RubyOutlook

Important

The Office 365 Outlook APIs have been deprecated since November 2020. This project is no longer maintained and shouldn't be used. Apps should transition to using the Outlook-related APIs in Microsoft Graph. See Moving from Outlook endpoint to Microsoft Graph for details.

The RubyOutlook gem is a light-weight implementation of the Office 365 Mail, Calendar, and Contacts REST APIs. It provides basic CRUD functionality for all three APIs, along with the ability to extend functionality by making any arbitrary API call.

For a sample app that uses this gem, see the Office 365 VCF Import/Export Sample.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'ruby_outlook'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install ruby_outlook

Usage

Create the client

All functionality is accessed via the Client class. Create a new instance of the class to use it:

require 'ruby_outlook'
outlook_client = RubyOutlook::Client.new

In addition, you can set the enable_fiddler property on the Client to true if you want to capture Fiddler traces. Setting this property to true sets the proxy for all traffic to http://127.0.0.1:8888 (the default Fiddler proxy value), and turns off SSL verification. Note that if you set this property to true and do not have Fiddler running, all requests will fail.

Get an OAuth2 token

see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/tutorials/ruby?view=graph-rest-1.0 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/rest/compare-graph#azure-v2-oauth2-endpoint

The Outlook APIs require an OAuth2 token for authentication. This gem doesn't handle the OAuth2 flow for you. For a full example that implements the OAuth2 Authorization Code Grant Flow, see the Office 365 VCF Import/Export Sample.

For convenience, here's the relevant steps and code, which uses the oauth2 gem.

Generate a login URL:

# Generates the login URL for the app.
def get_login_url
  client = OAuth2::Client.new(CLIENT_ID,
                              CLIENT_SECRET,
                              :site => "https://login.microsoftonline.com",
                              :authorize_url => "/common/oauth2/v2.0/authorize",
                              :token_url => "/common/oauth2/v2.0/token")

  login_url = client.auth_code.authorize_url(:redirect_uri => "http://yourapp.com/authorize")
end

User browses to the login URL, authenticates, and provides consent to your app.
The user's browser is redirected back to "http://yourapp.com/authorize", a page in your web app that extracts the code parameter from the request URL.
Exchange the code value for an access token:

# Exchanges an authorization code for a token
def get_token_from_code(auth_code)
  client = OAuth2::Client.new(CLIENT_ID,
                              CLIENT_SECRET,
                              :site => "https://login.microsoftonline.com",
                              :authorize_url => "/common/oauth2/v2.0/authorize",
                              :token_url => "/common/oauth2/v2.0/token")

  # For a shortcut to resource permission scope to Outlook API Calendar.ReadWrite, you can use `resource`
  token = client.auth_code.get_token(auth_code,
                                     :redirect_uri => "http://yourapp.com/authorize",
                                     :resource => 'https://outlook.office365.com')

  # For Microsoft Graph API,
  token = client.auth_code.get_token(auth_code,
                                     :redirect_uri => "http://yourapp.com/authorize",
                                     :scope => "offline_access https://graph.microsoft.com/Calendars.ReadWrite")
  access_token = token
end

Using a built-in function

All of the built-in functions have a required token parameter and an optional user parameter. The token parameter is the OAuth2 access token required for authentication. The user parameter is an email address. If passed, the library will make the call to that user's mailbox using the /Users/user@domain.com/ URL. If omitted, the library will make the call using the '/Me' URL.

Other parameters are specific to the call being made. For example, here's how to call get_contacts:

# A valid access token retrieved via OAuth2
token = 'eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciO...'
# Maximum 30 results per page.
view_size = 30
# Set the page from the query parameter.
page = 1
# Only retrieve display name.
fields = [
"DisplayName"
]
# Sort by display name
sort = { :sort_field => 'DisplayName', :sort_order => 'ASC' }

contacts = outlook_client.get_contacts token,
          view_size, page, fields, sort

Utilizing Microsoft Graph API

It's possible to utilize Microsoft Graph instead of Microsoft Exchange by creating a client then setting the api host and version

client = RubyOutlook::Client.new
client.api_host = 'https://graph.microsoft.com/'
client.version = '/v1.0/'

Extending functionality

All of the built-in functions wrap the make_api_call function. If there is not a built-in function that suits your needs, you can use the make_api_call function to implement any API call you want.

# method (string): The HTTP method to use for the API call. 
#                  Must be 'GET', 'POST', 'PATCH', or 'DELETE'
# url (string): The URL to use for the API call. Must not contain
#               the host. For example: '/api/v1.0/me/messages'
# token (string): access token
# params (hash) a Ruby hash containing any query parameters needed for the API call
# payload (hash): a JSON hash representing the API call's payload. Only used
#                 for POST or PATCH.
def make_api_call(method, url, token, params = nil, payload = nil)

As an example, here's how the library implements get_contacts:

# token (string): access token
# view_size (int): maximum number of results
# page (int): What page to fetch (multiple of view size)
# fields (array): An array of field names to include in results
# sort (hash): { sort_on => field_to_sort_on, sort_order => 'ASC' | 'DESC' }
# user (string): The user to make the call for. If nil, use the 'Me' constant.
def get_contacts(token, view_size, page, fields = nil, sort = nil, user = nil)
  request_url = "/api/v1.0/" << (user.nil? ? "Me" : ("users/" << user)) << "/Contacts"
  request_params = {
    '$top' => view_size,
    '$skip' => (page - 1) * view_size
  }
  
  if not fields.nil?
    request_params['$select'] = fields.join(',')
  end 
  
  if not sort.nil?
    request_params['$orderby'] = sort[:sort_field] + " " + sort[:sort_order]
  end
  
  get_contacts_response = make_api_call "GET", request_url, token, request_params
  
  return JSON.parse(get_contacts_response)
end

Follow the same pattern to implement your own calls.

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request

Copyright

Connect with me on Twitter @JasonJohMSFT

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