SharePoint Contact Integration

SharePoint Contact Integration

Overview

This document summarises the process and configuration steps required to enable and manage SharePoint Contact Integration within YakChat. 
YakChat allows a tenant to synchronise contacts from a specified SharePoint list, making them available to users within YakChat for lookup and messaging. This feature is enabled and configured at the Plan level.

Availability

SharePoint Contact Integration is available across all YakChat plans; however, the configuration is performed within each specific plan.

 To access the configuration:

  1. Navigate to Plans.
  2. Select the relevant plan.
  3. Click Edit Plan.
  4. Scroll to Contact Management → SharePoint.

Enabling SharePoint Contacts

Notes
For the SharePoint settings to appear, the Enable unified contact management toggle must be turned ON in your Plan Settings.

When entering the plan editor:

  1. Locate Contacts Enable unified contact management in the Plan Settings panel.
  2. Toggle Enable.
  3. Two additional fields will appear:
    1. SharePoint Site URL – URL of the SharePoint site containing the list.
    2. List Name – Name of the SharePoint list containing contact records.

These must be completed for YakChat to connect and retrieve contacts.

Supported SharePoint Sites and Lists

  1. Classic Experience: uses Contacts Lists templates
  2. Modern Experience: uses Generic Lists templates
NotesSharePoint contact lists must contain certain required fields to be processed correctly, please see Required SharePoint Contact Fields. 

Grant Permissions

The Grant Permissions button authorises the YakChat Contact Lookup Services application to access the customer’s Microsoft 365 tenant.

Requirements:

  1. The user performing this action must be a Microsoft 365 tenant admin. 
  2. Non‑admin users cannot grant permissions — Microsoft will block consent entirely. A
  3. Microsoft permissions consent screen will display the full list of required permissions.

Permissions Required

      Permissions Summary Table


Permission



Type



Purpose



Contacts.Read



Application



Read contacts in all mailboxes (Outlook contacts)



Sites.Read.All



Application



Read items in all site collections (SharePoint contacts)


YakChat requests a single combined set of Microsoft Graph application permissions, used for both Outlook and SharePoint contact lookups:

      Application Permissions Requested:
  1. Contacts.Read – Read contacts in all mailboxes (Outlook contacts)
  2. Sites.Read.All – Read items in all SharePoint site collections (SharePoint contacts)
YakChat always requests this combined permission set because both contact sources use the same Contact Lookup Services app, and both Classic and Modern lists are accessed using a unified Graph API.

Please note:

  1. When a customer selects Grant Permissions, they will see a Microsoft consent window listing both permissions. They must approve this for the integration to function.

Test Permissions 

After granting permissions, customers can use Test Permissions to validate the connection.

Test Permissions performs a simple API call (Get User) to confirm:

    1. The grant was completed successfully.
    2. YakChat can access the required endpoints.

 A success or error status is returned depending on whether the permissions are valid.


Notes & Behaviour

  1. Non-admin users cannot consent to permissions at all; Microsoft will block the action entirely.
  2. YakChat currently does not differentiate permissions between Outlook and SharePoint authentication flows.
  3. Test Permissions validates access only; it does not confirm list contents.
  4. SharePoint contact lists must contain certain fields to be processed correctly.

Required SharePoint Contact Fields

For YakChat to accept and import a SharePoint contact, at least one field from each required group must be present.

Name Fields — at least ONE required:

FirstName
Title (Note: despite the name, this maps to Surname in most Classic Contact Lists)
FullName

Phone Fields — at least ONE required:

CellPhone
WorkPhone
HomePhone

Optional Fields:

Email
Company
JobTitle
WorkAddress
WorkCity
WorkState
WorkZip
WorkCountry
Comments
Created
Modified

All fields must contain string values. Phone numbers do not need to be stored in E.164 format, but must be in a format that allows conversion to E.164 for YakChat to return a valid number.
YakChat checks these legacy field names for backwards compatibility. Classic and Modern SharePoint lists are retrieved from the same Microsoft Graph API endpoint, so unified naming ensures consistent parsing.

Permissions Requested

YakChat requests the following Microsoft Graph application permissions:

Contacts.Read (Application) – Read contacts in all mailboxes (used for Outlook contacts)
Sites.Read.All (Application) – Read items in all SharePoint site collections (used for SharePoint contacts)


Summary

Enable SharePoint Contacts in the plan.
Enter Site URL and List Name.
Tenant Admin must click Grant Permissions and approve the Microsoft consent window.
Use Test Permissions to confirm access.
Once configured, YakChat retrieves and displays contacts from the specified SharePoint list.