Outlook 2016 autoconfigure

@tim.rees That is correct - a fresh 10.11.2 and even 10.10.5 user does NOT have a LaunchAgents folder. I have my variant of the script make the ~/LaunchAgents folder if it needs to write the setup launch agent.

Thanks @benbass

Good to know if the folder is created that it will work! I will go and find your variant of the script and have a look.

@tim.rees I guess I should post my variant then shouldn't I. :) I also just thought of something to add as a check if the setup has already been done, as I just had the launch agent load again for the setup while outlook was already open.

I'm thinking of having a file or plist created at the end of the Apple Script, and then have the script check for that file.

I'll work on that and see about posting a sanitized version of my scripts this week.

@benbass I assumed it was forked on GIT :-)

Chances are I will need this LaunchAgent folder for more projects, so I would be tempted to make a LaunchAgent that creates the user launchagent folder with the right permissions if it is not found!

Speaking of which, can you confirm what permissions you believe need to be on the LaunchAgent folder in the user library?

Thanks.

@tim.rees Oh, I do have it in git - in a private repo. So I will fork again, and sanitize the scripts for general consumption.

As a temporary fix i've add the following in at the start of the OutlookExchangeSetupLaunchAgent.sh file:

# Create $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents if it does not exist username=$(ls -l /dev/console | awk '{print $3}') if [ ! -d "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents" ] then sudo -u $username /bin/mkdir -m 0700 "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents" fi

Edit: I just found there is a line for creating the LaunchAgents folder in the .sh file... I don't know why it didn't work before.. but it seems to be working now...

@benbass @talkingmoose Either of you encountered the LaunchAgents put into ~/Library/LaunchAgents appearing to be duplicated in /Library/LaunchAgents in a fresh install of 10.11.2? I thought I was going slightly insane.

@tim.rees I haven't seen that particular thing happen. But I finally have my whole setup complete - so tomorrow I will anonymize it and post it up on github. It is based off of @talkingmoose setup but uses scripts instead of profiles for setting things and I have tweaked his AppleScript, but is is mainly his hard work.

I'll post here once I get that up.

@tim.rees, that wouldn't be something caused the scripts (latest version 5.1.0). Not sure what would be causing duplication. They are duplicated not just created in the wrong place?

Let's not let go of that insanity idea just yet. For my sake. ;-)

Hey @talkingmoose

I was about to post with my further findings...

Ignore everything I ever said!!!!! :-)

I re-downloaded the scripts from scratch, removed the launchctl command from the postflight script, and it worked first time! I think the problem was between the keyboard and the chair!

Thanks for the scripts @talkingmoose and thanks for the help @benbass :-)

Hi All...This may not be the right spot for this question as it's a bit off topic but haven't been able to find a discussion out there that covers it...

So the scenario I am working with is this:

Corp environment running Office 2011, Outlook 2011 connected to Exchange accounts, Users have moved some emails into "On My Computer" folders in an attempt to archive emails off of the live Exchange boxes. Therefore users open Outlook and they are Connected to Exchange and also have local "On My Computer" folders with email.

We are now working with upgrading/migrating these users to Office 2016....I am looking for a automated/scripted method to either A. Install Office 2016 side by side with Office 2011 and then import the contents of the "Microsoft User Data" folder for Outlook 2011 to the new "Identities" location for Outlook 2016 to bring over all emails contained within "On My Computer" as well as the Exchange account. Or B. Backup the "Microsoft User Data" folder for Outlook 2011, uninstall Office 2011, Install Office 2016 and then restore the backup made of the "Microsoft User Data" folder into Outlook 2016 to bring over the "On My Computer" folders as well as the Exchange account.

Let me know what you guys think...thanks in advance :)

@Carlos, right now, Outlook 2016 has no scripted way of importing an Outlook 2011 identity. It's going to have to be a manual process run by someone using Outlook.

Outlook 2016 will import a 2011 identity if you choose File > Import > Outlook 2011 data on this computer.

FYI, Outlook 2016 when used with Office 365 or Exchange now supports Online Archive if your administrator has enabled it for your accounts. You'll still need to move those On My Computer messages manually back to your Exchange account, however, going forward the server will automatically move them to the Online Archive mailbox for that user. This mailbox is not synchronized to Outlook. It's a great way to access old messages without consuming your primary mailbox's quota.

So, short answer. You'll still feel some pain now, but getting your users upgraded will help you feel a lot less pain later.

Hi, first of all, i want to thank talkingmoose for this amazing script!! Thank you! Im new in this forum and the conversations here many time helped me out of problems so i have decided to join this forum. About this script i have a question: it work fine in my enviroment with el capitan, but the account in outlook dublicates himself every time i restart outlook and after several times opening, i got 5 identical accounts. Do you have any idea what could be the issue? I reinstalled the mac several times but still the same problem. thank you for your help!

Good job talkingmoose.

@talkingmoose we are also in the situation of having our users import the 2011 identity, including the account. As we are going to o365, we need to change the username from domainusername to UPN (or email address) on the account that is being imported. Can you point me in the right direction on if this is possible or if we will need to create a new account? And if we create a new account is there a way to make the username the UPN instead of the short name or domainusername? thanks in advance

@mapurcel, Outlook 2016's built-in import/upgrade feature won't migrate IMAP or Exchange mail/calendar/contact data. It will only migrate account settings and preferences such as rules, categories and signatures. Microsoft expects the mail to download from the server.

Because the import cannot be scripted, you or your user will need to launch Outlook 2016 and start that process manually (or it may kick in as part of the first launch of Outlook). But you'll then have to change account settings too.

My suggestion is to start new accounts and be sure to educate users they will need to recreate those preferences I mention above.

@eholtam has corrected me on Outlook 2016's behavior when importing Outlook 2011 mail data. It will import mail data directly instead of downloading data from the servers again.

This is a great script. When we rolled out version 15.17 it was working flawlessly.
But when we went to 15.18, we got a new odd behavior.
Everything works correctly, the agent sets up the account when Outlook is launched and prompts for the user's password as it always has.
The difference now is that the account doesn't actually log in.
The account is setup correctly but doesn't start downloading email.
If you quit outlook and relaunch it, the mail starts populating as you might expect.
Has anyone seen this behavior before?

@AdamH, not sure about the behavior you're seeing with the newer version of Outlook, but you may be able to kickstart the login by adding a couple of lines at the end of the script to set Outlook to work offline and then online again.

tell application "Microsoft Outlook" to set working offline to true
tell application "Microsoft Outlook" to set working offline to false

@AdamH I am seeing the behavior you're describing on Outlook 15.19.1.

I also took the liberty of toggling from online to offline within the first time Outlook being launched after entering password, it has no affect. Only after closing Outlook and relaunching do I get a secondary prompt to enter password and then the mailbox begins to sync.

@AdamH @kbach seeing the same behavior for me as well on 15.21.1.

Immediately after entering the account password when I go into account settings there's no password entered. When I quit and reopen it prompts again and when I enter the password this time it immediately starts syncing mail. Put in this in an issue on Github.

have seen the same behavior intermittently with 15.21.1

Using the updated 5.3 AppleScript from Github and adding a delay 5 before the end tell for Microsoft Outlook resolved our issue. Script is now working like a thing of beauty.

Thanks for making my and my team's lives for our image next year that much easier! <3

This is an awesome script! I have so much to learn from this!

I'm curious if anyone here has had any luck scripting the S/MIME certificates anywhere for Outlook 2016.

I see both options to enable smime encryption and signing in apple script and can set those, but without a cert selected it defeats the purpose.

Would you be able to point me in the right direction for that one?

@aporlebeke, so glad to hear the delay is working. You might try a shorter delay if you feel the timing is a little slow. I'll do some testing and consider adding this to the AppleScript.

@cskj, unfortunately, the only encryption/certificate settings that are scriptable don't include configuring the account to use them. While Microsoft will continue supporting the existing AppleScript code in Office for Mac, it has said it will no longer continue development. That means we're more than likely not going to see the necessary properties added to Outlook's dictionary to script enabling certificates.