Outlook web Add-in to query REST api

0
votes

I have developed a COM plugin for outlook that queries a web api service that I have written.

It is a plugin used to schedule meetings on our cloud hosted bridging solution. we wanted to avoid users having to sign in to use the plugin so authentication is done by a company token and the users e-mail address. The token needs to be entered when the user installs the plugin which then writes it to a config file on the local pc. every time the user clicks on the outlook button the plugin queries my api server to check if the company token and requester e-mail address are registered. if they are, a new appointment item opens with randomized connection details in the body of the appointment. when the user clicks on the send button the plugin adds a cloud resource to the invite for tracking of updates and does a POST to my api server with all the meeting details.

I now need to do the same using the outlook web add-in platform to support MAC, O365 and iPad.

I've managed to start a project in Visual Studio and get the custom task pane with a button to populate the body of my appointment item. however, I'm stuck now when it comes to doing GET and POST queries to my web api, as well as the authentication part of the plugin. How can I build a web add-in that is similar to my COM add-in ?

some questions: 1. If the token + email authentication is not possible, how can I write the plugin so that the user only ever needs to login once.

  1. what is the best way to query my web api server ? or should the plugin back end talk directly to my SQL server and bypass the web api ?

  2. all the research that I've done so far on SQL connections and API queries have username and password exposed in the jquery script. how can I make calls to RESt api or SQL without exposing the credentials in the script ?

  3. Can I query my api on "send" of the appointment ? I've read that the on-send function is only supported on O365 web client and not Mac.

  4. I'm a bit confused as I thought web add-ins can only be written in HTML / CSS /js, however Visual Studio allows me to add asp.net web forms to the project, I've tested this and it does load in my task pane on outlook. Would it be possible to do the API queries using .net rather than js or php ?

Sorry for the log post, there seems to be very little info on developing web add-ins

1
apioutlookoffice365outlook-addinoutlook-restapi
Please take the time to read the site guidelines in the help center. Try post 1 question per ticket. It's hard for people answer multiple questions in one answer. – Miao

1 Answers