Egnyte for Microsoft Office Desktop (Preview) enables real-time co-authoring on Office desktop, web, and mobile. You can simultaneously edit and collaborate on Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files on desktop in real-time, with all changes automatically saved to your Egnyte account. 

This allows for co-authoring between our existing Office Online integration, enabling users the ability to coauthor Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in Egnyte whether they are working in Office on desktop or web — with all edits automatically saved back to Egnyte.

Benefits

  • Collaborate easily with your colleagues by using the Egnyte for Microsoft Office Desktop. Co-edit files in the same collaboration session while using either Microsoft Office Online or Office Desktop Apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint)
  • No Sharepoint setup is needed
  • Official Microsoft-supported program
  • Increased file size limits for Office Online clients and Desktop file extensions

Program Rollout 

We will be rolling this out to all domains in separate cohorts. If your domain has not been enabled yet and you are interested in getting earlier, fill out this form and request your Egnyte domain and we will add you to the list to be activated on an upcoming batch, if you qualify.

Client Availability

Office Client Availability

  • Office Apps on Mac (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
  • Office Apps on Windows (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

Egnyte Client Availability

  • Egnyte Web App (Egnyte WebUI)
  • Egnyte Desktop App for Windows
  • Egnyte Desktop App for Mac
  • Egnyte Desktop App for Mac Core (Available Soon)
  • Egnyte Android (Coming Soon)
  • Egnyte iOS (Coming Soon)

Requirements

Office Applications

Office Subscriptions

  • User’s require an Office 365 Business license
  • Microsoft license must allow for Office Desktop Apps in the license and downloaded onto User’s machines
  • Perpetual licenses are not supported (Office 2016, Office 2019, etc.)

Getting Started

Activation must be done on both the Office Products and in the Egnyte AppStore

Enablement in Egnyte

Admins need to add the integration on the Apps & Integrations page in Egnyte. If this is not available, fill out this form and we will add you to an upcoming cohort of domains to have the preview if you qualify.

On Apps & Integration there should be a tile under Featured named Microsoft Office (Preview). Admins can also search for this in the search bar. Enable the integration – we recommend adding Power users to a group for users in your domain that have Microsoft Licenses.

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Click on Enable Integration. You will have multiple options for turning on co-editing. We recommend turning it on for Added for all users or Added for Groups if you want to turn it on a specific number of people that have Microsoft Licenses. Set the integration as default app for editing and hit Save.

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Admins also can set the default option for one-click defaults in the App Control Center in Apps & Integrations. This is a ranked list that can change via drag and drop for users that will default the collaboration app for the one-click default within the WebUI and the Egnyte Desktop Apps. 

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The Admin setup is complete on the Egnyte side.

Enablement in Microsoft

Office Apps must be on Current Channel in order to have Egnyte (Preview) as an option in the Add-a-place location. 

To enable opening, editing, and co-authoring files stored in Egnyte using the Office Desktop applications, before first use, every Egnyte User will need to sign in to the Egnyte (Preview) one-time to access documents stored in the Egnyte location. This involves selecting the Egnyte (Preview) from Add a Storage Place list and successfully signing into Egnyte Service.

As an Egnyte User, on Windows machine, on Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) if you are in the Current Office Channel – you will see the Egnyte (Preview) in Add-a-place as the screenshots below. As an Egnyte User, on Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), click one-time in Egnyte (Preview), and go through Authorization and sign in using the Egnyte domain. This only needs to be done once on only one of the three applications as that will Auth all 3 office apps to Egnyte.

On Windows

  • Open a Microsoft App (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint)
  • Go to “Open” on Left Navigation Bar
  • Select "Add a Place"
  • Select "Egnyte (Preview)" and Authorize Egnyte App

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On Mac

  • Open a Microsoft App (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint)
  • Go to “Open” on Left Navigation Bar
  • Select "Manage Storage Accounts"
  • Select "Egnyte (Preview)" and Authorize Egnyte App

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Starting a Co-editing Session

After a user has logged into their Office Apps and have integration enabled in the Apps & Integration page, here are multiple entry points in this integration to start a co-editing session. 

Egnyte WebUI

In the Egnyte Web UI, users are able to hover over a file and since the default setting in the App Center has been set to the Desktop Preview the user is able to launch a co-editing session directly from the WebUI.

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User can always right-click into the Context Menu to also launch a co-editing session.

Egnyte Desktop App

The minimum desktop app that supports this integration is 3.14.3 for Desktop App for Windows and 3.14.8 for Desktop App for Mac. Desktop App for Mac Core will be coming soon.

Double-click a file to launch the integration. Users will get an option to either lock the file and work on their own or use the new co-editing solution. Selecting the option always perform this action will store the selection in preferences.

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Office Applications

Once logged in to the Office Apps, click on Open and the Egnyte (Preview) location to traverse the Egnyte domain and choose which file to open

On Windows

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On Mac

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In the Co-Editing Session

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Auto-Save is ON automatically on the left side, which means this document is in co-editing mode. If it is off, that means the User is working off-line and it will not be saved to the Egnyte cloud

On the right side of this screen, you will be able to see other users that joining the Co-auth Gallery in the Office Apps

All co-editing users make change and ensure that it SAVED on the top progress bar for changes to be saved back to Egnyte.

Limitations

File Size Limits for Office Online for Co-Authoring:

  • Excel 50 MB
  • Word 100 MB
  • PowerPoint 2 GB

File Size Limits for Office Desktop for Co-Authoring:

  • Excel 300 MB
  • Word 300MB
  • PowerPoint 2GB

File Types supported are docx, pptx, xlsx, and xlsm

Co-Authoring performance is targeted at “classroom size” less than 50 users

Desktop Apps integration is limited to Power Users in Egnyte