OUTLOOK AND ODOO

INTEGRATION
Deployment, configuration and usage guide

Abstract
This document provides detailed instructions on how to deploy, configure and use our
Odoo2Outlook integration solution

Andrius Jasiukeviius
andrius@orgsoft.lt

Document History
Version
1.0

Date
2015-03-02

Author
Andrius Jasiukeviius

Summary
Initial version

Contents
1.

Background ................................................................................................................................................ 3

2.

System Requirements ................................................................................................................................ 3

3.

How it works .............................................................................................................................................. 3

4.

Deploy and Configure the Server-side Odoo Module ................................................................................ 4

4.1. Managing Lists............................................................................................................................................ 5

4.2. Managing Profiles ...................................................................................................................................... 6
4.3. Assigning profiles to users ......................................................................................................................... 7
5.

Install the Outlook Add-in .......................................................................................................................... 7

6.

Connect Outlook Add-in to Odoo .............................................................................................................. 8

7.

Select and Push Emails ............................................................................................................................... 9

1. Background
We started to work with Odoo about 1 year ago and are fascinated by its flexibility and extensibility features.
Hundreds of useful modules, easy to learn API, UI inheritance, flexible security model and other features everything
makes Odoo as a very compelling enterprise suite.
One of the features which is highly demanded by enterprises is email integration. Even if companies are going social
nowadays email is still the king when it comes to enterprise communication. So we installed and tried the standard
Outlook module developed by Odoo S.A. It does what it has to do you can push emails to Odoo and attach them to
most of the Odoo models. However it is not so flexible and sometimes requires several different steps to be taken.
So we started development of our own solution. The basic idea was to provide the easiest possible way for every
different user group to access most relevant information. E.g. sales people are typically working with clients, leads,
opportunities or contracts, and procurement is working with suppliers and purchase orders. And what is most
important (since every company is unique) - we decided to build the tool which is adaptable to the needs of specific
company.

2. System Requirements

Server module requires Odoo version 7.0 (version 8 support is on the way).
Outlook add-in works with Outlook 2010 and above.
Outlook add-in requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 to be installed on the client machine.

3. How it works
In order to work our Outlook add-in requires server-side Odoo module to be installed and configured as preferred:

First of all you need to configure what models of Odoo will be available for search.
Next thing to do create so-called search profiles and assign models to them.
And finally for every user select one search profile.

Following picture shows the flow of steps when user selects email message and performs search against Odoo.

1. User selects desired email message

and clicks SEARCH

2. Odoo module checks criteria and search profile of the current

user

3. Odoo module returns items matching given criteria of models

defined in the profile

When user gets search results he can select desired object in the tree and click Add button. Mail message will be
pushed to Odoo with all attachments (based on appropriate configuration option).

4. Deploy and Configure the Server-side Odoo Module

1. Copy folder named os_plugin_outlook to the location where all your Odoo addons are installed.
2. Open Odoo and go to Settings > Update Module List.
3. Locate Outlook 2 Odoo module and click Install.

After installation you will find new menu items located at Settings > Configuration

4.1.

Managing Lists

In the context of Outlook2Odoo solution the list is configured Odoo model, available for search from Outlook
add-in. You can find all configured lists at Settings > Outlook Plugin > Lists.

Just click on the item if you want to change any of its properties or click Create to define the new list.
Below is the list editing window:

Each list has several properties to define its search behavior:

List property
Companies (filtered)
Object type
Object

Comments
The first text box allows to enter user-friendly title of the list. This title
appears in the search results tree in Outlook add-in.
Read-only name of the Odoo model for which the list is defined.
Dropdown list of Odoo models you can choose from.

Search Expression

Order By
Limit
Title Template

Fields

4.2.

Any valid domain expression. On the left side of an operator you can
use any field of the current model. On the right side you can use any
constant or following variables:
name the value entered in textbox Name in Outlook add-in.
By default this value is the name of the email sender.
email email address of the sender coming from the textbox
Email in Outlook add-in.
user_id id of the user performing search from Outlook add-in.
Field name for sorting the search results.
Number of records to return. 0 means no limit.
Template of item title which will be generated on the Outlook side.
You can use any of the ordinary model fields or many2one fields.
In case of many2one field you need to provide only the field name as
it is defined in the current model the name of the referenced model
will be assumed automatically (if you need to get project title, simply
put project_id instead). All fields must be enclosed with #
E.g.:
#name# - the title will be simply the value of name field.
#name#, email: #email# - the title will composed from the name
of partner and its email, e.g.: Robert Johnson, email:
robert@acme.com
Additional fields to return during search. This list of fields is only
required if you use any extra fields in your Title Template (except
standard field name). E.g.: #name#, email: #email# requires
email field to be selected in the list of fields (as shown in the figure
above).

Managing Profiles

Profile is the collection of list configurations. Each profile can have several users assigned. But the user can
have only single profile.
Below is the profile editing window:

Profile properties

Comments

Salesman profile
Available Lists
List
Position
Assigned users

4.3.

The first text box allows to enter user-friendly name of the profile.
This is the ordered collection of lists, assigned to the current profile.
List name
List position in the search results tree.
List of all users having current profile set as their default.

Assigning profiles to users

As it was stated above- every user can have single profile assigned. Odoo module extends standard user editing
form and allows to select one of the existing profiles:

5. Install the Outlook Add-in

Extract archive named OSOutlook2Odoo_ClientSide.zip and locate installation file setup.exe. Start installation file,
click 2 times next and install.

And thats all. You have Outlook2Odoo add-in installed.

6. Connect Outlook Add-in to Odoo

After installing Outlook add-in you need to start Outlook application (or restart it if it was running during setup
process). First time you should see almost identical view as shown below:

1. By default plugin pane (1) is visible and is docked on the right side of the screen.
2. If for some reason it is not shown you can always make it visible using Show/Hide Add-in button (3)
which you can find in the Add-ins ribbon (2)
3. When you connect for the first time add-in automatically tries to connect to the Odoo server. But this
cant be achieved since there are no connection details. So you get Status: unable to connect (4).
In order to connect to the Odoo server you need to go to the Settings tab and provide:

URL address of your Odoo installation (including port).

Database name.
Your user name.
Your password.

If you dont know URL or database name (those are really technical details) please contact your Odoo
administrator.

After entering all data in the Odoo Server Connection section click Connect. If everything is correct you should
see the confirmation message (5) and connection status updated (6):

Now you are ready to perform some email to Odoo actions.

7. Select and Push Emails

Now lets get to the core function of the add-in ability to push messages to Odoo.
When the add-in pane is open, every selected message (7) is visible in its Selected Item section (8). In addition
two fields labeled Name and Email are filled automatically with respective value of the sender. You can correct
values before performing search, but it is not necessary. By pressing Search button (9) you send request to the
server-side Odoo module. It performs search according to your profile and returns search results grouped by list
type (10).

You can select the item in the tree (10) and press Add button (11). Message will be pushed to the server and
attached to the right object. All attachments are also attached if the corresponding flag in the Settings tab is set.
After pushing the message you will get confirmation dialog:

Thats all. You are now ready to push your messages to Odoo!.