Weekly Update 30 June 2025 – Graph Shift Management API, New Model for VS, Azure AI Build Recap

This week:

Deprecation of MS-APP-ACTS-AS header in Shifts Management Microsoft Graph APIs

Better Models, Smarter Defaults: Claude Sonnet 4, GPT-4.1, and More Control in Visual Studio

New Default Model for Visual Studio Copilot, So How Do You Choose?

Build recap: new Azure AI Foundry resource, Developer APIs and Tools

You can also listen to the audio-only version: Thoughtstuff Podcast – Tom Morgan on Teams Dev: Weekly Update 30 June 2025.

Find all my videos at thoughtstuff.co.uk/videos. You can also subscribe to the audio-only version of these videos, either via iTunes, Spotify or your own podcasting tool.

Transcript (AI-generated):

Hello and welcome to another weekly update. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying the hot weather – but not too hot, depending on where you are in the world.

Microsoft Graph Shifts API Deprecation

First up, I want to cover something that’s being deprecated – and honestly, I didn’t even realize it existed until I read this blog post. It’s the Shifts Management API in Microsoft Graph.

Since its launch, it seems it supported either delegated or app permissions, but allowed you to specify a user context via a request header called MS-App-Acts-As. This was a rather hacky approach, letting app-only permissions operate as though they were user-delegated.

The good news: this pattern is being replaced with cleaner methods like approveForUser and declineForUser, so explicit user headers are no longer required. “Decline” will eventually support only delegated permissions, while separate app-permission methods will be provided.

This brings the API in line with the rest of Microsoft Graph, which never used that header. Honestly, I’m pleased it’s going – it never made sense and didn’t fit with the Graph’s overall design ideals. Surprised it even got through the design process in the first place.

No firm timeline on full deprecation yet, but it’s worth making changes now to future-proof your code.

New AI Models in Visual Studio

Now, let’s talk AI. A Visual Studio blog post outlined new model options now available in both Visual Studio and VS Code. This caught my attention because I’m guilty of just turning Copilot on and not thinking much about the model behind it.

There are now multiple model options including ones from Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini). You can now switch models easily and even track your usage – which is useful since some are premium and usage-based.

Another helpful piece was an article from Visual Studio Magazine offering a deeper dive into model selection and what models excel at. So if you’re planning to experiment, that article gives framing on what to expect, and might help save time compared to trial-and-error.

Azure AI: Build 2025 Recap

If you haven’t caught up on all the Build announcements, especially beyond your core area (for me, that’s Microsoft 365 dev), there’s a great roundup post from the Azure AI team. It covers what’s new for developers, platform changes, and even naming changes, which can often be just as newsworthy.

Microsoft Build is increasingly about aligning with industry changes, and that includes rebranding or repurposing older technologies. This blog helps differentiate what’s actually new from what’s familiar but renamed and enhanced.

Final Thoughts

A very AI-heavy week again – but no apologies. That’s where a lot of the action and innovation is right now at Microsoft. That said, it’s good to see solid investment still happening across all the platforms and tools.

Whatever you’re working on this week, stay cool, stay productive – and I’ll talk to you again soon.