Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 5 Jan 2022

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From YouTube: Outlook: Microsoft Ignite 2021 recap on the latest announcements

Description

In this 21-minute Developer-focused demo, Juan Balmori Labra highlights new features for Outlook add-ins that improve collaboration in a hybrid world. Mailbox 1.11 with more Events is GA and Smart Alerts preview is now available. Event-based add-ins + Smart Alerts for Outlook = better emails. Demo of Event-based add-ins for new events including handling email signatures for external and internal recipients. A second demo shows why Smart Alerts help users send better emails. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Office Add-ins community call – December 2021, recorded on December 8, 2021.

Demo Presenter: Juan Balmori Labra, Principal Program Manager (Microsoft) |@juaneloBalmori

Supporting documents:
• Article - What’s new for Office Add-ins at Ignite 2021 | https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/whats-new-for-office-add-ins-at-ignite-2021/

Stay connected:
• Learn more about the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community at: http://aka.ms/m365pnp
• Visit the Microsoft 365 Patterns and Practices community YouTube channel: https://aka.ms/m365pnp/videos

A

So hello, everyone- uh this is juan valmorti here, uh I'm a program manager in the outlook, islands team. uh It's great to be here with you today and I want to share with you. You know: uh ignite was last month I had a chance to to participate in the last community call, but in this one I want to talk to you about two, some important important announcements from the team that happen at ignite, and you want to make sure that you guys have visibility.

A

The blog post that talks about everything that my team announced that ignite I'm going to focus on the outlook part, because I am the outlook pm but anyways. So basically we during the event we actually announced two important updates. No, the first one is that our mailbox 1.11 uh requirement set. You know uh it's ga, so we're gonna talk a little bit more details about what's included here and then we also announced uh super cool feature.

A

I think I already talked with you on this audience about which is smart alerts, so give a demo about it, and until you tell you what how can you can you use it and then? Finally, we we talked a little bit about. How can you combine these two features to create uh you know better experiences and allow your users to send better emails. So, let's get started so part one event based event day.

A

Silence for those of you who haven't heard is something that my team has been working on a lot in the last year, or so it's basically a technology that enables you to launch an add-in automatically uh subscribe to events. You know so, while the user is composing, an email, your adding can actually launch in specific aspects of it without any user inputs. So this is different from the model that we have today.

A

Well, that I wouldn't say today, but we used to have you know, task pants where you click on the button, and you know the tasking uh pops and then only when the taskbank is active, your adding can interact with outlook. In this case, you can launch your add-in automatically with certain events, so basically I build earlier. In the year we announced the ga of a few events, but now we are announcing the ga of more of them, so you can.

A

You can build more richer solutions and, by the way, eric later in the call is going to show you a very real and very cool scenario that is using all these. These these capabilities, so basically event-based audience again completely new way to interact with outlook uh that they require no user inputs to be activated. They will basically, your adding, will activate where certain events happen.

A

They are ui less in operation, so the adding is launched via event short. There are short running. There should be support supposed to be short running uh well. This is an intent that they know that the feature has uh we don't want to be to having an add-in running permanently on the background as we used to have in bsto, because that to something really degrades the experience a little bit in outlook. So the idea here is that you guys the event happens.

A

Then you perform some action and then and then the other can shut down right there for compose right now. So all the events that I'm going to talk about are in compose mode, so we don't have this yet for reading and finally, there's going to be obviously no ui disrupting also everything is going to happen in the background that doesn't mean that you cannot provide certain points at which you know users can interact with your ad, but you cannot pop dialogues and stuff like that right.

A

So well, what's including the announcement, the announcement is that the mailbox 1.11 is ga, starting on the build that you see on the on the screen.

A

uh You, you will be able to use this add-ins, uh which, basically, if you install the latest version of outlook, you will should be able to do it in the monthly channels right. So the we added a recipient's change event uh every time you change recipients in c in the two cc or bcc, when you're sending an email, uh you can trigger an event and you can handle an event actually, uh every time you attach documents into emails and appointments, and you know you can also trigger an event.

A

You know subscribe to an appointment, change or a recurrence change event. This is useful. You know to to to update your back ends with with new times and stuff, and then we also have an info bar dismissed. uh So one of the ways that that you can interact in this new world with with your users, is by showing notification bars in outlook and those can be dismissed.

A

So basically, if the user clicks dismissed and you can handle those events and finally, given that you know again, this is short running so, which means that you don't have permanently uh an adding running in the background um you know, but but it's it creates and and and we'll we'll talk a little bit more details about how you can use the session data object with ideas that you can have a property back, that you can have access for the lifetime of the composition so that you can store state across multiple events right so uh and make your audience more efficient.

A

So, let's uh talk about enough talking. Let's talk about the demo here, so one of our closest partners are handling are using this technology on the online signature email signatures. You know, for example, when you're sending an email to external or internal users. No, so the idea here is that I create a new email, I'm going to switch gears to outlook and then, as you can see, I created a new email and you I added a signature here.

A

So this is the uncomposed event that we shipped long time ago right, but now, in addition to that, uh if, if I add uh an email to someone who is internal, you know the the internal signature remains here, but as soon as I, I will try my some external address here. As soon as I have an external uh recipient, you will see that the signature was changed and I put it back and if I remove it, you know the signature is going to switch back to the internal email.

A

So this is very simple, but you can see it's like your outlook. Add-In is seamlessly integrated into the outlook experience, and this is just one scenario that you can enable. I want you to think about other scenarios that you can implement using this. You will have this event for again all the different uh events that I described previously and it's really super simple to to create an add-in like this I mean, if you're, already creating outlook guidance.

A

You know that there's a manifest, which is an xml file that defines how your add-in is going to behave uh within outlook. So basically, you just need to add a runtimes element indicating that your add-in is going to be having uh launch event extension points, which means that your caravan is going to be running kind of.

A

In the background, in certain events, that's why you use the runtimes element here indicating what are the files that you're adding uh that has having the event handlers of your add-in and then, after you declare that uh you know uh we have this new extension point that we call launch event and within launch event. We have basically here's where you subscribe to the events you need. uh In this case, I am subscribing to all the events that are available, uh so uh I'm only using one of them by the way.

A

But but here is where you say: hey, I want to subscribe to the message send or the composer composing emails or appointments, etc. So, and then you know this file that you declare here on the runtimes element, uh as you can see under resources.

A

If you go down here, you will see that it's pointing to a javascript file in time and that javascript file in this case has the implementation of such events. So sorry, one more thing in the manifest, as you can see here, we declare the event that I am subscribing and what's the name of the handler, so recipients change, as you can see here, has an on message: recipient change handler and of course, if I go to command cis, I will see that effectively.

A

There is an on message, recipient change event, and this is where I basically check. If the user is internal or external, and then I do an internal or I insert a external or internal signature right, so it's very straightforward.

A

uh Moving on going back to my deck, as I mentioned previously, you know the the the runtime I want to share a bit more details of how the runtime works, because we tried to do this optimize this flow, and so basically what happens here.

A

uh If you see the time you know this, this chart is line the notes that time at t0, you know when, when a user creates a new email, you will see that the uncomposed event gets triggered, and basically we have, in this case a signature to the email or you imagine that you can do other other actions, but I'm just going to the signatures.

A

Example here user creates an email, the signature is inserted and then at some moment in time you know the user starts composing an email, and if this is more than five minutes, basically t0 plus five, if no other events happen, what happens is that our sandbox or and your adding basically shut down? uh So so, basically, the island is no longer using any memory or anything like that right, uh however, it it's, it's often uh often could happen that you know after you spend so much time.

A

Creating a new email that you add more recipients to the email. So what happens? If I add new recipients on the email, basically a t0, plus five plus x, what will happen is that we again are going to launch you know a javascript engine super efficient in the background, uh so these shutdowns and creation of the of of the runtime. For that you need the session data right, and this is where the session data makes sense, because you can store. You know different types of metadata.

A

You need to have across multiple instantiations of of the sandbox right, so this session state is going to be there. You know for the lifetime of the composition, which means that if you close the email and compose- and you know that that session state is gonna, it's gonna blow away right. So uh that is just a brief example of uh explanation of what you can do with event based eric is going to show you uh basically a more more exciting demo than I did um and it's available. I think that's a pattern on practice.

A

So that's awesome. The second announcement that we made was around smart alerts. I see that there are a few questions here. Can the email signature pull information from ad? Absolutely they can pull information from ad. Yes, the other question is: does this work in outlook online from george? Absolutely this? This works uh right now in the announcement covers windows. Thank you for asking that, by the way and online and very soon also the mac, uh and eventually we also have it on the mobile devices and that's the plan.

A

Okay, so smart alerts, what is the smart alerts uh well turns out, and I will explain it better with a demo, but this feature is it's mostly around. uh We recently did a well. Our research was was made in the outlook team and we find out very interesting information that users actually really appreciate when we help them. You know to send better emails and a quick example of that.

A

uh Let me show you uh when you create a new email right and, for example, let's say that in the body of the email you refer to a file right. This is an example that actually is implemented in the product, but it's very relevant because now you can do it with an allen.

A

So, for example, if I am check out this picture of my dog and by the way I'm gonna send it to myself, because I don't want to bother hitach with this, but basically what I'm typing here is that I'm referring to a picture that I am not attaching it to the document. No, so basically, when I click on send, what's going to happen here, is that hey? You know I have this semi-intelligent alien. That is telling me hey, looks like you're forgetting to include an attachment here right.

A

So then, at the time at this moment I can choose to send it or don't send it. So basically, what happened is that when I send you know the email, there was another event that was launched and I was handling the send event doing some logic and then basically halting the send of the email.

A

uh There are a few options here that I will describe later, but basically I am sending this message. It looks like you're you're, forgetting to include an attachment okay. So in this case I would say: okay, yes, that makes total sense. Now that I add an attachment here and in this case effectively, I'm gonna add an attachment of my. This is a real picture of my dog, which is too slow to to loathe. uh But there you go, I'm here with my dog uh when he was a puppy and now oh hold on a second.

A

If I remove this attach- uh and I in fact now, if I send the email, I have the attachment and it's gonna go right. uh So that's! Basically what smart alerts is all about. It's about handling the onsen event and then having the ability of either well of block. You can potentially block the send of the email and you can provide either suggestions or you can actually enforce something. So you you you, you will be able to say something along the lines of you're not going to be able to send the email.

A

Unless you do other tasks, not like any scenarios like, for example, classification or other types of of important processes, you can you can halt, you can block the user from actually sending the email right. So this is not nothing new. We we, we ship a feature that is similar to this one, uh but I will tell you what, but, as uh it has a few downsides and among others that you can, you cannot use them in the store, uh but anyways uh the coding is exactly the same because from send.

A

If I go to the manifest, you will see that I have a message sent here in that I have a handler and then this event specifically has another attribute that is send mode. Send mode is important because you you're able to change how the feature works by using this parameter right here I will tell you more details about that in a second. If we go back to the deck, so basically uh one one mode of operation is to allow the scent this. You use this mode in. In the case, you want to provide a recommendation.

A

It seems to be that you are, it will be nice if you have additional content or you know, you're checking, um maybe the language of the of the body- and you say: hey you: maybe you should rethink about how you're typing this and the user can actually make the call if, if this is a recommendation, so I can send it anyway. No, so I it's not a hard block. Basically uh your guys are able to customize a few things on this dialogue.

A

Obviously the text that is presented here then uh there is a mo moth to is block the send. You change this in the manifest, and the idea here is that you don't have the send anyway option here, but basically here you want to enforce that the user is doing something before they send the email. In this case, you know, classification is a typical example. No, that you need to classify the content that you're sending and, in some conditions this this should be enforced. So this is how you do it here right uh now.

A

The other thing is a long-running operation. So we are one of the design aspects that we want to recommend you guys here is that this should be fast, fast operation, so we don't want to halt the send of the email for too much time.

A

So basically, if you're adding it's going to be taking, I think it's more than five seconds right now. I think that does that telemetry we're getting, let's see if we need more time or not, but if the add-in is kind of slow but we're going to, we have a long running operation, then we're basically going to show a dialog like this. That indicates that your admin is doing some processing, so the user is not kind of surprised at what's going on here right. So if you see this analog, that's not a good sign.

A

I mean you should you should strive to to never show this dialogue, but if that's the case, we understand that sometimes, when we hold services it could be slow and then we provide this experience for for the user, no longer operations and then finally, uh as previously mentioned, uh we we shipped a send event long time ago as part of a 1.8 requirement set, but that was had that huge downside that if the add-in, for whatever reason, was unavailable, then the user was not able to send emails, because it was that important uh when, by the time we shipped this, that uh you know uh with some customers like it's: okay, that the user cannot send emails if the admin is not available, but we know that that's.

A

You know that's kind of kind of very heavy-handed. For that reason, addings who were implementing on send back then weren't allowed in the store.

A

But now uh we, if the admin is not available, we are going to allow the user to send the email and but we are we'll notify them no way. This is experience that they want to provide. If the island isn't available, we will tell the user and then it's up to the user, to basically try it later or to send it anyway send the email. This is. This is a one-time warning that we're gonna send okay uh and that's basically about one more thing.

A

So uh we think that it's a combination of both features that I mentioned here- event-based items, smart alerts, uh you know, one recommendation that we have is don't leave expensive operations until send is clicked. You know. So, if you're going to be analyzing attachments, because we have an attachment to changing and as you will see later, with eric's demo, we really don't want you to be kind of if you need to encrypt them, for instance, that's an expensive operation.

A

If you leave all those expensive operations until the end, it's going to be a bad experience, because it's going to take time and the you know the sand is going to be halted for, for maybe too many seconds right. So what we are recommending is use event base, for example, in the attachment scenario to pre-do some as much pre-processing as you can. So if you need to encrypt the attachments, you do it using the attachment change event and you are kind of in the background processing those attachments.

A

So when the time the send comes, you basically already did this pre-processing and then the the just doing the final stages uh at the time of sentence. The final details, sort of saying before actually allowing the user to send the email right. So we recommend you to use those two technologies to provide the optimal experiences all right, and with that I would like to know if there are any questions here, can the event-based audience be triggered by a user typing? A certain word nima is asking this? No, we we cannot. So we cannot right.

A

Now we don't have a typed uh event. We don't have a specific. This is an event that actually it's a good question. uh This has never existed for a reason uh and the the main reason is because uh that is very expensive. I mean if you are handling an event every time that every time the user is, you know key down or keep pressed events.

A

uh They could how they could damage the experience of outlook in a big way. You know so we we don't usually uh allow allow those events to happen, but maybe you can you can in another event, you can do this, get the entire body and analyze the content.

A

Yes, one of the the benefits of of smart alerts is that we're going to allow these add-ins in the store session data object? Is it's been asked here? It needs to be stored centrally. Well, uh the session data object. It's actually an in-memory place where you can store data and again it's going to be available just for the lifetime of the composition.

A

We are planning to add another similar session data object for the lifetime of the outlook session, which seems to be what we're asking here.

A

Okay, I will be replying some of these questions on the chat. Thank you very much for the questions very good questions. By the way.