Kopano Outlook Extension available as final!

August 2, 2016

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Category: Releases

The Kopano communication & sharing platform introduces a modern communication experience through a future proof client family, to which we are now adding our Kopano OL Extension. WebApp allows you to be productive from anywhere. DeskApp is developed as the bridge between WebApp and the desktop. The Kopano OL Extension provides Outlook support, working offline and mobility.

The Kopano OL Extension (KOE) serves as an enhancement to the already included ActiveSync support of Microsoft Outlook 2013 and 2016. KOE is available as an msi package and can be installed before or after creating your ActiveSync account in Outlook. Our extension supports Outlook 2013 and newer versions (in 32 and 64 bit). The Kopano OL Extension (supported by the latest final release of Z-Push 2.3) marks a big step towards better integration of Outlook 2013 and 2016 with the Kopano World.

Its functionality starts where the native ActiveSync implementation of Outlook ends and is designed to provide users with the ability to set an Out of Office message, look up scheduling data of colleagues and automatically synchronize reply- and forward icons between Outlook and the Kopano server. A drawback of the ActiveSync protocol is that the Global Address Book (GAB) can only be queried, but not synchronized to devices. In addition to this, Outlook only allows you to synchronize your default contacts folder of the inbox. The Kopano OL Extension works around this limitation by storing a copy of the GAB on the user’s machine.

We think it depends on the actual use case whether the new Kopano OL Extension is the perfect fit for you. If you are on the road a lot and thus without an internet connection, or if you rely on specialised plugins from Outlook, then the Kopano OL Extension might just be the thing for you.

Show it to me!

Most of the magic happens ‘under the hood’: there is not much to see on the surface. Once installed, the Kopano OL Extension will add itself to the Outlook ribbon.
KOE-Outlook-Splash

KOE-Ouf-of-Office

Out of office messages

Out of office messages can be set until further notice or for a specific time frame. KOE will check during Outlook start-up if a message is currently set and offer to deactivate it (just like users are already accustomed to from Kopano WebApp).


Global Address Book

The Global Address Book (GAB) is synced to the local system. It will be presented as “Address Book for maildomain.tld”, which is especially handy if you have multiple Z-Push enabled

KOE-contacts

KOE-composing-message
ActiveSync accounts in Outlook.

Multiple languages available

The ribbon and all of its dialogues are currently available in four languages (Dutch, English, German, Hungarian) and the language setting is set by default to the language of Outlook. If you want to help translating Kopano and the Kopano OL Extension, please let us know!

Stay tuned for a blog post on the Kopano OL Extension, where we will go more in-depth and give a brief overview of (planned) features.

What do I need to get started with the Kopano OL Extension?

The Kopano OL Extension can be downloaded from the Kopano portal. You can find more detailed setup instructions in the Kopano Knowledge Base. To use KOE you need at least Z-Push 2.3.
Please head over to the Z-Push wiki for instructions on how to install Z-Push 2.3 and upgrade your old installation. To enable the GAB sync feature, refer to the guide on the Z-Push wiki.

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