Actionable Messages Configuration

Last updated on 2021-11-12 • 6 min read

Summary

This page has instructions of how to configure and enable Actionable Messages for Teamwork.

Actionable Messages starting from release 4.0 brings users the possibility to interact with Teamwork straight from renewal notification email they receive as workspace owners when a workspace is due to be archived. This email is sent to all Workspace owners, when there are 60, 30, 15 or 1 day(s) left for the workspace to be auto archived. This boosts the productivity of your end users by eliminating context switching and ensures timely actions by providing them a hassle-free experience.

Configure

For enabling actionable messages, there are 2 requirements for changing and extending the configuration of Teamwork & the tenant:

1. Teamwork Service Account needs to have an Exchange license (actionable messages require a service account to be the sender of the email)
2. An Actionable Messages Provider needs to be configured on Exchange level

Update Teamwork Service account to an account with Exchange license

This is the account on whose behalf sending actionable emails utilizing MS Graph will happen. If the service account configured for Teamwork has no license and you wish to enable actionable messages for Teamwork, you will need to update the service account with an account that has Exchange license.

Open the Teamwork Resource group on Azure portal:

Navigate to {tenant}-teamwork-functions Function App > Configuration and update the following keys:

TeamworkServiceAccountUserName value should be updated with an account with Exchange license

TeamworkServiceAccountPassword value should be updated with an encrypted service account password

To encrypt the service account password, open PowerShell and navigate to the partner pack root folder (e.g. C:_\PartnerPack-Teamwork-ReleaseO365-4.0) and run command:

    .\CreateEncryptedPassword.ps1

The script will then prompt for the password and after typing in the password, you will get the encrypted password value to be copied and updated to the configuration key TeamworkServiceAccountPassword.

Once having updated the Teamwork Functions App configuration, perform the exact same steps for the App Service configuration to update the service account with an account with an Exchange license.

Enable Actionable Messages on Exchange Online level

Actionable messages cannot be sent, if it is not specifically enabled on Exchange online level. To enable actionable messages Exchange administrator needs to approve a new AM (actionable message) provider. Reference for the configuration steps: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/email-dev-dashboard

To enable actionable messages, on the target tenant navigate to https://outlook.office.com/connectors/oam/publish where you will register a new provider for actionable messages with specific input.

Click "New Provider" and On 1st section of the form

1. Provide a Friendly Name for your provider – e.g. “Valo Teamwork”
2. Provide a Sender email address from which actionable emails will originate - fill in the Teamwork Service account email address (the service account needs to have an Exchange license in order to actionable messages to work)
3. Provide Target URLs – fill in the URL of the Teamwork specific Azure Resource Teamwork Actions by navigating to Teamwork Resource group > {tenant}-teamwork-actions on Azure Portal and copy the URL value:

On 2nd section of the form

Select Scope of submission to be Organization which means that Actionable Messages are received only within the organization sent by the Sender email address

On 3rd section of the form

1. Provide an email address you would like to notify of a submission for enabling Actionable Messages and also comments why this enablement request is being sent.
2. Accept the terms and conditions

After saving the submission for a new provider, the request needs to be approved

Exchange administrator needs to approve the request for a new provider. For this you would need to follow-up the request with the Exchange admin.

Exchange admin will receive an email to review the submission and approve or reject the request:

After approving the request for a new provider

The provider will appear with status "Approved" under https://outlook.office.com/connectors/oam/publish.

Notice that after approval confirmation email states that "Please note that it may take up to 24 hours for the approval to be effective. Request you to start using AM after that.". The documentation only mentions delay of "up to one hour" at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/email-dev-dashboard#approval-of-your-submission but you would need to expect actionable message notifications being available in 24 hours after the submission was approved.

Updating the Provider Id to Azure App Service configuration

After registering and approving the new actionable email provider, the provider id (originator) needs to be configured to the Teamwork Azure App Service configuration by following these steps:

1. Open Azure Portal and navigate to the Valo Teamwork Resource Group > App Service > Configuration, open the configuration key TeamworkActionableMessageProviderId and paste the provider id value as the value for the configuration.

1. Click OK and Save the configuration changes.

Notification emails until actionable messages are available

The standard html messages will be sent until actionable messages will become available so there’s no delay sending archiving due date notification messages to workspace owners. The template that Valo Teamwork utilizes contains representation for both types of templates. Email client is intelligent enough to know which template will be visible in the message and in case actionable messages are not yet fully configured or ready, email client will show the html version of the message.

For html templates there is this inconvenient switch of context and needing to navigate to the workspace for end-users to extend the lifetime

while the benefit of enabling actionable messages enables extending the lifetime straight from the message itself without switching context: