I have a vba outlook add-in that is all ready up and running but some users have trouble installing so I thought to develop a new add-in.
I want to develop an office add-in to run on all office platforms (most important are desktop platforms from 2010 and up)
And I found office-js but some organizations don't allow users access to the office store..
Is there another way to distribute an office-js add in? And is there a way to convert my vba add in to something else? Like a com add in? Is it still alive?
I really need help to find the best practices for this situation.
Related
I need to access the same gmail account with Outlook, through several different machines.
But gmail blocks multiple simultaneous connections after a certain amount of connections.
I did research and found nothing in relation to this scenario.
I thought about creating a service to centralize sending and receiving to gmail, and synchronizing Outlook with this service.
I think this management can be complex.
In regards to receiving emails, I'm thinking of creating an add-in with Visual Studio for Office to consume the service and insert the new messages into Outlook programmatically.
Has anyone gone through this scenario or do you have any suggestions?
VSTO (nor Outlook COM add-ins) will not help in this case. At least you need to develop a custom store provider (Extended MAPI) like it was implemented in G Suite Sync for Microsoft Outlook. Have you tried installing and running this add-in? Does it help?
Problem Statement: Create a macOS Outlook add-in which responds to Calendar move and delete events and calls an API.
Challenge: Most of the links say that this is not possible but there are native Outlook add-ins for Mac already out there. One example is Zoom's New Updates For Outlook Plugin.
Problem with Office-JS add-in: We know that MS is pushing office add-ins for Mac, however there are some limitations which we cannot live with. Office-JS add-in does not react on move and delete events in a Calendar. I understand that there are notifications that can be subscribed to and required action can be taken. This is also a challenge because our clients won't allow to deploy extra components outside network.
Does anyone have any idea on how to create a native macOS Outlook add-in?
The add-in you've given as an example isn't a native add-in. It is a web add-in using Office.js. It does not seem to react to events in the Calendar. It is configured for the Calendar read / write surface, so its button appears in that context.
Currently, there is no way to create "native" add-ins for Mac Outlook. If you can describe your scenario and what you aren't able to achieve with web add-ins, we could try and provide a workaround.
I am having a horrible time getting started at creating an add-in for Outlook. I want to use the new html/javascript/manifest approach. I have been able to create a manifest and application which works great with outlook.live.com. Where I am completely getting stuck is with desktop Outlook. How do I install/debug my add-in with desktop Outlook?
I cannot find anything in the UI which will let me add this style of add-in. Additionally the Microsoft documentation did not make things any clearer. Their docs seem to hint using this type of add-in is only possible if you are connecting to an Exchange server.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes the add-in will load on Outlook desktop only if your mailbox is Exchange. I am not sure the add-ins work with a personal Microsoft account (e.g hotmail.com, outlook.com) and Office desktop. Keep in mind that the support of mail add-ins for personal account is relatively new (officially announced in march 2016).
To develop your add-in I suggest you to use a organizational account (i.e. Office365 account). Support for organizational account has been released in 2013 and is a much more mature solution for you to get started. You can have a free dev account at dev.office.com.
Edit: October 2016 personal account are supported now by "Personal mailbox accounts" aka outlook.com accounts
Let us keep in mind that a mail add-in is not installed on a mail client (desktop, OWA) but on the mail account. When you "install" an add-in you only set a xml file on your mailbox that basically says "there is a web add-in out there called X and that is served at this url...". Then, if you install add-in X on your mailbox smaclell#mytestcompany.onmicrosoft.com, this add-in will load the add-in web iframes whether you are consulting your mailbox with Outlook Web Access (OWA) or Outlook Desktop.
To install the add-in for one user mailaccount, you have to use the Outlook Web Access. See this blog post. Note also that you can install the add-in for the whole organisation (Admin > Exchange Admin > Add-ins). Finally, Visual Studio is also able to push the manifest to your office 365 mailbox. To have this you need Office Development Tools.
For debugging in Outlook Desktop, I know two approaches.
Use the Office Developement Tools with visual studio
and select your sample add-in project as 'Starting project' and in properties select 'Office Desktop'.
Plain web development.
Personally, I do not use really much the Office Development Tools. I install manually my add-in with "https://localhost:XXXX" for url and I start the web project on IIS express to do the debugging. For stepping into the source code, I use the debugger of my browser (Chrome, Edge, IE etc.) when browsing in OWA. When I need to step into source code specifically on Desktop (For windows or for Mac) I use Vorlon.js see also this blog post.
My advice is also to test/debug frequently with IE 11 (still available in Win10!) and OWA. Indeed, the browser used internally by Office Desktop for the add-ins is IE.
Here was said All-in-one add-in for outlook that this is possible to create the web-based add-in working both with Mailboxes hosted on Office 365 or Exchange 2013 or greater, and with Outlook 2013 or greater, so with web and desktop Outlook versions.Am I right? Can you provide some references on how to develop such an add-in and then install it for both clients? Thanks you.
Best regards
You can start reading the Official documentation on Office add-ins. These new Office add-ins are web applications "served" inside Office products, you will have to be a little familiar with web technologies to develop.
Regarding Outlook add-in, as written by Eric Legault (in the question link), the add-in is not installed on a specific client but on the exchange account whether it is at organisation level or at user level. Consequently, with one install you will have the add-ins working on all Outlook clients (Desktop, OutlookWebAccess etc.).
Take care: Office add-ins now describes both technologies the new one that we are discussing (formerly app for office) and the old COM add-ins. I have written a blog post to explain the in-and-outs of the two technologies.
You are right. You have the opportunity to create a web-based add-in for Office 365 and Office 2013 desktop. But, Microsoft's JavaScript API has limited functionality. I want to recommend you read the following document first: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/en-us/library/office/fp161015.aspx. If you plan to write a small add-in for yourself, the web-based add-in is a great option.
My clients have bought an Office 365 SharePoint 2013 site and I'm in the process of configuring it.
Their business rules require a very complicated Workflow which can just about be developed in SharePoint Designer. However, as I'm an experienced Visual Studio .NET developer I'd rather do it programmatically and hopefully save some time.
At present I can't figure out how to connect my desktop version of Visual Studio to the Cloud-based SharePoint site. I've downloaded the Workflow Manager tool but I'm struggling to figure out how to configure the Farm Databases etc. Available documentation seems patchy.
Has anyone out there found a way of doing this? This link suggests that it might not be possible.
Thanks
Edward
According to this article it's possible, though probably not really nice.
You will have to deploy your Workflow as a SharePoint App. Which means you will only be able to call the webservices.
Another option which might be worth looking at is Nintex, which has a module for office 365 as well.
Nintex has alot of useful functions, though I don't know how good the office 365 version is.
You would have to check whether it suits your requirements.