Background
I recently posted two questions to Stack Overflow:
- Outlook Add-In: how to automatically reply based on custom logic?
- Outlook Add-In: how to simulate automatic reply with external service?
In brief, I am trying to find a way to send an automatic reply to an email based on custom logic, e.g. whether the sender is verified according to an external service. (The automatic reply feature native to Outlook is extremely limited.)
The Oulook Add-Ins team answered that this is not currently possible because web add-ins require the context of an item to run. So, a user would need to manually select a message before the add-in could do anything.
Another Stack Overflow user answered that this is currently possible but with VSTO add-ins only. Unfortunately, VSTO is a very old framework and only works with Windows and desktop Outlook, while modern users often use web Outlook on other platforms.
Request: Allow Add-Ins to Run Without Item Context
Therefore, I request that Outlook add-ins be allowed to run without item context, so they can take action without the user manually selecting an item. This would allow me to build such an automatic reply feature.
Of course, it will be important to tightly scope what the add-in can do without item context and make users aware of what they're agreeing to by installing such an add-in. But this is entirely achievable, and users would very much benefit from an add-in that can do more for them.
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I'm currently unable to make any progress on my automatic replies feature, so please consider implementing this soon! Thank you.
