OC 5.4.0 4 Important knowledge

Owned by Tobias Thornfeldt Wolters
Last updated: Sept 21, 2020
3 min read

On this page, you can find things to be aware of with the Digizuite™ Office Connector (from now on OC).

Mac limitation

The OC has the following limitation for Mac users:

  • A Mac user must always save an Office document as a new asset in the DC the first time it is saved in a session. After this initial save, the document can be replaced in the same session.

A session is started when the OC is opened, and a session is stopped when the OC or the Office application is closed.

The following use-case describes this limitation in more detail:

  1. Find an existing Office document in MM (e.g. a Word document).
  2. Open the existing document.
  3. Open OC in the local Office application (e.g. Word), which has just been opened.
  4. Make changes to the document.
  5. Save the document with the OC - on Mac, the existing document in the DC can not be replaced but only saved as a new asset.

Upload/save functionality

A user must have the MediaPortal_Uploader role to be able to upload anything from the OC. 

Furthermore, the following roles are used for controlling uploads from the OC:

  • Office_Can_Upload_New: Allows the user to save an Office document from the OC as a new asset in the DC.
  • Office_Can_Replace: Allows the user to replace an Office document, which already exists in the DC, from the OC.

These roles are assigned to the following user groups out of the box:

  • Superadministrator
  • Administrator
  • Content Creator

The following user groups are thus not able to save anything from the OC out of the box:

  • Light user
  • Guest

It is possible to disable uploads from the OC completely from the ConfigManager with the configuration option "Disable Office Connector uploads".

Templates

When opening an Office template from through  Digizuite™ Media Manager 5 or OC, the following behavior is expected:

  • Word templates (".dotx"): The document can only be saved as a new plain Word document (".docx").
  • PowerPoint templates (".potx"): The document can only be saved as a new plain PowerPoint document (".pptx").
  • Excel templates (".xltx"): The template itself can be overridden, or a new template can be saved. Note that it is not possible to save a plain new Excel document (".xlsx") with the OC in this case.

It is not possible to save PowerPoint templates (".potx") with the OC. Thus, if the OC is opened when working on a PowerPoint template (".potx"), and the document is saved with the OC, it will be saved as a regular PowerPoint document (".pptx"). The templates will be saved for Word and Excel.

Document titles

Remember that the following characters can't be used in titles of Office documents:

"*:<>?/\|

It might not be possible to open certain documents if their titles are too long. The maximum allowed length of a title depends on the length of the base URL for the installed OC.

Opening existing documents

When trying to open existing documents from Digizuite™ Media Manager 5 or OC, a popup might occur in the Office application, stating that the file format and the file extension don't match.

Choosing the option "Yes" ignores this and opens the document.

Please ensure that you are not actively editing a cell in Excel while opening the OC.

Office Online

The following Office Online applications are supported:

  • Word Online
  • PowerPoint Online
  • Outlook Online

It is not possible to insert images with the OC in Excel Online.

Existing documents from Digizuite™ Media Manager 5 can only be opened in local Office applications.

When saving a document from an online Office application, the filename of the online document at the time the Office Connector was opened is used. Changing the title of the document in the online application while the Office Connector is open therefore doesn't have any effect.  

Debugging

To check if you have an issue with your manifest file, please try validating it with the following tool: https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-Addin-Scripts/tree/master/packages/office-addin-manifest

If you have issues loading the Office Connector when using localhost, please try following the documentation at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/error-messages/cannot-open-add-in-from-localhost

If you have updated the OC and you are encountering an infinite loading spinner or the styling has become weird, please attach a debugger by following the documentation at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/testing/debug-add-ins-using-f12-developer-tools-on-windows-10#debug-using-microsoft-edge-devtools. When the debugger has been attached to the OC sideloaded in an Office application, run the command "location.reload(true)" from the console. Alternatively, you might be able to reach the debugger (and thus avoid downloading the developer tools) by opening Edge and navigating to the OC site.