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Set Up the Business Central Add-In for Outlook with Business Central On-premises

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Note

Azure Active Directory is now Microsoft Entra ID. Learn more

If your organization uses Exchange Server or Exchange Online (alone or as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription), Business Central on-premises supports integration with Outlook that enables users to complete Business Central business tasks from their Outlook inbox. As the admin, you can configure Business Central so that users can connect to Business Central data from Outlook.

Overview

About the add-in

Business Central add-in for Outlook consists of two add-ins:

  • Contact Insights

    The add-in provides users with Business Central customer or vendor information in Outlook emails and calendar appointments. It also enables users to create and send Business Central business documents, such sales quotes and invoices to a contact. To support these tasks, the add-in adds actions to the Outlook ribbon, in the Business Central group.

  • Document View

    When a business document is sent as an email, this add-in provides a direct link from email to the actual business document in Business Central.

Each add-in is provided as an XML manifest file, which must be installed in Outlook client of any user that wants this functionality. These files describe how to activate the add-ins and connect to Business Central when they're used in Outlook.

For more information about what you do with the add-ins, see Using Business Central as your Business Inbox in Outlook.

About deployment

The processes for deploying the add-ins are different for Business Central online and on-premises, though the add-ins are the same. This article describes how to get the add-ins for Business Central on-premises. For information about Business Central online, see Get the Business Central Add-in for Outlook in the business functionality content.

For on-premises environments, there are different options for deploying the add-ins. The option that you choose will depend on your organizations security policies, the Business Central environment, and how much control over installing the add-in that you want to give users. For example, you can choose to install the add-ins automatically for all users in your organization or targeted users only. Or, you can allow users to install the add-ins themselves. For more information about each deployment option, see Centralized Deployment, Automated Individual Deployment, and Manual Individual Deployment in this article.

Important

Working with multiple environments? The Business Central add-in for Outlook is designed to work with a single Business Central environment. When the add-in is installed, the name of the environment is included in the add-in's manifest. This configuration means that the add-in will only connect to the environment that it was installed from. To use the add-in with a different environment, you'll have to open the environment and install the add-in again.

Mail server

The add-in deployment works with Exchange Online, Exchange Online as part of Microsoft 365, and Exchange Server 2019. The add-in uses Exchange Web Services (EWS) to access mailbox data from Exchange Online or Exchange Server.

Authentication and authorization

The authentication and authorization that can be used will depend on whether you're using Exchange Online or Exchange Server.

  • In Exchange Online, standalone or as part of Microsoft 365, EWS uses OAuth2 as an authorization protocol. OAuth2 doesn't share password data but instead uses authorization tokens to prove an identity between consumers and service providers. It allows users to approve one application interacting with another on their behalf without giving away your password. The Business Central add-in for Outlook supports multi-factor authentication if that has been configured in Microsoft 365. With Exchange Online, Business Central must be configured to use Microsoft Entra authentication.

  • With Exchange Server, EWS and Autodiscover will try to find the local Exchange Server. In this case, Business Central can be configured to use either NavUserPassword or Microsoft Entra authentication.

Prepare for deployment

The steps you'll need to go through to prepare for deploying the add-in will depend on whether you intend on deploying to Microsoft 365 or Exchange Server.

  1. Prepare Microsoft 365

    • Assign users a Microsoft 365 license.
    • Make sure your Microsoft 365 account has at least the Exchange Administrator role.

  2. Prepare Business Central

Configure the Business Central Server instance to work with the Office Add-ins

You can use either the Business Central Server Administration tool or the Set-NAVServerConfiguration cmdlet in the Business Central Administration Shell.

  1. In the Business Central Server Administration tool, in the Client Services section, set the Exchange Auth. Metadata Location setting to the URL for the Exchange authentication metadata document of the authority that is allowed to sign the Exchange identity token.

    If you're using the Business Central Administration Shell, run the Set-NAVServerConfiguration cmdlet and set the ExchangeAuthenticationMetadataLocation key.

    Set-NavServerConfiguration -ServerInstance <BC server instance> -Keyname ExchangeAuthenticationMetadataLocation -Keyvalue <metadata document URL>

    This setting is used to confirm the identity of the signing authority when using Exchange authentication. In part, the value includes the URL of the Exchange mail server. The field accepts a wild-card URL. So for example, if the URL of the Exchange mail server is https://mail.cronus.com, then you can set the field to https://mail.cronus.com*. The default value is https://outlook.office365.com/.

  2. Set the Web Client Base URL setting to the base URL of the Business Central Web client.

    The base URL the public URL that can be used by Outlook clients to access Business Central. The base URL is the root portion of all URLs that are used to access pages in the web client. It must have the format https://[hostname:port]/[instance], such as https://MyNavWebServer:443/BC130.

    With the Set-NAVServerConfiguration cmdlet, set the PublicWebBaseUrl key.

    Set-NavServerConfiguration -ServerInstance <BC server instance> -Keyname PublicWebBaseUrl -Keyvalue <web client URL>

  3. Set the Valid Audiences setting for Microsoft Entra ID to include the host name of the Business Central Web client, which is the web client base URL without the port number and server instance, like https://MyNavWebServer.

    If you have a multitenant deployment that uses different host names for tenants, like https://tenant1.cronusinternational.com, you'll also have to register each host name as a valid audience. There are two ways you can do this:

    • On the server-level, add each host name to Valid Audiences setting of the Business Central Server instance.

    • On the tenant-level, add the host names to the Valid Audiences setting when you mount the tenant, by using either the Business Central Server Administration tool or the Mount-NAVTenant cmdlet.

    Mount-NavTenant -ServerInstance <BC server instance> -Tenant <tenant_ID> Mount-NAVTenant BC -Id 'Test' -DatabaseName <database name> -ValidAudiences <host names>

    Note

    If there's more than one host name, separate each host name with a semi-colon. You can specify the host names on the server-level, tenant-level, or a combination of both.

Centralized Deployment

Centralized Deployment is a feature in Microsoft 365 admin center and Exchange admin center that lets you automatically install add-ins in users' Office apps, like Outlook. It's the recommended way for admins to deploy for Office add-ins to users and groups within your organization. For more information about Centralized Deployment, see Centralized Deployment FAQ.

  1. Verify that Centralized Deployment works for your organization.

    For more information, see Determine if Centralized Deployment of add-ins works for your organization.

  2. In Business Central, choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.

  3. Choose Outlook Add-in Centralized Deployment > Next.

  4. In the Deploy column, select the check box for the add-ins that you want to deploy, then choose Download and Continue.

    A file named OutlookAddins.zip is downloaded to your device.

  5. On the Where do you want to deploy to? page, set Deploy Add-in to to either Microsoft 365 or Exchange Server, then choose Next.

  6. At this point, you're finished with the work you need to do in Business Central, so you can choose Done.

    Tip

    Before you choose Next, select the Go to Microsoft 365 (opens in a new window) or Learn more about the add-in for Outlook in Exchange Server link to open or get help on the admin center you'll use to complete the setup.

  7. Go the folder where the OutlookAddins.zip file was downloaded, and extract the Content Insights.xml and Document View.xml files from the .zip to a folder of your choice.

    For more information, see Zip and Unzip files and folders.

  8. For Microsoft 365 deployment, sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center. For Exchange Server deployment, sign in to Exchange admin center.

  9. Upload the add-in files as custom add-ins in the admin center you're working with:

    In this step, you assign users and deploy the add-ins.

Important

An add-in can take up to 24 hours before users see the add-in in Outlook app.

After you finish, you can always change the deployment in admin center, like assigning more users.

Automated individual deployment

With this deployment option, users install the Business Central add-in for Outlook for themselves only. This deployment option uses a registered application in Microsoft Entra ID with Exchange web service permission, so users don't have to upload the add-ins manually in Outlook. When using the add-in, users don't have to sign in the Business Central because authentication against the Exchange or Microsoft 365 is done using an authentication token.

If you've prepared for deployment as described earlier, then as an admin, the only remaining task is to set up an application registration in Microsoft Entra ID. Then, users can start to install the add-in in Outlook.

Register an application in Microsoft Entra ID

In the Azure portal, add an application registration for Business Central in your Microsoft Entra tenant. Give the registered app delegated permission to Exchange web service (EWS). After you've added the registered app in Microsoft Entra ID, set up Business Central to use it by using the Set up your Microsoft Entra accounts assisted setup.

For more information about how to complete this step, see Registering Business Central On-Premises in Microsoft Entra ID for Integrating with Other Services.

Get the add-in (users)

After you complete the Business Central setup, users deploy the add-in by using Get Outlook Add-in assisted setup in Business Central. For more information, see Install the Business Central Add-in for Outlook.

Manual individual deployment

With this deployment option, users install the Business Central add-in for Outlook for themselves only. Unlike the individual acquisition (automated) deployment option, users will have to download the add-in files from Business Central, then manually add them in Outlook. If you've prepared your deployment as described earlier, the only step remaining is for users to get the add-in.

Get the add-in (users)

After you complete the Business Central setup, users deploy the add-in by using Get Outlook Add-in assisted setup in Business Central. For more information, see Install the Business Central Add-in for Outlook.

Deploying Business Central
Using Business Central as your Business Inbox in Outlook
Mount or Dismount a Tenant
Configuring Business Central Web Server to Accept Host Names for Tenants
FAQ