ALM in IT Thesis Template

114 Pages·2016·4.76 MB·English

by  Bill Robinson

Using Azure, Office 365, C# and Xamarin to Make a
Multiuser, Multiplatform Extensible Law Practice
Management Cloud Application
Citation
Migkiros, Pavlos. 2016. Using Azure, Office 365, C# and Xamarin to Make a Multiuser,
Multiplatform Extensible Law Practice Management Cloud Application. Master's thesis, Harvard
Extension School.
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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33797318
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Using Azure, Office 365, C# and Xamarin to make a Multiuser, Multiplatform extensible
Law Practice Management Cloud Application

Pavlos Migkiros

A Thesis in the Field of Information Technology

for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies

Harvard University

May 2016

Abstract

Besides the strictly legal duties and tasks of legal professionals, law practice
requires also management; keeping track of cases and their related resources, such as files,
deadlines, clients, and tasks. Managing these resources can be simplified with specialized
software, which also provides collaboration and resource sharing capabilities to support
working groups and organizations. The scope of this thesis is to design and implement a
low cost law practice management software prototype. While such software solutions
already exist, we will show that there is still room for improvement by integrating it with
some of the most commonly used productivity tools and technologies, namely Microsoft
Office 365. Many users and organizations use Outlook for their emails, OneDrive for their
file system, and probably more such tools. So, the objective of this thesis is to allow them
to keep using these tools along with a specialized law practice management tool, instead
of creating an entirely new platform.
To achieve this goal, we leverage cloud development. We integrate Office 365,
using Microsoft Graph API, with a custom PaaS (Platform as a Service) service
implemented on Microsoft Azure, to provide a unified cloud backend service. Cloud
services, design patterns and the relatively recent technological advances, such as Xamarin,
simplify multiplatform development. We also provide two client applications, a Windows
Desktop (WPF) client that offers full functionality, and an Android mobile client that offers
lightweight functionality, as well as a basic ASP .NET website.
Dedication
Switching paths from geology to software engineering through this degree was a
gamble that required courage, drive, determination and a lot of hard work. None of this
would be possible without Foteinis’ love, inspiration, encouragement and support.
Therefore, I want to dedicate this work to her.
I also want to deeply thank my parents, Eirini and Petros, who have always been
there for me in so many ways.
Thank you…

iv
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor Paul Holley for his
contribution, his valuable ideas, his guidance, for being reachable and direct, and for
allowing me the freedom to explore by my own. I would also like to thank Dr. Jeff Parker
for his great advice and cooperation, especially during the process of forming this thesis
and for his great contribution on the write-up section.
v
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi
List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix
List of Tables .................................................................................................................... xii
Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1
Goals & Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1
Law Practice management & LPMS .............................................................................. 1
Overview of this document ............................................................................................. 5
Chapter 2 Technology choices & the cloud ........................................................................ 6
Chapter 3 Prior work ......................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 4 Azure Active Directory & Office 365 .............................................................. 14
Active Directory ........................................................................................................... 14
Office 365 - Office 365 API - Microsoft Graph API .................................................... 18
Chapter 5 LPMS Functional Requirements ...................................................................... 21
Law Practice Management Model & Core Functional Requirements .......................... 23
Resource Location (Azure SQL & Office 365) – Authentication, Authorization & the
Registration Process ...................................................................................................... 27
Collaboration ................................................................................................................ 32
Collaboration Modes ................................................................................................. 33
Roles ......................................................................................................................... 35
Real Time Updates .................................................................................................... 37
Communication ......................................................................................................... 38
vi
Complete Description of Resources, System Requirements & Permissions ................ 39
Client Applications ....................................................................................................... 45
Windows Desktop (WPF) Client Application .......................................................... 45
Android Mobile Client Application .......................................................................... 50
ASP .NET Website ................................................................................................... 52
Chapter 6 Design Specifications ....................................................................................... 55
Design Specification Choices – Discussion & Objectives ........................................... 57
Accessing Resources Azure SQL O365 & Microsoft Graph API ................................ 60
Web API ....................................................................................................................... 65
Live chat & Real Time Updates using SignalR 2 ......................................................... 68
LPMS Sequence diagrams ............................................................................................ 70
Client Applications ....................................................................................................... 74
Windows Desktop Client Application ...................................................................... 74
Android Client .......................................................................................................... 77
Chapter 7 Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................... 78
Glossary ............................................................................................................................ 83
References ......................................................................................................................... 85
Appendix I ........................................................................................................................ 89
Azure AD ...................................................................................................................... 89
SignalR 2 – Live updates & live chat ........................................................................... 91
Additional Sequence Diagrams .................................................................................... 95
Sample request, and response of a user of LPMS to update his profile ....................... 97
Appendix II - External software libraries used in the thesis ............................................. 99
vii
viii
List of Figures
Figure 1. Evolution of law practice management ............................................................... 3
Figure 2. Comparison of responsibilities of on-premises and cloud service categories
(Greiner, 2014) .................................................................................................................... 7
Figure 3. High level system architecture diagram .............................................................. 9
Figure 4. Azure Active Directory integration and capabilities, (Vilcinskas, 2016) ......... 14
Figure 5. Azure AD basic authentication flow, (Baldwin, 2016) ..................................... 16
Figure 6. LPMS communication flows from client to Web API and Office 365 ............. 16
Figure 7. LPMS configuration of permissions to other applications, in Azure portal ...... 17
Figure 8. Azure AD consent page for LPMS .................................................................... 18
Figure 9. Office 365 Unified groups, image from (Patel, 2015)....................................... 20
Figure 10. Conceptual basic law practice and case management model .......................... 23
Figure 11. Case management use-case diagram. The different colors on the diagram
highlight the different resources ....................................................................................... 24
Figure 12. Possible workflow for creating a new case and adding resources ................... 25
Figure 13. Windows desktop screenshot of the Case UI .................................................. 26
Figure 14. Location of LPMS resources ........................................................................... 27
Figure 15. LPMS organization and user registration process flow diagram ..................... 29
Figure 16. Registration and profile use case diagram ....................................................... 31
Figure 17. Sample workflow of a lawyer to create a new case and share it with another
participant ......................................................................................................................... 32
Figure 18. Role hierarchy diagram for the available roles in LPMS ................................ 36
ix