M365 Changelog: Microsoft Outlook Extension for Edge recommendation

MC264090 – Updated July 01, 2021: Microsoft has updated the content below to provide additional clarity. Thank you for your feedback.

This new release will enable some Windows 10 users, who are using Outlook on the web or Outlook for Windows, to see a clickable recommendation to visit the browser extension page for Outlook in Edge where they can choose to install the extension. This notification will be displayed in any Windows browser (i.e., Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.) and in Outlook for Windows.

Note: If you do not want your users to see the recommendations for the new Microsoft Outlook Extension for Edge, you can opt-out of these for your organization.

Note: The recommendations for the new Microsoft Outlook Extension for Edge will not be available to Microsoft 365 Government customers (GCC) at this time.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 82036.
• Timing:
  • Targeted release (entire org.) will begin and complete rollout in late July.
  • Standard release will begin and complete rollout in early August.
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: Group Policy/Cloud Policy
• Action: review, assess and take action to manage the recommendation as appropriate for your organization between now and July 30, 2021 if you don’t want the banner to be visible in your organization.

How this will affect your organization:

Clicking on the mentioned recommendation will take the user to the Microsoft Outlook extension page in the Edge extension store.

• The recommendation will show up as a dismissible header banner, for Outlook on the web and Outlook for Windows, and will show at most three per user in each app.
• Future promotions for the extension could be displayed in other locations.

Here are examples of what the banner will look like for Windows 10 users in Outlook on the web and in Outlook for Windows.

Outlook on the web:

Outlook for Windows:

Your users will see recommendations to install the publicly available Microsoft Outlook Extension for Edge. Your users can dismiss the recommendation. They will see the recommendations at most two more times within a 60-day period before it is suppressed permanently.

Users can decide whether to install the Outlook extension.

The extension shows a user’s email, calendar, contacts, and tasks from an icon in Microsoft Edge without requiring that they open another browser tab. The extension is a “mini” version of Outlook on the web which operates as a one-click flyout from the browser header:

What you need to do to prepare:

To opt-out of this recommendation and prevent the banner from appearing in your organization, please perform the below steps by July 30, 2021:

• Using the Office Cloud Policy Service:
  • You can configure the “Recommend the Microsoft Outlook Extension” policy to ‘Disabled’ using the Office Cloud Policy Service (OCPS). Configuring the policy in OCPS will disable this functionality in both Outlook on the web or Outlook for Windows.
    Click here for instructions on how to configure policies with OCPS.
• Using Group Policy Management:
  • In the future the ADMX templates will be updated to include this new policy – “Recommend the Microsoft Outlook Extension”. In the meantime, the following registry key can be configured which will disable this functionality in Outlook for Windows.
    • Path: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftOffice16.0outlookoptions
      Key: RecommendOutlookExtension
      Type: DWORD
      Value: 0 = Disabled, 1 = Enabled