Microsoft New Outlook and Templafy VSTO add-ins

About this article

Microsoft has announced an upcoming release that will also impact Templafy customers. The coming release from Microsoft includes a new version of Outlook that does not support VSTO add-ins in the future, which naturally impact the Templafy VSTO add-in along with any other VSTO add-ins. This article will explain the impacts and how it can be mitigated. 

About the Microsoft release

Microsoft has announced a fundamental change to Outlook for Windows and as a part of the release, VSTO add-ins will no longer be supported in Outlook.

The full announcement is posted on Microsoft's Support page:

• support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/getting-started-with-the-new-outlook-for-windows

Additional information is available on the Microsoft Community:

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/outlook-blog/things-to-know-about-the-new-outlook-for-windows/ba-p/3383964 
• https://insider.office.com/en-us/blog/new-outlook-for-windows-available-to-all-office-insiders

How the Microsoft release will impact Templafy

Templafy does not currently have an Outlook Library web add-in, which means that there are no immediate replacement for the VSTO add-in available for the Library. However, Templafy has an Email Signature web add-in available with the Hive platform, which opens the opportunity for customers using the Email Signature VSTO add-in to deploy the web add-in instead. 

In essence, this means that only web add-ins will be supported. 

How the Microsoft release can be mitigated based on impact

Customers in Templafy will have various opportunities to mitigate the change from Microsoft, based on which version of the Templafy platform, they are currently on, as well as which Templafy modules are available to them. More information on this, please reach out to your Templafy contact to be presented the right opportunities for you. 

For transparency, the various opportunities are described in below table, but it's advised to consult with your Templafy contact to confirm the right opportunity. 

How the new Outlook can be disabled

End-users can manually disable the New Outlook by toggling off the "New Outlook" toggle in the ribbon.

Customers IT can support end-users by deploying a registry key to the users to hide the "Try the new Outlook" toggle or to disabled mailbox access in the new Outlook: 

• Hide the toggle (the toggle that enable/disable the new Outlook). Please follow instructions from this Microsoft release notes article by searching for “HideNewOutlookToggle” in the article: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/beta-channel#outlook-18
  
  
• Disable mailbox access in the new Outlook. Please follow Microsoft support article for instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/outlook-on-the-web/enable-disable-employee-access-new-outlook