Introduction
The Universal Workiro Add-in for Microsoft Outlook provides a seamless way to automatically capture email conversations to Workiro and turn them into productive threads.
There are two versions of the Workiro Outlook Add-in available. This article refers to the Universal Outlook Add-in, rather than the 'Windows Outlook Add-in'. Please review this Microsoft Outlook Add-ins article to determine which add-in version is most appropriate for you.
In this guide
- Minimum requirements
- Installing the add-in
- Using the add-in
- Add emails from your mailbox
- Add an email on sending
- Captured emails
- Team members
- Managing connected mailboxes
- Privacy and security considerations
Minimum requirements
- Microsoft Outlook: 2016, 2019, Office 365 for Windows, Mac and Web
- Microsoft Exchange: Exchange Online
Email services not based on Microsoft Exchange, such as GMail, are not supported by the Universal Microsoft Add-in framework. If this case please consider using our Windows Outlook Add-in.
Internet Explorer 11 browser access to the web version of Outlook is not supported.
Installing the add-in
You can install the add-in manually in Outlook for Windows, Mac & Web by clicking the badge below or by following these steps from Microsoft
In the Add-Ins dialogue, use the search field to find the Workiro Add-in and click Add.
If you don't have these options, they may have been disabled within your Office365/Exchange configuration, in which case your IT contact can centrally deploy the Add-in.
After accepting the terms of service and privacy policy, plus a short wait, your screen should refresh and you'll see that the add-in has been installed
N.B. You may need to restart Microsoft Outlook before the add-in appears and operates correctly.
Once installed, the Add-in will automatically update when new versions become available.
If you wish to deploy the Add-in to multiple users in your organisation automatically you can do so using the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre.
Using the add-in
Following the installation of the Add-in, and a restart of Microsoft Outlook, a new Workiro button will appear in your Outlook toolbar.
With an email selected, click the button and the Workiro Add-in will open in the Outlook task pane.
As a first step, it is important to 'Pin' your add-in so that it is available on each email you have open. Do this by clicking the empty Pin icon. Note that you will also need to Pin the add-in task pane when you are composing or replying to an email.
Follow the steps to Sign in to your Workiro account and connect it to your mailbox
With the add-in connected, you can choose to add an email you are composing, or an email already in your mailbox, to Workiro.
Add emails from your mailbox
With an email in your mailbox selected configure the following options from the task pane.
- Name: taken from the email subject, will be the resulting document name in Workiro and can be edited.
- Team Access: determines whether the email will be accessible to your team in Workiro.
- Conversation Capture: determines whether subsequent emails in this conversation will be captured automatically. Each reply is captured as a new version of the document in Workiro.
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Relates To… by default these are your Workiro connections and are determined from the email participants' From and To: fields. If they don’t already exist in Workiro, a new connection will be created when the email is added. Use the
control to add additional classifications such as Tags and Projects.
Having updated any of the available options for your selected email, you can 'Add' the email to Workiro, following this, you will see a 'Success' message in the task pane.
Add an email on sending
After completing your email's subject and recipients, select the 'Add to Workiro' checkbox and this information will be copied to the task pane. You will be prompted to save any changes you make to the document name, team access, conversation capture or related classification. On sending, the email will be added to Workiro.
Optionally you can enable a reminder for your team. In the Workiro application navigate to Settings > Team > Options, and select the Outlook Add-In 'Notify When Sending' option. A native Outlook reminder will be triggered when users send an email without first adding it to Workiro.
Captured emails
Emails you have added are automatically categorised as being 'In Workiro'. Where conversation capture is enabled any subsequent replies in the conversation are marked the same way.
On selecting an email categorised as 'In Workiro' the Outlook task pane displays the Document Details view. From here there are several options available.
- Create Task: Turn your email into action by creating a task in Workiro. With your conversation being captured all subsequent replies will be added seamlessly to the task.
- Stop Conversation Capture: Stop capturing the conversation by selecting this option. Note that the capture cannot currently be restarted from this email.
- Navigate to Workiro: Open Workiro in your browser by navigating to the related connections, projects or tags.
Team members
Emails categorized 'In Workiro'
To provide clarity and avoid duplication the 'In Workiro' status will be added for all Workiro team members who have the Outlook Add-in installed, and are participants in a captured email.
Managing connected mailboxes
Team owners can manage their team member mailbox connections as follows.
- When a team member has connected their mailbox and is capturing at least one conversation, the connected mailbox icon will display against their profile.
- If the mailbox connection has an error the team member will receive an email notification. The connected mailbox icon will display a red error state. The mailbox can be reconnected via the Outlook Add-in.
- Team owners can remove their team members' mailbox connections by editing their Workiro profile. This effectively stops any conversations that are being captured from their mailbox.
Privacy and security considerations
The Workiro Outlook Add-in is only available from the Microsoft AppSource store, which follows specific measures to maintain the integrity of Add-ins. Where appropriate this means that the add-in can be managed and deployed centrally. Before installing the Add-in from AppSource, and when connecting their mailbox to Workiro, end users can see the access and actions that the Add-in can make on their data and must explicitly confirm to proceed. No Outlook Add-in is automatically pushed onto a client computer without manual validation by the user or administrator.
More information about Privacy, permissions and security specifically for Outlook Add-ins can be found in this Microsoft Learn article. More general Microsoft Office Add-in security and privacy information can be found here.
Read more about ways to connect Workiro with other tools you're using: