How to install SharePoint Essentials Toolkit and run your first report

Transcript

Runtime 4:14. Created by the Cognillo product team. Narrated with an AI-generated voice.

0:00 Thanks for joining. Before we begin, just a disclaimer: this video was written by the Cognillo team, and this voice-over was AI-generated. In this getting started video, we'll launch SharePoint Essentials Toolkit, activate the license, run the Azure app registration wizard, test the connection, and add our first sites.

0:19 The first time you launch the toolkit, it opens on the Welcome page. Setup is three steps: enter your license key, add a connection to Microsoft 365, and add your sites. The page remembers where you were, so you can stop and come back later. On the right, there's a quick tour, the documentation, and the app registration guide.

0:39 Step one is the license. Paste the key from your sign-up email, and enter the email address it was registered to. We've hidden the key in this video. Click Activate, and the toolkit checks it with Cognillo.

0:52 This machine is now running Enterprise Edition. Next, the toolkit offers to set up the Azure app registration. It takes a few minutes, once for your whole organization, and it unlocks everything listed here: audit log reports on who did what, activity alerts, site analytics, emailed reports, and deeper permission reports that see inside Microsoft 365 and Entra groups.

1:14 So what is the app registration for? The toolkit signs in to Microsoft 365 through an Azure app, and the wizard does two things. First, it allows sign-in for everyone in your organization, with one click of Accept on Microsoft's consent page for Cognillo's shared app. Second, and optionally, it creates a User Activity app of your own, with a certificate, so the toolkit can read the audit log. Both steps need a Global Administrator, and nothing is changed in SharePoint itself.

1:42 Open the consent page, sign in as the Global Admin, and click Accept. These are delegated permissions, so the toolkit can only ever do what the signed-in person can do. When the browser lands on the Cognillo confirmation page, come back and click I've accepted.

1:58 Then one more sign-in, for the wizard itself. This one lets it create the User Activity app registration on your behalf.

2:05 The wizard confirms your organization has consented, so browser sign-in is ready. Now it can create the User Activity app: it registers it in Microsoft Entra, generates and uploads a certificate, adds the ActivityFeed Read permission, grants admin consent, and saves a ready-to-use connection. The defaults are fine. The names are just labels.

2:26 Click Create. The wizard does all of it in a few seconds, with no PowerShell and no trips to the Azure portal.

2:34 Setup complete. Admin consent is granted for both apps, and two connections were added: SharePoint sites and content, which uses browser sign-in, and Microsoft 365 user activity, which uses the certificate. Keep the certificate file and its password safe. You only need them to set up another machine. Now, open Connections.

2:55 Here are both connections. SharePoint sites and content is the one reports and tasks use. It's tied to your root site, and signs in through the browser, with MFA. Let's test it.

3:07 Test connection signs in and reads the root site. Connection works, so it's ready to use on a job. Close it, and the banner at the top confirms who you're connected as.

3:17 Now, step three: add your sites. You can paste a list of URLs, import them from Excel, or search the tenant. We'll paste three: ACME, the Architecture knowledge base, and Boston Team. Include subsites is on, so their subsites come along too. The toolkit checks each site as you go, and shows what it found.

3:37 Click Add sites. The toolkit connects to each one and counts its subsites. We've sped this part up. Three sites added, with thirty-two subsites included.

3:48 Go to Home, and you land on Tasks: everything you can run, grouped by what you're trying to get done. And that's it. The toolkit is licensed, connected, and your sites are ready for their first report.

3:59 Thanks for watching. Next, try a report on the sites you just added. And if you have any questions, email hello at cognillo dot com.