Microsoft Outlook Installation

Squirro dashboards can be embedded into Microsoft Outlook (both on-premises as well as in Office 365). This allows recommendations and search results to be surfaced directly in the mailbox, without having to open a separate application.

The dashboards can also be used to help find information in the context of an email, or to compose emails by quickly linking to the content found in the process.

Setup

There are three main steps for Microsoft Outlook setup:

1. Set up Single Sign-On

2. Configure Squirro

3. Register Manifest

Set up Single Sign-On

When a user opens the add-in from Microsoft Outlook the user identity is securely established. This requires Squirro to know about a user’s mailbox identifier. This identifier is obtained from Active Directory when the user logs in.

Therefore to use the Squirro for Outlook add-in, login needs to be tied to Active Directory – using Azure Active Directory (AAD) on Microsoft 365 and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) on premises.

The corresponding setup is described on the following pages:

• Azure Active Directory Setup

• ADFS Setup

Pay particular attention to ensure that the msExchMailboxGuid property is mapped so that the Squirro for Microsoft Outlook add-in knows how to map the users.

Configure Squirro

Log into the Squirro instance as a server administrator. Then follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Server space and click Microsoft Outlook in the sidebar navigation.

2. Fill out the form with the following values:

   • Autodiscover Metadata Endpoint:

     • For a Office 365 setup use the value https://outlook.office365.com/autodiscover/metadata/json/1/.

     • For an on-premises installation the value is usually https://<exchange_server>/autodiscover/metadata/json/1/.

     Reference: See Autodiscover for Exchange to learn how this address can be obtained.

   • Project Identifier: paste the identifier of the Squirro project that should be exposed. This can be found in the Setup space under Settings.

   • Dashboard Identifier: navigate to the dashboard that will be embedded in Microsoft Outlook. The dashboard identifier is the 22-character value after the last slash in the address bar. In the screenshot below it is the part underlined with the red line:

     

   • Click Save Configuration to store the configuration values.

3. After saving the manifest.xml download link becomes available. Download the file or copy the URL to that file to be prepared for the next step.

Register Manifest

For users to be able to use the Outlook integration, the manifest needs to be registered in Office 365.

1. Log in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.

2. In the sidebar navigation click on Show all, then Settings, then Integrated apps.

3. Click on Upload custom apps.

4. Upload the downloaded manifest.xml file (using the Upload manifest file option) or provide the URL of the manifest.xml file (using the Provide link option). Then click Next.

5. In the next step decide who should have access to the integration. Then click Next.

6. Review the permissions, then click Next.

Usage

The add-in is exposed on two different screens: reading and composing of email messages. This is supported on Outlook online and on desktop clients.

On the desktop clients a button is added to the Message ribbon with the Squirro icon and the label Search:

On webmail the same action can be invoked from a menu:

When using this functionality in the compose view, the detail view of items also sports a Add Article to Email button which can be used to directly cite the found information.