Make OfficeJs Word Add-in always appear on the ribbon - ms-word

I am IT for a big organization and I am able to make sure COMM and VSTO Word Add-in always appear on the users's ribbon.
However, we just got a OfficeJs Word Addin, deployed using Sharepoint Catalog as we have Exchange on Prem for O365. I am not able to make it pop up for the users.
Users need to go to My Add-ins, Admin managed/Share folder and then add the Addin. This is decreasing the traction as users are forgetting how to get there.
Any recommendations? Thanks in advance

Related

word add-in debugging task pane app in office online

I recently updated my Microsoft Word task pane add-in and resubmitted it through the seller dashboard. After doing this, I got a document with a set of issues.
Based on the advice in this link (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/testing/debug-add-ins-in-office-online
), I was able to obtain a office 365 developer account.
Now, I am trying to debug my word add-in in office online. I added the local manifest pointing to localhost (https) from Settings->Add-ins->Upload the manifest file.
However, when I open a document and try to load the app, it is not found either in the store or in the admin managed addins.
I am also not finding my existing deployed app format in the office online store.
Can you point me in the right direction to see the app in the office store?
Also, how do I debug the app to fix the issues in office online?
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.
You can upload your add-in for testing in Word Online by opening the insert tab on the ribbon, clicking Office Add-ins, clicking Upload My Add-in and uploading your manifest file.
Your add-in will appear in the My Add-ins section of the Office Add-ins window, and in the relevant ribbon location (add-in dependent) of the Word Online ribbon.

Dynamic data manipulation in word online

I am trying to build a task-pane add-in for word online which can do mail merge like desktop office. Now I understand that word online does not support mail merge out of the box, so I thought about the following steps -
Create a template (DOTX) using desktop office which will contain Region or something like a merge field etc. Upload the template to one drive.
Open a blank doc and add a task pane add-in in word online. This is temporary step for now.
Click a button on the add-in.
This click will stream the template (DOTX) from server using an app service call.
Render the stream into word online web page.
Edit and save.
Close word online and reopen.
Click the doc link.
This will render the doc in word online.
Add the add-in in the task pane (temp step).
Click edit button.
Call app service to fetch the latest merge data source.
Traverse through the word xml and replace the values corresponding to the region or special keys.
Re-render the doc.
My users will have E1 subscription of office 365.
Is this thought process logical and achievable with word online? Thanks in advance!...
I think your approach is much more complicated than it needs to be. Word Online supports Add-ins created using the JavaScript APIs, as supported by the information in this article: https://msdn.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/office/dn833104.aspx
It should be possible for you to create the "template" on the Desktop (Word 2013 or 2016 is required - but only 2016 supports the current full scope of the JS API) and "insert" your add-in, which links it to the document. Opening the document in Word online should automatically load the add-in, that can then link to the data source and fill in the data.
As data targets ("merge fields"), I recommend you use Content Controls.

Saving document to server in Java

We have an existing web application written in Java. We want to give our users the ability to open a Word document that is stored in our application on the server. So when the user downloads the document from our server, Word pops up and they then can edit this document on the client. Once finished editing the document we would like to give them the ability to save this document automatically back to the server where they retrieved it, by simply selecting on the Word Save icon. Similar to how SharePoint does it.
Seems to me SharePoint would be a good solution for this and they do it very well, but unfortunately we cannot use SharePoint in our architecture.
There also seems to be a lot of server-side possibilities that we can use to upload and open word documents from our server, I feel we can solve these use cases easily.
My big problem is the automatic saving of an edited document by the client back to our server where the document was downloaded
I am not Microsoft proficient to know what the best solution would be.
Should we write a Word AddIn to save to our server?
How do we get the Word AddIn into our users desktops?
Can we embed a Word AddIn into the Word document that is opened on the client?
1.Should we write a Word AddIn to save to our server?
If you don't want to use SharePoint you can develop an add-in where you can implement all the required functionality and much more.
2.How do we get the Word AddIn into our users desktops?
You can develop an installer for the add-in. See Deploying an Office Solution for more information. Also you can use the group policy objects for deploying the software automatically.
3.Can we embed a Word AddIn into the Word document that is opened on the client?
You can develop a document-level add-in, i.e. the code will be run for a specific document only. But you will need to install it as an application level add-in. See Architecture of Document-Level Customizations for more information.

Attaching files to an already open mail through VB.Net

I have a problem. I already have an outlook new mail message open. I need to programmatically attach files to the e-mail which is already open using vb.net. This is for a windows application. How could i do it? any ideas? please help!
The article here sounds specific to Outlook 2007 and VBA/Visual Basic, but is equally applicable to any Windows Application that wants to automate Outlook:
Automating Outlook from a Visual Basic Application [Outlook 2007 Developer Reference]:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb206737(office.12).aspx
Keep in mind the Caution disclaimer at the bottom over this "non-trusted" approach.
Once you're "in", you get get a handle to the active item via Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem. Then use MailItem.Attachments.Add.
You also need to keep this in mind:
Application Shutdown Changes in Outlook 2007 SP2:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239276(office.12).aspx#ol2007AppLifecycle_ImpactforSolutions

Office integration (Word) - intercepting save

I am planning to implement a small in-house document management system. It must have a web GUI for managing a remote folder structure stored in a database. In these folders are word documents stored (physically as blob in a database). Whenever a user clicks on a document link, a word binary is downloaded via browser and (hopefully) opened in Word on the user's PC.
This is the easy part ;)
Now the user hits "Save" or Ctrl-S. I want to have a functionality programmed inside Word that calls a custom function (maybe in a .NET DLL) that uploads the saved file back to the server (HTTP). The hard part seems to me:
How to intercept the Save process to call the extension functionality
How to deploy this to multiple users
Mike's link to the question I answered should do it for intercepting the file save. The specific button idMso for File->Save is "FileSave"
To deploy it to several users machine you can either
Create a setup project that will create an msi that you can run on all the users machines
if it's an intranet scenario, you can keep the assemblies on a network location and just add the neceassary registry settings to all the users machines. This article should describe the settings that you need to include. You would just need to change the path setting to point to the network location.
AFAIK, this is what Alfresco is doing with its Microsoft Office Add-ins (never tested myself though). As Alfresco is open-source, it must be possible to look at what they are doing. Or just ask your questions on Alfresco's forums.
You can try to override "save" from the ribbon or build your own ribbon tab with the behavior you want. It may be trickier overriding "Ctrl-S".
Overriding the ribbon: StackOverflow Question
Video on altering a standard ribbon button: Office Developer Center