Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 21 Jun 2022

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Microsoft Outlook Smart Alerts

Description

In this 7-minute Developer-focused demo, Sam Ramon shows an event-based activation capability in preview that runs logic after a user selects Send from a message or appointment. Demo scenario - the add-in verifies correct color categories have been applied based on keywords in mail’s text. Activated by OnMessageSend and OnAppointmentSend events. Uses LaunchEvents element in the manifest, Office.actions.associate method to register event handlers, and calls event.completed method to indicate handler code completion. Uses the SoftBlock SendMode option for the message. This PnP Community demo is taken from the Office Add-ins community call – June 2022, recorded on June 8, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Sam Ramon - Technical Writer (Microsoft)

Supporting documents
• Documentation - Use Smart Alerts and the OnMessageSend and OnAppointmentSend events in your Outlook add-in (preview) | https://docs.microsoft.com/office/dev/add-ins/outlook/smart-alerts-onmessagesend-walkthrough
• Documentation - LaunchEvent element | https://docs.microsoft.com/javascript/api/manifest/launchevent?view=common-js-preview
• Sample - Use Outlook Smart Alerts (preview) | https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-Add-in-samples/tree/main/Samples/outlook-check-item-categories
• Documentation - Configure your Outlook add-in for event-based activation | https://docs.microsoft.com/office/dev/add-ins/outlook/autolaunch

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/m365/community

A

I'll be doing a demo on our outlook. Smart alerts feature just a little bit about smart alerts to start off, so it is an event-based activation feature that allows your add-in to run some logic after a user selects send from an outlook message or an appointment. So this feature is activated by the on message: send and the on appointments and events.

A

So this can be really helpful when you're dealing with some scenarios like when you want to verify that your user is using the most up-to-date and correct signature depending on you know what email or appointment that is, if you want a user to use a sensitivity label and apply that on a specific item that they're sending or even just in a simple scenario where you want to check that some color categories have been applied to a message or appointment, and this last scenario is what we'll be demoing today.

A

So this smart alerts feature is currently in preview on windows, but we're hoping to also provide preview for that in the outlook on the web platform as well soon.

A

So we'll start off again with a little bit about the sample. So, like I mentioned this demo we'll be covering is one where the add-in checks, whether required color categories are applied to a new message or appointment, that's being sent, and what dictates these required. Color categories are some specific keywords that the add-in looks for in the message or appointment, subject or body.

A

The messages do use the soft block, send mode option and the block option is what drives the appointments so I'll go into a little bit more detail about the send mode options in the next slide. But before I go to the next slide, I do want to leave you this link to the sample that we will be demoing. We would love for everyone to take a look test, the sample around and just to get a little bit or just to get to know the the feature a little bit more.

A

So a few key parts of the manifest that's specific to event based activation add-ins and smart alerts in general. So these add-ins do use the launch events element in the manifest and within the launch events element. You do have the launch event element that you can declare within this element. There are three attributes that you'd like to specify the first one being type, and this is where you declare the event that activates your add-in. So in the case of smart alerts, it would be on message send and on appointments and events.

A

Then you have the function name attribute, which is where you would declare your event handler. So those would be your javascript functions that would be running the logic of your add-in and, lastly, you have the send mode attribute, and this is what determines the add-in's behavior when its logic or condition isn't being met by the item that's being sent. So the send mode option comes in three flavors: you have prompt user, soft block and block with prompt user.

A

This is recommended to use when there's logic or condition that you want your add-in to check, but it isn't mandatory. So it's more of a recommendation for something that's nice to have in an item that's being sent with the soft block option. This is the default option.

A

If you don't specify a send mode option within the launch event element- and this is recommended to use- if you want a condition to be met by the add-in but say if the add-in isn't available at that time- that the user is sending an item, you still would like to give your user the option to send the email, so you don't necessarily want to block them from sending that item.

A

And, lastly, we have the block send mode option, and this is also known as the hard block option just to differentiate it from the soft block option, and this is used when you want an add-in condition to be met and it is meant- and it is mandatory to be met before an item can be sent and before we go to the demo. I also wanted to highlight a few things within the javascript file, specifically with the event handler functions.

A

So first within the your javascript file, you will want to call the office.actions.associate method in order to register the event handlers. So what this does is it maps? The function name attribute that you specified in the manifest with the javascript function. Name that'll handle the logic of your add-in and, within the event handler, you will also need to call the event completed method so as to indicate handler code completion, and this is what determines whether the item can be sent.

A

If the item that's being sent, meets the add-in conditions, so, in the event that the item being sent doesn't meet the add-in condition. This event completed method also allows you to surface that smart alerts, dialog where you can add a message or an error for the user, so that they know what next steps to take in order to meet that add-in condition.

A

And finally, we get to the exciting part. um So the actual demo itself I'll go ahead and play this.

A

So we will um start with by creating a meeting invite and, of course, we'll put in some specific keywords in there, so that the add-in can be triggered and it'll check to see whether we have applied specific color categories related to these keywords. So for this demo the keywords in question are sales expense reports and performance reviews.

A

So once we click send because we haven't added any categories: you'll see the smart alerts, dialog, just letting us know that hey. You should add this to your appointment and you'll notice that the only option available to the user is the don't send option, because we did employ that block or hard block option for the appointment.

A

So the user will need to definitely apply categories before they're able to send the item.

A

Okay, so we go ahead and click don't send there so that we can apply the categories, and so we can use the built-in functionality within outlook to add these categories to the appointment invite, but for this particular sample we did want to highlight that you can use taskbanes to further extend the functionality of your add-in as well, and so we'll be using that task.

A

Vein to add those categories, and so you'll see that those categories have now been added to the invite, and so once we click send that invite goes through and the appointment appears on the calendar. Okay. So before I end the presentation, I did want to leave a list of resources that you might find handy, especially if you want to get to learn more about smart alerts and event-based activation add-ins and how to create these I'll. Also add these links in chat for your convenience.

A

But again we highly encourage you to check the sample out when you do get a chance play around with it test the code and adapt it to any scenarios that you may have so with that. Thank you again, everyone for your time and back to you, david.

B

All right, thank you, sam, that is a really cool sample to see it's great, to see how you can use the outlook, smart alerts for those various scenarios.