I developed an office.js add-in using the ItemSend event. Everything works fine if external service available. But when i was testing send email operation for "unavailable service scenario" get an error like bellow:
"We're sorry, we couldn't access [Add-in Name]. Make sure you have a network connection. If the problem continues, please try again later."
and
"The add-in [Add-in Name] has prevented this item from being sent."
So the question is how to ignore add-in for this situation?
I am testing on web browser.
Thanks.
The group policy Disable send when web extensions can't load must be set to Disable on each applicable machine if you want to let users send emails if the add-in is not available. Read more about that in the Install Outlook add-ins that use on-send section of MSDN.
This is not possible at this time. The Item Send Add-ins are currently meant for mission critical and compliance apps, and if your add-in is not available then mail can not be sent. We are aware of the demand for a "softer" Item Send add-in that will allow for send to occur if your add-in is not available, but we do not have anything to announce at this time.
Note that the Group Policy "Disable send when web extensions can't load" does not affect this scenario, and is actually even stricter. If Outlook cannot retrieve manifests from the Exchange server, then all send will be disabled. That GPO is also meant for deploying compliance Item Send Add-ins and to ensure all your users have the latest manifests that you have uploaded.
Related
I have an use case where the addin should be enabled on specific machines instead of all the machines automatically.
Does bt:Url field in manifest.xml support that ?
If the Url is unreachable, mail should be allowed by default instead of being blocked (which is the default response from Outlook)enter image description here
Is there any way to do this ?
There are several ways to bridge the gap (solutions for your scenario):
Administrators can disable the on-send policy by ensuring the user's group policy setting Block send when web add-ins can't load is set to Disabled. To manage this policy setting, you can do the following:
Download the latest Administrative Templates tool.
Open the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc).
Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Outlook 2016 > Security > Trust Center.
Select the Block send when web add-ins can't load setting.
Open the link to edit policy setting.
In the Block send when web add-ins can't load dialog window, select Enabled or Disabled as appropriate then select OK or Apply to put the update into effect.
In the onSend event handler you may detect the mailbox or call an external web service which can give the answer whether to run your workload for a specific user / mailbox or not. Following that way you will be able to run your stuff for particular users only.
Read more about that in the Install Outlook add-ins that use on-send artice.
Would Smart Alerts (in preview) help you achieve your goal here?
Note, you can specify SendMode option in the manifest for a Smart Alert. There are three options available - PromptUser, SoftBlock and Block. With the SoftBlock option, if the add-in is unavailable (for example, there's an error loading the add-in), the item will be sent.
I have a scenario where a "compose mode" add-in for Outlook makes a subject line update to the draft email, then sends the email. The send action is currently carried out using either the EWS or REST APIs.
The issue occurs when a "override" policy tip is configured by the Exchange admin. The policy tip in question requires the user to choose override, in certain cases, to send an email (e.g external communication).
During message composition, if the appropriate trigger for the policy tip occurs, the policy tip appears and offers the user the option to override (as expected). When the add-in action is called, via ribbon button, the email appears to be sent. However, moments later an automated message from the Exchange indicates that the email has not been sent due to not adhering to the policy rule.
I believe this occurs because the send API, for both EWS and REST, does not call a local function in the Outlook client. Rather these API actually perform the send event on an email item syncedto and stored on the server. The Exchange server has no knowledge of the user's selection to override the policy tip at the client, so the issue occurs.
This happens in both Outlook on Desktop and Outlook Web Access.
I have searched through the EWS and REST APIs and cannot find any way to share/indicate the policy tip override when using these API.
I have searched the add-ins developer documentation and can find no mention of policy tips at all.
I have searched the Exchange admin policy tips documentation and can find no mention of add-ins compatibility or add-in related behavior.
So, can Microsoft Outlook Policy Tips be used in conjunction with add-ins REST/EWS send API?
I am working on an Outlook addin to make sure confidential information is not leaked using mail.
Using the on-send feature using ItemSend, we were able to get the email fields and block the sendmail, if required
https://github.com/OfficeDev/Outlook-Add-in-On-Send/tree/master/outlook-add-in-on-send
But there is an use case
User composes the mail and saves it to draft (without clicking on Send)
In outlook on web, composing a mail saves to draft automatically.
How can the add-in get a callback when draft is synced to Outlook server ?
How can the add-in get a callback when draft is synced to Outlook server ?
There is no such callback available for web add-ins. You may post a feature request or suggest a feature on the Tech Community site where community members get to share ideas on ways MS can make Microsoft Graph and Office Platform better by sharing feature requests and ideas.
Nothing like that for the JS-based addins.
For the COM addins, OOM exposes MailItem.Write event - your event handler can cancel the operation.
I have a business requirement where there is a need to extend the functionality of outlook.
I am exploring Office Web Addins for this requirement.I have following queries.
I need to automatically move all incoming email to an external location.Does Office JS API provide handlers to incoming email event?
If it possible to define an action with Office JS API , which when triggered can loop through all the current unread emails and perform some action on each email (like move certain emails to a certain external location )
Is it possible to append custom headers to a email being composed using Outlook web add-in?
No
You can use EWS for that
No.
If your code only needs to run under the Windows version of Outlook, a COM addin might be a better option.
Unfortunately, it seems not possible to meet your requirements using Outlook Web Addin.
For more information, please review the following link: Outlook Add-ins overview
Note: This particular issue has significant impact on our customers, which translates to high business impact with direct consequences on revenue.
TL;DR.
How can our Office add-in for Outlook, when a user interacts with our add-in while composing an email draft, minimize the amount of time it takes before the EWS GetItem API will return an OK response for the itemId we receive from Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync()?
If it turns out that our add-in has no control over when the item will be persisted to EWS, then what could an end-user do to speed this up?
We are looking for either (a) a technical solution, or (b) messaging to instruct our customers on how to mitigate/fix/work around this issue.
End-User Impact
Some of our customers are unable to send emails using our Office add-in for Outlook, or have to wait an exceedingly long time (> 2 minutes) before their email will send.
Our Goal
We want all of our customers to be able to send emails using our add-in, without having to wait for an unreasonable amount of time.
Additional Context
Based on our logs and customer reports, this issue only exists in the Outlook 2016 for Windows desktop application. We have no evidence to suggest the issue is present in any other version of Outlook, including Outlook 2013 or Outlook for Mac, however it is possible that the issue may be present in those clients as well.
Overview of our add-in
Our add-in integrates with Compose mode to provide additional functionality while composing email messages, such as templates, follow-ups, open and click tracking, and scheduling.
Our add-in works in tandem with our SaaS product like this:
Our add-in sets EWS extended properties on the email message with metadata indicating which features are enabled on that message.
Our SaaS product, out of band, is configured to read from the customer's mailbox via the EWS API. When it encounters EWS extended properties our Office add-in has written, it triggers the code paths to satisfy the desired behavior.
Root Cause Analysis
The root cause of our problem is our interaction with EWS in Outlook 2016 for Windows. In order to successfully interact with EWS to read/write to a mailbox item, it must be aware of that item.
The documentation for Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync() says:
In Outlook Web App or Outlook in online mode, the item is saved to the server. In Outlook in cached mode, the item is saved to the local cache.
It goes on further to say:
Note: If your add-in calls saveAsync on an item in compose mode in order to get an itemId to use with EWS or the REST API, be aware that when Outlook is in cached mode, it may take some time before the item is actually synced to the server. Until the item is synced, using the itemId will return an error.
Thus, we have concluded that Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync(), although it does indeed return an eventually valid itemId, does not guarantee that any subsequent EWS interaction will succeed. So far, we have found no way to accelerate the process of the Outlook client actually making EWS aware of the mailbox item.
Mitigation
We have attempted to mitigate this problem by polling EWS GetItem to attempt to obtain a ChangeKey for the item with the itemId we receive from Office.context.mailbox.item.saveAsync(). While we have seen that this does eventually succeed, it may take a minute or longer before this occurs. That is simply far too much time for our customers to have to wait.
Understanding "online mode" vs "cached mode"
If the Outlook 2016 for Windows desktop client is in "cached mode", is there anything the user can do to:
…know whether the client is in "cached mode" or "online mode"?
…attempt to force the client into "online mode"?
There is no way to speed this up in cached mode. Unfortunately this is a limitation of saveAsync in compose mode. Some things of note:
1) The EWSId is only valid while the item is a draft. After it is sent, when the item is in sent items, it will have a new EWSId which is not obtainable from the Office.js
2) Could you save your information into the custom properties, instead of the EWS Extended Properties. (Office.context.mailbox.item.customProperties) https://dev.office.com/reference/add-ins/outlook/1.5/CustomProperties?product=outlook
These properties will be saved to the mail in the sent item, but will NOT be transmitted. Then could you find those properties
These are stored as a JSON dictionary on the item in Key/Value pairs. The name of the mapi property is "cecp-[extension id from manifest]" (in PS_PUBLIC_STRINGS)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/cc842512.aspx
3) It does kind of sound like a better way to solve this would be an Office.js function that gives write access to this? (though we don't completely understand your scenario). Request for new features should go through UserVoice:
https://officespdev.uservoice.com/forums/224641-general/category/131778-outlook-add-ins.
4) Being in Online Mode would greatly mitigate the time. A User can know whether or not he or she is in online mode, but an Add-in cannot.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-on-Cached-Exchange-Mode-7885af08-9a60-4ec3-850a-e221c1ed0c1c
Additionally, the status bar will say "Connected to Microsoft Exchange" in cached mode, and "Online with Microsoft Exchange" in online mode.
Switching to Online mode, removes a lot of the benefits that cached mode has. Cached mode is default in Outlook 2016.