Building out an alternative file storage platform from the Outlook Integration

English Forum Developers & API
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Hi! I was redirected here from the following thread:

In brief, our use case:
When using the Outlook Asana add-on does anyone know of any way to redirect file attachments to a different file storage platform (e.g Box) rather than Asana?

We have documents that are constantly being updated by a lot of collaborators so static file storage within Asana is not ideal. The extra step of saving files to Box (or OneDrive) then putting that link into the task being created from Outlook means it’s not happening. In this particular case, communication and tasks will continue to come in via email from clients.

Proposed Solution:
Build into the Outlook Integration within Asana to allow a further step for selecting file storage from a dropdown when sending an email with the widget as a new task or as a comment on an existing task. That would create the task/comment with content as usual, but instead of adding the file to the board as an attachment, it would add it to the specified folder and link it via a text link generated. Even better would be if it could leverage some of the already included integrations (Box/Dropbox/Sharepoint) with Asana, but if not a text link to the file storage would do. Ability to set permissions from the widget for the incoming file would also be fantastic, but not a showstopper.

Question is: Can our dev team build something that would add this functionality to the current

Outlook Integration? Is it possible to access the Outlook Integration code? Is it open source?

If not, is this something that would require a stand-alone outlook build using the Asana APIs? Our dev team may be able to work on that. Can this be accomplished?

All help appreciated, thank you!

1 Like
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Still no response for this question.

We just want to know if we can piggyback off the code in the existing Outlook add-in, or if we are going to need to write an entire add in from scratch if we want to add this file forwarding element.

Thank you

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That Outlook add-in is not open source so you’ll likely need to write your own add-in. But looping in @Ross_Grambo in case he has any additional input.

1 Like
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Hey @anon55395854,

@Phil_Seeman is correct, the outlook integration is unfortunately not open source. Thinking through the requirements, I believe our API provides everything you would need to build this integration. I’m unfamiliar with the Outlooks side of things. As long as they allow you to use custom apps you should be good to go.