Today’s application development is more challenging than ever with achieving that balance between server/client negotiations and end-user interaction, especially where… we’ve a legacy base of client-side applications, different client OS’s, different versions of Office and browsers, different types of browsers and 3rd party add-ons. For instance, how do we handle user feedback where the there’s a dependency on a client-side application (e.g. launch associated application), but the required client application is not present and/or where the client is using mixed browsers?
In this post, I refer specifically to Outlook and the browser UI “Connect to Outlook” menu option in document libraries and lists, the effects of the presence and non-presence of Outlook 2007 and the different handling of the interface in IE6/7 and Firefox. This post assumes you are running/accessing either MOSS or WSS sites and using Windows as the Authentication Type (non-SSL).
The other day I was working with a custom workflow in MOSS, switching between my dev and test environments, and found myself experiencing client-side behavior in SharePoint I’d not yet encountered. In essence, I’d become accustomed to using the document library/list browser UI contextual menu option “Connect to Outlook” to integrate my workflow tasks into my Outlook 2007 client when, suddenly, the option wasn’t available. Why? Well, simple, I’d switched to a test server where the Outlook client wasn’t installed. In fact, the application had behaved as it should have and had hidden a redundant functionality – no client so don’t show the feature in the UI. But, the reason wasn’t immediately obvious – expected behavior from learned experience.
I’ve seen a few questions relating to this functionality, so I decided to do some investigating based on browser type/version and presence/non-presence of Outlook 2007/2003, summarized below.
IE6/7, Connect to Outlook menu option where Outlook 2007 is installed on client. Clicking Connect to Outlook will launch Outlook 2007.
IE6/7, Connect to Outlook menu option absent, Outlook 2007 is NOT installed on client. Note, the Connect to Outlook link will also be absent if Outlook 2003 is installed on the client since this integration feature requires Outlook 2007.
Firefox, Connect to Client menu option which is displayed regardless of whether Outlook 2007 is or isn’t installed on client.
Firefox dialogue presented when you select to Connect to Client. If you click Launch Application, this will launch Outlook 2007 (if installed). Also, if you click Remember my choice for all links of this type Firefox will in future associate this action with Outlook 2007.
Firefox, dialogue presented after clicking Launch Application when no installation of Outlook 2007 on client or where Outlook 2003 is instead installed.
So, if you don’t see the “Connect to Outlook” option, here are some initial checks to perform:
- Is Outlook installed and configured on your machine?
- What version of Outlook are you running – 2007 or 2003?
- Has the SharePoint administrator enabled the Client Integration function – Central Administration > Application Management > Authentication Providers >Edit Authentication
- What Authentication Type are you using – Windows or Forms – and how is that configured?
- What browser-type are you using - if Firefox, then you should see the alternative “Connect to Client“?