Advanced usage of Microsoft Graph

Implement Azure Security for Developers

Anushika Agarwal

Cloud Data Engineer

Analogy: grocery trips

Carry groceries in smaller trips
Lighter, faster, and safer

Grocery trips

Pagination

Splits large results into smaller pages
Faster responses and fewer timeouts

How next pages are fetched?
- Response includes a continuation link: `@odata.nextLink`

Pagination

Example: PeopleSphere using Pagination

Thousands of employee records retrieved in manageable pages

Example - PeopleSphere Pagination

Server-side pagination

Service picks a default page size
Client does not specify the size
Example
- GET /v1.0/users : (default) It returns 100 items per page

Server-Side Pagination

Client-side pagination

Client specifies the items to return per page

Client-Side Pagination

Query parameters for pagination

Query Parameters
- $top: number of items per page.

$skip: offset; start after the first N items

Client-side pagination example

Example:
- https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups?$top=2

Client-Side Pagination

Batching Analogy: online shopping cart

Multiple items in one cart
One checkout, one receipt

Analogy - Online shopping cart

Batching

Combine multiple Graph requests in one HTTP call
One payload -> one response with all results
Benefits
- Fewer trips, lower latency
- Ideal for dashboards.
Limit
- Up to 20 requests per batch

Batching

Batch request endpoint

Endpoint
- Method: POST
- Endpoint:https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$batch
$batch instead of specific resource like users

Batch request endpoint

Batch request body

Body is JSON object
Contains one property: requests
requests is an array (up to 20 items)

{ "requests": 
   [ {
      "id": "1",
      "method": "GET",
      "url": "/me/memberOf"
    },
    {
      "id": "2",
      "method": "GET",
      "url": "/me/planner/tasks"
    } ]
}

Request items and headers

Each request item needs
- id: unique label to match response
- method: (GET/POST/PATCH/DELETE)
- url: relative path
Headers: Content-Type: application/json

{ "requests": 
   [ {
      "id": "1",
      "method": "GET",
      "url": "/me/memberOf"
    },
    {
      "id": "2",
      "method": "GET",
      "url": "/me/planner/tasks"
    } ]
}

Batch response

Each entry represents one request

{
  "responses": [
    {  "id": "1", 
        "status": 200, 
        "body": { "value": [/* ... */]}},
    { 
        "id": "2", 
        "status": 403, 
        "body": { "error": [/* ... */]}}
  ]
}

What each response includes

Each response item includes
- id: matches the original request
- status: HTTP status for that item
  - 200: OK
  - 403: Forbidden
- headers: (e.g., Content-Type)
- body: data or error object

{
  "responses": [
    {  "id": "1", 
        "status": 200, 
        "body": { "value": [/* ... */]}},
    { 
        "id": "2", 
        "status": 403, 
        "body": { "error": [/* ... */]}}
  ]
}

Let's practice!

Implement Azure Security for Developers