceed to configure larger and recurring reports.
If you have any trouble with the above process or testing, please contact the Lightning Tools Customer Success team for help.