Secure Outlook add-in is now available for testing in free-as-in-beer version


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Last month, we announced the 2.0 version of our Outlook Add-in including branding options, high DPI support and guidance for first-time users as major features. Right now, our Add-in is only available to enterprise users. We realize this leaves out home users and small enterprises. Nextcloud strives to provide private cloud solution for everyone so, in that light, we worked with our partner to provide a free version of the add-in for home. Note that the free version is only meant for home users and small organizations. It is now available for testing!

t(‘Get the free Outlook Add-in’);?>

This free version introduces some new features. The enterprise edition to be released soon will have all these features and many more:

  • You can now pause an upload
  • The design has been improved to be closer to the Nextcloud design
  • You can use a centralized configuration parameter for Nextcloud Server URL.

Core capabilities on the menu

The Add-in features the core capabilities: sharing from your Nextcloud instance instead of sending insecure large attachments. Small companies and organizations can now download it and test it from here. Let us know how it worked for you! And for open source enthusiasts, the free and Open Source Thunderbird add-in allows the same!

Free/Premium Outlook Add-In features comparison

Free version Enterprise version
Upload large files on your Nextcloud server ✔ ✔
Pausing an upload ✔ ✔
Automatically upload an attachment on your Nextcloud ❌ ✔
Shared link custom password ❌ ✔
Expiration date ✔ ✔
Custom look for shared links via HTML ❌ ✔
Branding ❌ ✔

You can ask questions and discuss the client in the new Mail client integration category on our forums!

Notable Replies

  1. Awesome that you made it available for everybody. I already installed this Add-in and tried it: unfortunately it always says
    "Please check URL, username and password."

    Where can we get support for this Add-in, should we ask in this forum or is there some place on github (to create and track issues)?

  3. Yes, thanks for making the add-in public!

    I also installed the add-in with Outlook 2010 and I can see now two icons in the menu bar when composing new e-mail (Upload for files and public sharing of folders).

    But

    1. no content inside the e-mail, like a link, an explanation text or something else is create
    2. An upload-folder “outlook” is created inside nextcloud, but no content is shown, but the add-in said before, that the file was uploaded

    So I think some further testing will be helpful :wink:

    Regards

  4. I am the author of the add-in, and ready to help you out :slight_smile:

    @Schmu can you send me a PM with information like if you use a proxy, 2 factor authentication or possibly LDAP?

    @linucksrox Typo will be fixed in the next release, thank you :slight_smile: We’re not interested in going after private information, the add-in only contacts your Nextcloud server, at no point it contacts anything else.

    @blu-IT Can you send me a PM with: if you’re using 32 or 64 bits Office / Windows and perhaps tell me if you use certain share policies on the server (password, expiration date and so).

    Thanks!

  5. Thanks, I was just thinking about that although I don’t suspect any malicious behavior. Just something to keep in mind for the paranoid, not having the ability to audit the code. :slight_smile: I appreciate you making this free version!

    I think this will be super handy, and I’m evaluating it to see if we can use it at my work (about 40 people).

  6. Lovely! Thanks for that.

  8. I just want to throw this out there: I had no problems in my brief testing yesterday. We are running NC 11.0.3, using LDAP against AD, and my test machine was Windows 8.1 64 bit, running Outlook 2016 32 bit, running the 32 bit version of the addin. No problems on my end using an AD account for testing.

  9. Very similar environment here. I’m running Windows 10 64 bit with Outlook 2016 32 bit and so far in my testing it works perfectly.

  10. Cool, most of my Outlooks are 32 bit. But I have a few friends who use 64.
    I used the plugin today! It’s very useful.

  11. Here’s a updated version of the add-in, I also compiled the 64 bits version now.

    @User_loris do the other windows, like file uploading work and such? In the free edition the advanced options aren’t that necessary, you can only change the language and enable the debug mode.

    When you upload a file or so it should be automatically inserted in your e-mail.

  12. Hi All

    Installed today… Excellent… No issues.

    Thanks for fixing the spelling ‘Therefore’

    Great work

    Del

  13. Sorry for the late reply! Busy part of the year!

    @JimmyKater The one provided through my link is a newer build. In the future I will definitely do such thing as it is very much confusing. Yes. You do need to remove the old version before installing the new one.

    @HTGuru The 1.0 build was not available for free use; as off 2.0 it is. Internally though I started over with the version numbering as 1.0. As I changed from how the dialogs are displayed and other major changes.

    Regarding to your issue; Does your server support TLS 1.2 (enforce), any (external) firewall involved? You may send me a PM if you want to share more information regarding to your setup, ill happily look with you into it there. Same goes from @Ghizmo_MTP. Unfortunately I don’t know the default configuration for the nextcloud-vm.

    Usually though these kind of errors are related to the certificate, a good indicator to check if your Nextcloud installation works as expected is to use Internet Explorer (especially in the case of a self-signed certificate) and try a service as https://www.ssllabs.com/ to check out your https connection.

    To clarify throughout the forum topic:
    The language bug was fixed. Also for the free edition in HKCU/Software/NextcloudOutlookFE keys are made, for the enterprise its HKCU/Software/NextcloudOutlook. Hopefully this clarifies things.

  14. Hi,

    I’ve translated the json file to Spanish (it’s attached below)

    But there are texts I cannot find and continue in English. For example:

    To make it easy for you to upload large files to me in a secure way, I have given you access to our secure file exchange server. You can simply drag and drop your files there and I will receive them. The details on how and where to upload your file(s) can be found below:

    Where can I find these texts to translate them?

    Thanks.

    Spanish translation

  15. @codec the phishing warning is probably triggered due the Nextcloud logo which is inserted which is not apart of your domain. E.g. logo redirects to nextcloud.github.com/somelogourl while your email is codec@example.com. This is probably the reason as why the message shows. I don’t know of a direct solution.

    @jason_bullough The failure to upload files is probably related because of the password policy bug which is adressed in the new build. For your second error “settings are incorrect”, this can be related to the brute-force settings.

    @blu-IT This might be related to the password-policy bug adressed in the new build.

    Brute-force protection issue
    Symptom: sometimes the add-in will generate a “Please check the server url, username and password” error. This is probably related to the brute-force protection being triggered (to many api requests). This can happen when many users use Nextcloud (plus add-in).
    “If triggered, brute force protection makes requests coming from an IP on a bruteforce protected controller with the same API slower for a 24 hour period”

    For the add-in this means that a time-out comes up and therefor it thinks the login failed.
    To solve this, install the brute-force settings app and whitelist your network.
    https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/bruteforcesettings

    Here is the new build, with versioning… (2.2.0.1)

    • Added; Italian language support
    • Fixed; Password policy bug (affects NC server version 12+)

  16. @usselite:

    Regarding the path:
    From the point of view of accessing the files (with full access to the folder “Outlook”) later on, it would be nice to have more influence on the structure. For now I can see a date and unique names, but handling lots of documents with customers isn’t easy that way. I have to check my e-mails to investigate when a special document was sent/shared with that customer and than navigate back to nc and try to find the correct folder.
    So, some more possibilities to define (maybe also different paths/folders out of “Outlook” for each email) surely would be nice.

  17. @codec I embedded the logo now, it won’t be loaded externally anymore :).
    Next week I will post a new build which also contains French translations.

    I looked into the setting the folders (Outlook/Upload-Files / Public-share) I will add it as a variable.
    As the unique folder thing remains an issue I have to extend the current way it handles these things.

    Also I am looking (slowly) into integrating the Nextcloud activity data/app and integrating that with e-mails which have been send. So you can see this e-mail had some share activity or not. I don’t know if that would be a future which would be interesting? :slight_smile:

  18. New (beta) build version 2.3.0.1:

    What’s new?

    • Track the activity of your shares (activity app needs to be enabled). It is disabled by default, see below on how to enable it.
    • Customize the default upload folders (e.g. change /Outlook/Upload-Files/(date)/(uniqueid) to /Hello/(date)/(uniqueid))
    • Embedded the inserted Nextcloud logo in the e-mail.
    • Disable settings / advanced settings (for administrators).
    • Fixed bug in migrating old settings.

    How to setup/enable some new features:
    Activity feature:
    This is a test, the stream is limited for now. Previous acquired results are not saved. What may happen once the activity stream gets to long some of the earlier archieved activities get ‘lost’ and the add-in will report there has been no activity. This will be adressed in the feature. Localization is also not available.

    1. To enable the activity feature navigate in the registry (regedit) to ‘Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NextcloudOutlookFE’.
    2. Modify the value ‘DisableActivity’ to ‘False’.
    3. Restart Outlook

    You will find the activity menu from here:

    image
    image.png1404x133 20 KB

    Customize default upload folders
    The given path will always be created. Let’s say for a user the path /example/test/1/ doesn’t exist the add-in will create it for you. In the folder ‘1’ the usual current date will be created and within the unique file share id.

    (root)
    – example
    — test
    ---- 1

    Make sure your paths always begin with a ‘/’ (no quotes) and end with ‘/’.

    1. To enable the activity feature navigate in the registry (regedit) to ‘Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NextcloudOutlookFE’.
    2. Modify the value ‘pathUploadFiles’ to your path e.g. ‘/UploadFiles/’ (default is ‘/Outlook/Upload-Files/’.
    3. Modify the value ‘pathPublicShare’ to your path e.g. ‘/this/is/an/example/PublicShare/’ (default is ‘/Outlook/Public-Share/’.
    4. Restart Outlook.

    Example:
    image

    I am very interested in the feedback! :slight_smile:

    Also working on getting the newer builds on download page. Depending on the feedback of this build (without the activity feature perhaps) this can be uploaded.

  19. I am happy to say there’s finally a new build of the free-edition available.

    Introducing version 2.3.1.17

    • Authenticate with Login Flow (including SSO support in case it works in Internet Explorer).
    • Support for Office 365 Outlook (Windows) version.
    • Better support for special-characters / umlauts and alike.
    • Loads of bug fixes.

    Also we finetuned the build-process, so in the future new builds should be more easily available as the enterprise version.

  20. Ah! Yes… Microsoft per default installs the 32 bit version. Btw, you are not installing the Microsoft Store Office version right???

  21. Well, easiest way on figuring out if you are installing the Office 2019 from the Microsoft Store is if you have to download it through the actual Microsoft Store (app on Windows 10 pc’s)

    image
    image.png1212×943 101 KB

    The other version is usually downloaded from portal.office.com / office.com. But in case it is from a provider I am pretty sure you did not use the Microsoft Store to get your Office :slight_smile:

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