User Guide

Introduction

A simple way to discover, find, use and manage your Office content across locations, devices and platforms.

Content Chooser for Office, Word
Content Chooser for Office, Excel
Content Chooser for Office, PowerPoint
Content Chooser for Outlook, Outlook
Content Chooser for Office, OneNote
Multiple Office App Awards Winner
Microsoft 365 App Certified

Launching

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In Office

Content Chooser Ribbon

The ‘Content Chooser’ App will appear automatically in the Insert tab in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. In Outlook, it will appear in the Message tab when editing an e-mail message and in the Appointment tab when editing a calendar entry. To launch the App, click on the ‘Contents’ button in the respective tab.

Supported Office applications

Word
Word
Word
Excel
Word
PowerPoint
Word
OneNote
Word
Outlook

Please note: The ‘Content Chooser’ might not be available on different platforms for different Office applications depending on the platform's capabilities.

Signing In

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To get started with this Add-In/App you need to connect it with your existing Microsoft 365 Work or School account or with your Personal Microsoft Account. Follow these steps:

Please note:

If your Office application supports SSO (Single sign-on) you will not see this welcome screen and be directly signed in to the officeatwork Add-in/App with the same account you signed into your Office application.

Content Chooser Welcome Page
  • Click on the 'Connect' (1) button.

  • Sign-in using your Microsoft 365 (Work or School) account or your Personal Microsoft Account.

  • You might be asked to consent to the Add-In accessing your data. This step might have been taken care of by your internal IT department in advance. In that case you will not be asked.

  • Done.

Please note:

The actual sign in experience is provided by Microsoft. officeatwork does not offer any user accounts. Users must use their existing accounts to sign in to the Add-In.

Please note:

For Office application versions that do not support automatic SSO (Single sign-on), users will have to repeat this sign-in step periodically, dependent on their Azure AD settings. Usually, this Azure AD setting is set to 90 days. This setting can be changed by each customer individually in Azure AD.

Accounts

This Add-In accepts Microsoft 365 Work or School accounts. It also accepts Personal Microsoft Accounts including GitHub accounts.

Consenting

The first time you connect the app, you might be asked to consent to the permissions required by the app. Please go through those permissions carefully and grant consent as the App requires these permissions to function. If you do not grant consent, the app will not work for you.

Please note:

Your IT administrator can pre-consent on behalf of all users. That way you and your fellow users would not have to consent each individually. Your IT administrators can learn more about pre-consenting here.

App Menus

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You can find the app menus at the bottom of the app. It currently consists of the 'officeatwork' logo (on the left) and (on the right) the 'Settings' menu, the 'Help' menu, and the 'User' menu. Clicking on the officeatwork logo will take you to the officeatwork website.

Please note:

Dependent on the officeatwork app and its configuration for your Microsoft 365 tenant, items available in the app menus may vary.

Settings

Settings menu
  • About: This will take you to the about pane that lists various information about this app.

  • Rate: This will take you to the review page on Microsoft AppSource.

  • Document: This will take you to the document settings page of this app.

  • Admin Center: If you are an officeatwork admin, you will see the 'Admin Center' option that will take you straight to the officeatwork 'Admin Center' app.

Help

The help menu is customizable via the officeatwork 'Admin Center' App. The description below explains the standard officeatwork experience. It's also possible that the help option is completely missing (No help experience) or is showing different elements in the case where your officeatwork admin has chosen to go for a custom help experience.

Help menu

officeatwork standard help experience

  • Getting Started: Link to a page that will help you get started with this Add-In or App.

  • Documentation: Link to the documentation of the Add-In or App.

  • Help Center: Link to the officeatwork Help Center.

  • Community: Link to the officeatwork community on LinkedIn.

  • Send us your Feedback: Link to an online feedback form you can use to reach out to officeatwork.

  • Roadmap: Link to the roadmap page of the Add-In or App.

Additionally to the help experiences listed above, you might also want to consider the following (free and paid) options:

  • Learn more links: Throughout the app, you will find 'Learn more' links that will take you to the documentation pages covering the topic you are currently viewing. These links are the fastest way to pull up the relevant documentation.

  • Premium Support: Customers with a Premium Support Subscription can use additional support offerings and channels made available via the premium support subscription.

  • Your internal resources: You will most likely have internal resources covering the Business aspects or IT aspects of this App. Please also consider reaching out to them when appropriate. Thank you.

User Menu

User menu
  • Signed-in User: You can see the photo, name, and email address of the currently signed-in user at the top of the User menu.

  • Sign out: This option will allow you to sign out of this Add-In/App.

To switch a library, click on the library icon(1) at the top of the Add-In. That will bring up a list of all your available libraries. You can then click on one of the libraries to switch.

Content Chooser Navigation
  • Click the 'Library' (1) icon.

  • The library selection pane will appear.

  • Select a library.

  • Done.

Contents

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Inserting Content

Once you have loaded a content library, you can easily insert content into your current document by clicking anywhere (1) on the content.

Content Chooser Content

In Office & Outlook

  • Click on any content.

  • The content will be inserted at your current cursor position/selection in your document.

  • Done.

context Menu

When hovering over a content you will see three dots (the context menu) to the far right of the content entry. Click on the button to explore the options.

Content Menu
  • Click into the context menu (1).

  • Choose one of the options.

    • Add Favorites will add this content to your favorites list.

    • Remove Favorites will remove the cfrom your favorites list‍

    • Show Preview will show a preview of the content below the content item.

    • Hide Preview will hide the content preview.

    • View in Host will open the content in your current office application. This option might not be available for all file formats.

    • View Online will open a new browser window to show you the content itself.

  • Done.

Searching Contents

Use the search box to search for content with a specific name within the active content library.

Please note:

The search for SharePoint based libraries will will include all library columns as well as the file content.

Content Chooser Search
  • Click into the search box.

  • Type your search criteria.

  • Hit Enter on your Keyboard.

  • Done.

Please note: Searching across multiple libraries is currently not supported.

Navigating Folders

Use the ‘breadcrumb’ navigation element (1) to move up your folder hierarchy. To navigate into a folder, click onto its icon.

Content Chooser Breadcrumb
  • Click on a folder to navigate into that folder.

  • Click onto the breadcrumb to navigate back out of folders.

Managing Content

To manage your content of the currently loaded library, click on the 'View Online' (1) button. To manage content from a different library, switch to that library before clicking on the 'View Online' button.

Content Chooser Manage Content
  • Click into the 'View Online' (1) button.

  • A new browser window will open showing you the current library.

  • Done.

Favorites

To see your favorites just click on the 'Favorites' (1) tab. To return to your Libraries just click on the 'Libraries' tab. Click on the Context Menu of the individual content to add or remove it to/from your favorites list. You can drag-and-drop your favorites items to sort them the way you wish.

Content Chooser Favorites
  • Click into the 'Favorites' (1) button.

  • Your favorites list will appear.

  • Done.

Supported files

Dependent on what environment our apps are running in, the following list of file formats will be supported.

Attention: Office for the browser (Office online) only supports file sizes up to 5 MB.

Supported File formats

Word

Word
DOCX
Word
TXT (4)
Word
HTML
Word
PNG
Word
JPG
Word
GIF
Word
SVG (1, 5)

Excel

Word
XLSX
Word
TXT (4)
Word
PNG
Word
JPG
Word
GIF
Word
SVG (1, 3)

PowerPoint

Word
PPTX (2)
Word
TXT (4)
Word
PNG
Word
JPG
Word
GIF
Word
SVG (3)

OneNote

Word
TXT (4)
Word
PNG
Word
JPG
Word
GIF

Outlook

Word
TXT (4)
Word
HTML
Word
PNG
Word
JPG
Word
GIF

Please note:

All other formats will be visible and can be used as attachments to email messages

Please note:

Inserting contents as linked contents is currently only supported in Word!

(1) Not available in Office for the browser (Office Online)

(2) Be sure to check the compatibility for this feature with your PowerPoint version as this feature was introduced in January 2021

(3) Not available in Office for iPad

(4) TXT files need to be UTF-8 encoded

(5) SVG contents can not be inserted as linked contents due to Office API restrictions

OneDrive Libraries

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Enable / Disable

This feature is enabled by default. This feature can be disabled using the officeatwork Admin Center App. Users signing-in with a personal account are not able to sign-in to the officeatwork Admin Center and can therefore not disable this feature.

Configuration

Manage OneDrive Libraries

At first, you might not have configured your OneDrive or OneDrive for Business for the 'Content Chooser'. In this case, you will find a 'Manager Libraries' (1) button below the 'OneDrive' library header. If you have already set up some libraries, you will not see the 'Manager Libraries' button. In this case, you can use the 'Pen' icon (2) to start managing your libraries.

Please note:

Organizational users that sign in with their Work or School account can choose to disable OneDrive support within the Content Chooser. This option can make sense if you want all your content organized in SharePoint/Teams and not promote the management of content on an individual level.

Manage Libraries

Manage OneDrive Libraries

To create a new library, click on the 'Add Library' (1) button. A flyout appears, that will allow you to select a folder. Navigate and select the folder you wish to use as a Content Library and click on the 'Create Library' button at the bottom of the list. With this, you have created a new Content Library linked to the folder you just selected.

To edit an existing library, click onto the library entry (2) in the list of libraries.

To remove the library, click on the «Remove» button at the bottom of the library's properties.

To rename the library, click into the «Name» field and change the name accordingly. Use the arrow back at the top of the page to return to the libraries list.

Embedding Add-In

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You might want to have the 'Content Chooser' Add-In open together with your document. To do that, you can embed the app into your document. Embedding makes the most sense with documents you often need to insert content into, for instance, proposals, contracts, etc. In cases like this, you might even want to embed the 'Content Chooser' app in your proposal or contract template.

Open Add-in together with a document

You might want this app to open alongside your document automatically. To actively embed the Add-In into your currently open document, please follow the steps below:

Document
  • Open the Add-In 'Settings' menu.

  • Click on the 'Document' option.

  • On the 'Document' pane, choose your Embedding option (1).

  • Click 'Save' to save your changes.

Attention:

Please be aware that automatically launching an app, together with a document, will only work if:

  • The user opening the document, with the embedded app, has the app available already, and,

  • The Add-In deployment method is the same for both the user who embedded app and the user opening the document, with the embedded app.

For example, if one user acquired the app from the Office Store, and the other user acquired the app via centralized deployment, the embedding will not work for both users. It will only work for the user who embedded the app in the document. To avoid this platform limitation, please ensure that all your users in your organization acquire the app using the same deployment method, preferably using centralized deployment.

Embedding options

Never

Choose this option if you do not want the Add-In to open together with your document (default setting).

Once

Choose this option if you want the Add-In to only open the next time you open your document, after that it shall not open automatically anymore. 

Always

Choose this option if you want to have the Add-In open together with your document all the time. Note that the Add-In will also open if you close your document with the Add-In closed and then re-open the document.

Business Operations Guide

Introduction

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This Business Operations Guide is aimed at users that are responsible for the successful implementation and running of the officeatwork Apps and Add-Ins in their organization. This guide also includes a Roadmap section where you can learn more about existing and upcoming features.

Apps & Add-Ins

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The following Apps and Add-Ins are included in the Content Chooser.

Supported Applications

The 'Content Chooser' runs within the following Microsoft 365 applications on Windows, Mac, iPad and Office Online:

Word
Word
Word
Excel
Word
PowerPoint
Word
Outlook
Word
OneNote
Word
Edge
Word
Chrome
Word
Safari
Word
Firefox

Please note:  The 'Content Chooser' Apps might offer different features depending on the different Microsoft 365 applications on the various platforms.

Supported Storage Services

The  'Content Chooser' supports the following Microsoft 365 storage locations:

Word
SharePoint Online
Word
Teams
Word
OneDrive

Please note: SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive can be deactivated on a tenant by tenant basis using the officeatwork Admin Center.

Supported User Accounts

The  'Content Chooser' supports the following user accounts:

Word
Microsoft 365 Account
Word
Microsoft Personal Account

Variations

The  'Content Chooser' app will offer different features based on the account you are using or if you are a subscription user or not. If you are evaluating the app without a subscription you will not be able to configure all the options a paying user with a business subscription would be able to. If you sign in using a personal Microsoft account you will also not be able to configure any settings. Additionally, features available only to Microsoft 365 Users like SharePoint Online will also be missing.

Personal

FREE

when using a personal Microsoft account.

Supported Libraries

OneDrive

Teams

SharePoint

Tenant Settings

Feature Settings

Custom feature settings like disabling OneDrive or removing the LinkedIn and Feedback form link.

Advertisement Free

New users will receive no e-mails from officeatwork.

Sample Libraries deactivated

Business

Evaluation

when using a Microsoft 365 account for evaluation purposes.

Supported Libraries

OneDrive for Business

Teams

SharePoint

Tenant Settings

Feature Settings

Custom feature settings like disabling OneDrive or removing the LinkedIn and Feedback form link.

Advertisement Free

New users will receive no e-mails from officeatwork.

Sample Libraries deactivated

Business

Subscription

when using a paid subscription with a Microsoft 365 account.

Supported Libraries

OneDrive for Business

Teams

SharePoint

Tenant Settings

Feature Settings

Custom feature settings like disabling OneDrive or removing the LinkedIn and Feedback form link.

Advertisement Free

New users will receive no e-mails from officeatwork.

Sample Libraries deactivated

SharePoint Online Libraries

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Content libraries based on SharePoint document libraries can be configured via the officeatwork admin center. Learn more about this here.

Content names

By default the file name of the file in the SharePoint document library will be used to display your content in the 'Content Chooser' experience. Alternatively, you can give your content a different name by entering an additional name in the Title field. Providing a name in the Title field is optional and is not required for the content to appear in the 'Content Chooser' experience.

Attention:

Your Title field label might be translated in your SharePoint experience! So, in for example a French SharePoint document library user experience the title column would appear as Titre and not Title. Nevertheless, the column labeled Titre will work!

Content Name Translation

If you are sharing your content across language regions you might want to translate the content names so that users can explore your content in their native language. To add translations to any content in your SharePoint document library you need to add an additional column per language. We offer a simple naming convention to enable this scenario:

Title + . + language code

So for instance, if you would want to show translated French content file names you would need to create an additional column named 'Title.fr'. Make sure you spell the column correctly in your first attempt as renaming the column might only give it a different label but not actually rename the column Name/ID. We also recommend to create new columns via the SharePoint document library 'Library settings' page to make sure your column gets named correctly. Once you have created the column you can go ahead and add a translation for each content file you wish to translate. Thereafter your users viewing the 'Content Chooser' in French will automatically see the translated French content names.

Here is a link to a list of ISO 639-1 language codes you can use:
http://www.lingoes.net/en/translator/langcode.htm

Attention:

Make sure you type your language code in lower case - upper case will not work.

Attention:

If your 'Title' field is translated in your SharePoint experience (for instance 'Titre' for French) you will still need to create your translation columns using the exact English spelling for your additional Title.LanguageCode columns.

Attention:

Please make sure that your Title.LanguageCode fields are defined as single line and not multi-line fields.

Folder Name Translation

To translate the folder names shown in the 'Content Chooser' you would have to create a new SharePoint Content type for your folders that includes the translation columns like Title.fr and assign that folder content type to your document library. Please consult the SharePoint documentation on how to create and assign content types to document libraries.

Special Columns in SharePoint Document Libraries

The 'Content Chooser' supports several officeatwork specific SharePoint columns that will give you some additional functionality per content. To benefit from these features, you need to add any number of the columns described below to the SharePoint document libraries you want these features to work with.

Attention:

If the column names (not labels) do not exactly match the names as defined below, the Special Columns features will not work. We therefor recommend defining new columns via the 'List Settings' page and not directly in the list view.

OFFICEATWORK_RECIPIENTS_TO

When inserting a content into an e-mail in Outlook the content of this SharePoint column gets additionally inserted into the 'e-mail to' of the e-mail message by extending what already might be in the 'e-mail to' of the e-mail. The SharePoint column name must be 'officeatwork_recipients_to' and of type 'Single line of text'. The format of the e-mail addresses follows the standard SMTP format:

name <[e-mail]>; name <e-mail>[e-mail]</e-mail></[e-mail]>

Single e-mail address example:

Joe Duller<joe.duller@domain.com></joe.duller@domain.com>

Multiple e-mail addresses example:

Joe Duller <joe.duller@domain.com>; Tim Hiller <e-mail>tim.hiller@domain.com</e-mail></joe.duller@domain.com>

OFFICEATWORK_RECIPIENTS_CC

When inserting a content into an e-mail in Outlook the content of this SharePoint column gets additionally inserted into the 'e-mail cc' of the e-mail message by extending what already might be in the 'e-mail cc' of the e-mail. The SharePoint column name must be 'officeatwork_recipients_cc' and of type 'Single line of text'. The format of the e-mail addresses follows the standard SMTP format (see officeatwork_recipients_to for details on this format).

OFFICEATWORK_RECIPIENTS_BCC

When inserting a content into an e-mail in Outlook the content of this SharePoint column gets additionally inserted into the 'e-mail bcc' of the e-mail message by extending what already might be in the 'e-mail bcc' of the e-mail. The SharePoint column name must be 'officeatwork_recipients_bcc' and of type 'Single line of text'. The format of the e-mail addresses follows the standard SMTP format (see officeatwork_recipients_to for details on this format).

OFFICEATWORK_SUBJECT

When inserting a content into an e-mail in Outlook the content of this SharePoint column gets additionally inserted into the 'e-mail subject' of the e-mail message by extending what already might be in the subject of the e-mail. The SharePoint column name must be 'officeatwork_subject' and of type 'Single line of text'.

OFFICEATWORK_attachments

When inserting a content into an e-mail in Outlook, the URLs found in this SharePoint column get used to download and attach any files referenced that way from any SharePoint online library. Any already existing attachments remain attached to your e-mail. The SharePoint column name must be 'officeatwork_attachments' and of type 'Single line of text' or 'Multiple lines of text'. In the case of 'Multiple lines of text' we would also recommend to activate the 'Allow unlimited length in document libraries' option. This way you should have enough characters available to enter multiple URLs. Please note that multiple URLs of attachments must be separated by a semicolon (;) with no spaces before or after the semicolon.

Teams Libraries

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Enable / Disable

This feature is enabled by default. This feature can be disabled using the officeatwork Admin Center App. Users signing-in with a personal account are not able to sign-in to the officeatwork Admin Center and can therefore not disable this feature.

Consenting

Enable Teams

Initially you need to consent to the Add-In being allowed to use your Teams data. To do this you click on the enable (1) button. This will start an admin permissions flow that only Microsoft 365 Administrators can complete.

Configuring Teams Libraries

Manage Teams Libraries

At first you might have not configured your Teams libraries. In this case, you will find a «Manager Libraries» (1) button below the «Teams» library header. If you already have set up some libraries, you will not see the «Manager Libraries» button. In this case, you can use the «Pen» icon (2) to start managing your libraries.

Attention:

Please note that only team owners can configure Teams libraries.

Attention:

Please note that private channels are not supported.

Manage Teams Libraries

Manage Teams Libraries

New Library

To create a new library just click on the «Add Library» (1) button. A flyout appears, that will allow you to select a Team, a channel and if you wish any sub-folder within that channel. Navigate and select the channel or folder you wish to use as a Content Library and click on «Create Library» button at the bottom of the list. With this you have created a new Content Library linked to the channel or folder you just selected. Be aware that you can only create one Content Chooser library per team. So once you have created a library for a specific Team that team will not show up anymore in the flyout. Once you have created a Content library within a team that library will become visible for all your team members. There is no need for all team members to repeat this step of creating a teams library for any specific team.

Edit or Remove a Library

To edit an existing library just click onto the library entry (2) in the list of libraries. To remove the library just click on the «Remove» button at the bottom of the library properties. You can not rename a Teams library as it will always show the name of the Team as the library name. Use the arrow back at the top of the page to return to the libraries list.

Content/Folder names and translations

Teams uses SharePoint Online to store all files. So our officeatwork libraries in Teams are actually native SharePoint document libraries. Please check out the SharePoint Online Library section to learn more about to learn more about Content/Folder names and translations.

Public Libraries

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The Content Chooser comes with a set of public image libraries. These libraries offer royalty free images. Please make sure you get acquainted with the terms of each library content provider. Organizations that do not want to offer these free libraries can disable them for their Microsoft 365 tenant.

Enable / Disable

This feature is enabled by default. This feature can be disabled using the officeatwork Admin Center App. Users signing-in with a personal account are not able to sign-in to the officeatwork Admin Center and can therefore not disable this feature.

Pixabay

Pixabay Libraries

Pixabay is a source for freely usable images. Pixabay has its own Pixabay website where you can download images to use in your work. Please read the Pixaby terms to see what you are allowed to do with the images and what not.

Unsplash

Unsplash Libraries

Unsplash is a source for freely usable images. Unsplash has its own Unsplash website where you can download images to use in your work. Please read the Unsplash license agreement to see what you are allowed to do with the images and what not.

Sample Libraries

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Hide Samples Libraries

All sample libraries including the 'Samples' group will not be visible to organizational users with a Microsoft 365 or Microsoft 365 Work or School account once you purchased a subscription and become a licensed user.

The 'Samples' libraries are here to help you to get a feeling of what the 'Content Chooser' add-in can do for you without the need to set up your own libraries.

If you have not set up any of your own libraries the 'Content Chooser' will always select the first 'Samples' library for you by default when loading the libraries page.