Outlook Add-in launch guide

Overview

Opensense is a service that lets companies centrally manage the appearance and content of company email signatures. The Opensense Add-in for Outlook is an Integrated App that’s centrally managed and deployed, so individual employees get a touchless onboarding experience. For how the add-in works, see the Outlook Add-in overview.

Prerequisites

The Outlook add-in requires these minimum Outlook versions:

Classic Outlook on Windows: Version 2104 (Build 13929.20296) or later. The Outlook version must support API requirement set 1.10.
New Outlook on Mac: Version 16.38.506 or later.
Additional features: Need API requirement set 1.13 (classic Outlook on Windows Version 2304, Build 16327.20248, or later). These were first available only with a Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft now also supports 1.13 in retail Outlook 2021 and later and in volume-licensed Outlook 2024, but not in volume-licensed Outlook 2021.

Before launch:

Coordinate the deployment date and time with your IT department.
On launch day, your system admin adds users or groups to the Opensense Email Signatures app, under Integrated apps in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This turns on email signatures for those users. See Scoping Outlook Add-in users in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
When new users or groups are added, your system admin needs to re-grant permissions for the add-in.

Deployment tips and best practices

The add-in can take up to 72 hours to appear for new users added to the add-in group.
We recommend adding members on a Friday, so the add-in is deployed by Monday.
Consider adding test users first, to confirm how long it takes in your environment.

End-user experience

When the add-in deploys, employees see an Opensense Email Signatures app installed in Outlook on Windows, on the web, and on Mac.
In Outlook, employees compose an email, and their Opensense signature appears at the bottom of the email.
The Opensense signature is inserted automatically, instead of locally saved signatures.
Your Opensense onboarding team provides branded employee instructions. Add or remove instructions as needed, for a seamless launch.

Internal launch communications

Before you send

Good launch communication is the difference between a few support emails and many more than you need. To help you get started, here’s a sample email, submitted by a customer who launched their email signatures successfully.

Send launch communications 1 to 3 days before launch day. Bonus points for showing your new company signature even sooner, at an all-hands meeting.
If you write a launch email you’re proud of, send it to your customer success manager, so it can be added to the knowledge base to help others.

Email template

To: All Employees

Subject: Standardized Corporate Email Signature

In an effort to present a stronger unified brand to our customers, we will be implementing a standardized email signature for all employees. Using a service called Opensense, the marketing team will now centrally manage the style and format of email signatures, while employee contact information will be synced from our company directory. This ensures our corporate email communications will have a consistent appearance going forward.

Your email signature on all emails from Outlook (PC, Mac, and Web) will be beautiful and up to date with all of the latest messaging, and best of all, there is nothing to do on your end! Our IT team will be enabling a policy starting on XX/XX/XX that will automatically update your email signature in Outlook the next time you log in.

Finally, because contact information is synced with our company directory, certain fields in your signature block will be enforced by directory information when sending an email. If your signature contains incorrect information, or you need any other help setting up your email signature, please contact our IT Helpdesk for support: help@ABC.com

Highlights of the new email signature block are:

Change requests

To set expectations for changes, you can add this paragraph to the email:

If you believe that you have a legitimate case for adding or changing something on your signature, please get approval from your manager, and place an IT service ticket stating what you want. Your request will be reviewed by Marketing for consideration. Do not make changes on your own. Thanks for your cooperation.

What’s next

For further help, contact Opensense Support at help@opensense.com.