Enterprise deployment
Updated
by Maarten Truyens
Involving your IT-admin
Probably the most likely installation stumbling block for most users is that your firm/company has blocked you from installing add-ins in Microsoft Word. In such case, you will notice that the "Get Add-ins" button is greyed out.
If this is the case, then you will need to either switch to the browser-version of ClauseBuddy (see above — the downside is that you will have copy/paste between Word/Outlook), or alternatively involve your organisation's IT-expert ("administrator"), who has the required superpowers to grant you installation rights for the add-in.
Be nice to this person, as he/she has a very good reason to block add-ins: the previous generation of add-ins had a very bad reputation of causing severe slowdowns and difficult-to-trace crashes. (We've all seen fast computers that take over a minute to load MS Word!)
If required, you can explain that the new generation of add-ins does not suffer from this problem. Unlike the old generation of add-ins (which install their tentacles into the brains, guts and nerves of Word), next-gen add-ins such as ClauseBuddy are forced by Microsoft to remain at the surface. They consist of so-called "JavaScript code" (instead of 32/64 bit executable files), and are executed by MS Word's internal web browser. This is also the reason why ClauseBuddy works in Word for Windows, Word for Mac and even Word Online.
System requirements
All you need is a recent version of Microsoft Word for Windows or Mac, or Microsoft Word Online in a browser.
- Office 365 is ideal because most versions use moden web browsing technology, and are continually upgraded.
- Some separately purchased versions of Office (i.e., non-Office 365 versions such as Word 2016) may also be fine, as long as they use "WebView2" (Chromium-based) browsing technology for the add-ins, instead of the ancient Internet Explorer or the old Microsoft Edge. It may be possible to separately install WebView2.
Please check Microsoft's overview table to make sure you have the right combination of Windows and Word. You may also want to check Microsoft's website for detailed information about specific version numbers. - Even when WebView2 is installed, you should be careful with Word 2016, because it is missing certain features. ClauseBuddy may work on this version of Word, but some advanced features (mostly related to layout and metadata) will be disabled.
- On a Mac and iPad, essentially any version of Word will work.
Not only are those browsers missing important web technologies, but they are also very insecure and extremely slow. For those reasons, Microsoft has phased out the use of this browser for many years already — and even strongly warns users to not use it anymore. Unfortunately, for Word/Outlook add-ins, Microsoft will not upgrade old versions of Word to make use of the new technology.
Deployment
Unlike traditional desktop-software or the old generation of COM/VSTO plugins, there is no "installer" file, such as an .MSI file.
The enterprise deployment of ClauseBuddy is in no way different than the deployment of any of the other new-style Microsoft Office plugins (often technically referred to as "Office.js" plugins, because it used the Microsoft Office.JS API for Javascript to communicate with the "host" applications such as Word and Outlook).
See Microsoft's resources:
- Deployment through the Office 365 admin center
- Deployment through a Sharepoint app catalog
- As a fallback (e.g., because for some internal reason the access to the Microsoft Store needs to be blocked) some companies and law firms use the technique of "sideloading" as a fallback. Learn more about this
You may also check out Stackoverflow for community-based questions.
