What is Vidyard for Outlook (Office 365)?
Vidyard for Outlook (Office 365) is a web-based add-in that allows you to leverage the power of video from directly within your Outlook email client (both via a browser or desktop application).
- Share videos from within an Outlook compose window to communicate with customers, partners, and prospects
- Receive video engagement notifications when a recipient watches your content
- Have your video library follow you across the ecosystem of Vidyard-enabled partner products and applicants
Requirements
The Vidyard for Outlook (Office 365) integration has three primary requirements:
- You must have an Office 365, Exchange or Outlook.com account
- Your Outlook client must support web-based add-ins
- Outlook clients support add-ins if they are connected to a Microsoft Exchange server OR Office 365 using a direct connection.
- Your email address must be hosted by Outlook
- When setting up Outlook, the user must choose Office 365, Exchange or Outlook.com as the account type for their email address. This ensures that the email address is hosted by Outlook.
- If a different account type is chosen (like Gmail, for example), then Outlook will be configured with POP3 or IMAP and add-ins will not load.
Outlook clients that support add-ins
- Outlook 2013 and 2016 for Windows (this is an installed desktop app version of Outlook)
- Outlook 2016 for Mac (this is an installed desktop app version of Outlook)
- Outlook on the web for Exchange 2016 and Office 365
- Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2013
- Outlook.com
Supported functionality by Outlook client type
Depending on the Outlook client that you are using, the recording functionality for the Vidyard app may differ.
For example, the screen recording (fullscreen) feature for Outlook for Mac and Outlook for Windows is not supported through the Outlook application itself. However, this style of recording is available through use of the Vidyard Chrome Extension.
Record (Camera Only) | Screen recording (fullscreen) | Upload from computer | |
---|---|---|---|
Outlook for Mac (desktop app) | Supported** | Not supported (use Chrome extension) | Supported |
Outlook for Windows (desktop app) |
Supported | Not supported (use Chrome extension) | Supported |
Outlook web app in Chrome | Supported | Supported (requires Chrome extension to be installed) | Supported |
Outlook web app in Firefox | Supported | Supported | Supported |
Outlook web app in Safari | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
Outlook web app in Edge | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
Outlook web app in IE | Not supported | Not supported | Supported |
Note: in order to ensure a smooth recording experience, check that your browser has received permission to use both your camera and microphone inputs.
**Please note that the Camera Only feature on Outlook for Mac (desktop app) has been temporarily disabled while Microsoft and our team investigate a technical problem between the Vidyard app and Outlook. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Enable Vidyard for Outlook (Office 365)
- Navigate to the Microsoft Store to enable the Vidyard add-in
- If using the web app version of Outlook, click Settings (gear icon) > Manage add-ins
- If using the desktop app version of Outlook, click on the Store icon
- If using the web app version of Outlook, click Settings (gear icon) > Manage add-ins
- Search for Vidyard and switch the toggle to ON.
Use the Vidyard for Outlook add-in
- Open the Vidyard app: select the camera icon to launch the app and sign in.
- For the Outlook desktop app, the camera icon appears along the bottom, right-hand corner of the compose window. For the Outlook web app, the camera icon appears along the top ribbon.
- New Videos: Choose the New Video icon to create or upload new content to your video library.
- Remember, depending on the Outlook client that you are using, you may only access to some recording options. You may also use the Vidyard Chrome Extension to create video across all recording types. These recordings will subsequently be available in your video library.
- Select videos: click on the videos in your library to build a playlist
- Alternatively, select the title of any video to watch it
- Change Folders: click on the Folders dropdown to select videos from any shared content folders to which you have been granted access.
- Playlist tray: click on the Selected tab to open the playlist tray and arrange the order of your selected videos.
- Insert button: use the Insert button to drop your selected playlist the email text editor.
Outlook email text format
When using the Vidyard add-in, ensure that you have the HTML Format Text toggled to ON. This will allow the text edit to support rich elements such as the video thumbnail and URL link.
- Open an Outlook compose window
- Select the Options tab > toggle HTML to ON
Identifying your viewers
When you send a recording using the Outlook add-in, your recipient's email address is automatically associated to each view by use of a video tracking token. This allows you to track what your recipients have watched, when, and for how long.
You will find the "vyetoken" appended to the video sharing page URL in the following format:
vyetoken=c1g38d0b-5167-9832-812g-jk29861addeb
Depending on which Outlook client you are using, the video tracking token works differently.
- If using a web app version of Outlook:
- This includes the Outlook web app in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer
- As long as the Vidyard add-in remains open, the tracking token will dynamically update whenever you provide or edit an email recipient
- If using a desktop app version of Outlook:
- This includes Outlook for Mac (2016) and Outlook for Windows (2013 & 2016)
- The tracking token will append to the sharing page URL upon insertion of the video into your email text editor
- This means that the token will not append if you insert a video into the text editor before indicating a recipient. The recipient must be specified first.
- Similarly, if you change the recipient after the video has been inserted, the token will need to be updated. To update your recipient, remove the video thumbnail and URL from the text editor, then re-insert the video.