Outlook 365 add-in only appears in Outlook 2013 client

Question

I have a problem to show my add-in in Outlook 2016. I developed it as a Office365 Add-in and it works like a charm in Outlook 2013. But at the time I wanted to test it in Outlook 2016 it does not show up in the 'Apps for Office' section.

I think I have to add something to the manifest.xml, but I don't know what. In Outlook 2013 it opens a task pane in the right corner. It would be nice if it would be the same in Outlook 2016.

My Outlook 2013/2016 Add-in .XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--Created:someid-->
<OfficeApp xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/appforoffice/1.1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="MailApp">
  <Id>someid</Id>
  <Version>0.0.1.0</Version>
  <ProviderName>Teamname</ProviderName>
  <DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
  <DisplayName DefaultValue="Name" />
  <Description DefaultValue="Name"/>
  <!-- Logo einfügen -->
  <HighResolutionIconUrl DefaultValue="https://pl.vc/tmvl" />
  <Hosts>
    <Host Name="Mailbox" />
  </Hosts>
  <Requirements>
    <Sets>
      <Set Name="MailBox" MinVersion="1.1" />
    </Sets>
  </Requirements>
  <FormSettings>
    <Form xsi:type="ItemRead">
      <DesktopSettings>
        <SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://urltowebapp/#/outlook-login"/>
        <RequestedHeight>250</RequestedHeight>
      </DesktopSettings>
    </Form>
    <Form xsi:type="ItemEdit">
      <DesktopSettings>
        <SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://urltowebapp/#/outlook-login"/>
      </DesktopSettings>
    </Form>
  </FormSettings>
  <Permissions>ReadWriteItem</Permissions>
  <Rule xsi:type="RuleCollection" Mode="Or">
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Message" FormType="Edit" />
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Appointment" FormType="Edit" />
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Message" FormType="Read" />
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Appointment" FormType="Read" />
  </Rule>
  <DisableEntityHighlighting>false</DisableEntityHighlighting>
</OfficeApp>

Answer 1

I want to share my solution with you guys, who problably run into the same issue.

Here is my Manifest-XML file, which absolutely suits my needs:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--Created: <SOME ID> -->
<OfficeApp 
 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/appforoffice/1.1" 
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns:bt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/officeappbasictypes/1.0"
 xmlns:mailappor="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/mailappversionoverrides/1.0"
 xsi:type="MailApp">
  <Id> <SOME ID> </Id>
  <Version>1.0.0.0</Version>
  <ProviderName>[Provider Name]</ProviderName>
  <DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
  <DisplayName DefaultValue="AppName" />
  <Description DefaultValue="Some text"/>
  <!-- Logo einfügen -->
  <HighResolutionIconUrl DefaultValue="<Link to your app logo>" />
  <Hosts>
    <Host Name="Mailbox" />
  </Hosts>
  <Requirements>
    <Sets>
      <Set Name="MailBox" MinVersion="1.1" />
    </Sets>
  </Requirements>
  <FormSettings>
    <Form xsi:type="ItemEdit">
      <DesktopSettings>
        <SourceLocation DefaultValue="<Link to your web app>"/>
      </DesktopSettings>
    </Form>
  </FormSettings>
  <Permissions>ReadWriteItem</Permissions>
  <Rule xsi:type="RuleCollection" Mode="Or">
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Message" FormType="Edit" />
    <Rule xsi:type="ItemIs" ItemType="Appointment" FormType="Edit" />
  </Rule>
  <DisableEntityHighlighting>false</DisableEntityHighlighting>

  <!-- code to support Outlook 2016 -->
  <VersionOverrides xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/mailappversionoverrides" xsi:type="VersionOverridesV1_0">

   <Description resid="residDescription" />

   <Requirements>
       <bt:Sets DefaultMinVersion="1.3">
           <bt:Set Name="Mailbox" />
       </bt:Sets>
   </Requirements>

    <Hosts>
      <Host xsi:type="MailHost">

        <DesktopFormFactor>
          <!-- <FunctionFile resid="functionFile" /> add this if you need to -->

          <ExtensionPoint xsi:type="MessageComposeCommandSurface">
            <OfficeTab id="TabDefault">
              <Group id="msgreadTabMessage.grp1">
                <Label resid="groupLabel" />
                <Tooltip resid="groupTip" />

                <Control xsi:type="Button" id="msgreadTabMessage.grp1.btnView">
                  <Label resid="buttonLabel" />
                  <Tooltip resid="buttonTip" />
                  <Supertip>
                    <Title resid="superTipTitle" />
                    <Description resid="superTip" />
                  </Supertip>
                  <Icon>
                    <bt:Image size="16" resid="icon1_16x16" />
                    <bt:Image size="32" resid="icon1_32x32" />
                    <bt:Image size="80" resid="icon1_80x80" />
                  </Icon>
                  <Action xsi:type="ShowTaskpane">
                    <SourceLocation resid="taskPaneUrl" />
                  </Action>
                </Control>
              </Group>
            </OfficeTab>
          </ExtensionPoint>

        </DesktopFormFactor>
      </Host>
    </Hosts>

    <Resources>
      <bt:Images>
        <bt:Image id="icon1_16x16" DefaultValue="<link to your 16px logo>"/>
        <bt:Image id="icon1_32x32" DefaultValue="<link to your 32px logo>"/>
        <bt:Image id="icon1_80x80" DefaultValue="<link to your 80px logo>"/>
      </bt:Images>
      <bt:Urls>
        <!-- <bt:Url id="functionFile" DefaultValue="<link to your function file if you need one>"/> -->
        <bt:Url id="taskPaneUrl" DefaultValue="<link to your web application>"/>
      </bt:Urls>
      <bt:ShortStrings>
        <bt:String id="groupLabel" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
        <bt:String id="buttonLabel" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
        <bt:String id="superTipTitle" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
      </bt:ShortStrings>
      <bt:LongStrings>
        <bt:String id="residDescription" DefaultValue="Some text" />
        <bt:String id="groupTip" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
        <bt:String id="buttonTip" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
        <bt:String id="superTip" DefaultValue="Some text"/>
      </bt:LongStrings>
    </Resources>
  </VersionOverrides>
  <!-- end of code to support Outlook 2016 -->

</OfficeApp>

In addition to the code between the code to support Outlook 2016-comments, you have to be sure to add the 2 additional lines in the 'OfficeApp tag':

xmlns:bt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/officeappbasictypes/1.0"
xmlns:mailappor="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/mailappversionoverrides/1.0"

I tried to make this Manifest.XML as general as possible so you can easily adopt it to your own project.