Outlook Plugin
Outlook is the dominant user interface for a significant number of users in many organizations.
To let these users more easily participate in Aurea Social, the Outlook Plugin provides several key capabilities. Once installed, the user selects settings to put in the URL of the SharePoint server where Aurea Social is running and choose login options.
The plugin can be run with only these icons visible in the ribbon. Clicking the Create Post icon lets a user compose a microblog, question or private message and send it.
The notifications button shows the count of current notifications. It will show the count from your notification tile in Lookout if you have one configured.
Otherwise, it shows the count from the activity stream web part (which tends to be larger). Clicking the Tiles icon opens or closes the side panel to show the tiles you have defined in Lookout.
Tiles like new user setup, recommendations, Exchange tiles (see below) and external server tiles are not included in the list. The rest of your tiles should display. Clicking one of these tiles displays the activity stream events and allows you to like, comment and mark items for follow-up.
The Outlook plugin must have a connection with the SharePoint server running Aurea Social to display items. If a user clicks on a tile when there is no connection, an error message will display.
The Outlook plugin is designed to work in either Outlook 2010 or 2013. Note that on Outlook 2013, there have been cases where COM cannot be enabled.
To correct this, the user needs to have Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime installed: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48217
If the plugin is not enabled because Outlook 2013 is not enabling COM, follow these steps:
- Go to File > Options.
- Option window loads. Select Add-Ins. At bottom of screen, select Go after ensuring dropdown states Com Add-Ins.
- New dialog appears. Check the box next to Social Sites Plugin followed by the <OK> button.
- You might need to close Outlook and restart.