How to allow/enable Actionable Approval Emails in Outlook connected to Office 365?

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Posted on by skylitedave

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Hi,

I am using the new "Start and Wait for Approval ( v2)" action for approval workflows. I am able see actionable emails if I log into Outlook.Com ( I can approve and add comments in the email) but I cannot see the actionable options in my Outlook Emails - I only get buttons that will take me to the approval center.

I did some research and saw posts that suggested 3rd party email filters may be causing an issue, but we dont have any of those. We are just using Office 365 and Outlook.

Can someone please give detailed steps on what we should do to troubleshoot why we dont see actionable emails in Outlook connected to Office 365 without any 3rd party filtering or third party tools. It must be some setting in Outlook since I do see actionable emails in Outlook.Com.

We are using SharePoint lists and do not have rich text tuned on for any text columns.

Many thx in advance!

Thx!

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v-yamao-msft on at

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Hi @skylitedave ,

All email sent by approvals contain both parts. Part1 is a specialized “actionable message”, and Part2 is a standard email message.

Only some email clients support the actionable section, and when they do support it I believe they prefer it. However, when displaying the actionable message the client also offers the “Show original message” link which allows the user to view the standard email message.

In your scenario, I guess you are using an email client that doesn’t support actionable email messages, because it utilizes the specific Microsoft actionable message platform, not all email clients will support it.

Here is a doc could be a reference for you:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/actionable-messages/

Best regards,

Mabel

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skylitedave 652 on at

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I am using the current version of Outlook (running in Windows) with Office 365. Does Outlook support actionable messages?
If so, what steps are required to enable actionable messages when using Outlook.
Where do we "turn on" actionable messages or what settings are need in Outlook to enable Actionable messages?
I dont see the link to original message in Outlook, just the 2 links for approve or reject back to the approval center. There are many posts about similar problems for many Outlook users

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v-yamao-msft on at

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Hi @skylitedave ,

As far as I know, actionable email message automatically shows up on the latest clients and is hidden or disabled for older client, which show the regular email viewing experience.

I have searched online for relative information, please check if the following doc will be helpful:

https://interopevents.com/uploads/2254324-Actionable%20Messages%20in%20Outlook.pdf

I am going to do more research on this issue. Please feel free submit it on Microsoft Office forum as well to see if you could get more help from there:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-us/home?forum=outlook

Best regards,

Mabel

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skylitedave 652 on at

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Update.....

I purchased a new PC and installed a new instance of Office on that "clean" PC that included Outlook 2019. Actionable messages work in that instance of Outlook...

This leads me to believe there must be a setting that needs to be "ticked" to enable actionable messages... Or maybe an add-in is not enabled or colliding with actionable messages..

I will continue to dig around and see why actionable messages are not working in this version of Outlook 2016. The version having the issue and stripping the actionable messages is

Outlook 2016 64 bit - version 16.0.4849.1000

Please let me know if anyone has come across this issue and what the fix is

Thx!

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Eviljesternz 2 on at

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I've just spent a couple of days troubleshooting this and solved it in my environment.
It turned out to be a GPO causing the actionable messages not to work in outlook desktop app (worked fine in Outlook web). Under User Configuration, AdministrativeTemplates, Microsoft Outlook 2016, Account Setting, Exchange, Cached Exchange Mode, Make sure "Cached Exchange Mode (file|cached exchange mode)" is set to "not configured"

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