SkydrivePro LTI Tool

The SkydrivePro LTI tool provides a method for using LTI to access and return SkydrivePro files to a ToolConsumer. This app uses the unofficial LTI content extension to return file information to the tool consumer. For more information on LTI and the content extenstion see https://www.edu-apps.org/code.html and https://www.edu-apps.org/extensions/content.html.

Part of the goal with this project is to create a sessionless, API driven, LTI application. LTI applications are launched via form post and generally embeded in an iframe. Several browsers block the creation of cookies, and therefore sessions, which can make tracking state within an LTI tool difficult. This app uses tokens and a robust API, along with a front-end heavy ember application to provide the stateful experience while avoiding the restrictions associated with sessions.

Getting Started

1. Install bundler and then install the project gems (http://bundler.io)

   gem install bundler
   bundle install
   

2. Install ember tools and build your ember app (https://github.com/rpflorence/ember-tools):

   cd /path/to/app
   npm install -g ember-tools
   ember build
   

   Once ember tools is installed you can use guard to watch your ember app and build your application on the fly:

   bundle exec guard
   

3. Configure your database by copying config/database.yml.example to config/database.yml and then modifying it to use your database of choice. The default configuration uses sqlite and should work out of the box.

   cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml
   bundle exec rake db:migrate
   

4. Obtain a client_id and client_secret from microsoft. This will be used to request sharepoint API keys for your users. You can create your own client ids at https://sellerdashboard.microsoft.com/Keys. You will need to create an account in order to get keys here.

   Microsoft is very picky about the app domain and redirect url matching your app exactly. The redirect url will always be /microsoft_oauth. If you are running this app in development, your domain and url will most likely be localhost:3000 and http://localhost:3000/microsoft_oauth respectively.

   Once you have a client id and secret, copy your config/sharepoint.yml.example file to config/sharepoint.yml and replace the client_id and client_secret with your new key and secret. The guid in sharepoint.yml is a constant provided by microsoft and is implementation indepenant.

5. Start the rails server

   rails server
   

6. Do a simple sanity test by navigating to your app in a browser (ie http://locahost:3000). You should see a simple error informing you that your app was not launched correctly.

7. Ensure that the test suite is passing

   RAILS_ENV=test bundle exec rake db:migrate
   bundle exec rspec spec/
   

8. Generate a consumer key/secret pair to use with this tool.

   bundle exec script/generate_lti_key
   

9. Configure your tool consumer to use this tool. (https://www.edu-apps.org/tutorials.html) The config XML is located at /config on the LTI app itself. (ie http://localhost:3000/config) Additionally, this tool config requires a per installation parameter that tells the tool which office 365 instance it should be using. Generally this domain follows the pattern -my.sharepoint.com. You can verifiy your subdomain by navigating to your skydrive account via microsoft's web interface and checking the domain in the URL. This domain can be added to the config via GET parameter. (ie http://localhost:3000/config?sharepoint_client_domain=<mysubdomain>)

Production Notes

• The ember application can be packaged for production (or development) use with a rake task

  bundle exec rake build:ember
  

  This task uses the RAILS_ENV parameter, so when it is called in a development environment it will build the application with development friendly versions of ember and when run in production it will use the production version of ember and minify the application. If you want to prebuild the application before deploying, or you want to test your production build simply pass in the correct environment:

  bundle exec rake build:ember RAILS_ENV=production