What is Open with Office Online?

Microsoft Office Online is an online version of popular Microsoft applications including Word, PowerPoint and Excel. The Open with Office Online feature enables users to co-author and collaboratively edit Microsoft Office files from the Amazon WorkDocs web application.

How can the Open with Office Online feature be enabled?

Open with Office Online is available as a feature at no additional cost for all WorkDocs users who also have a valid Microsoft Office 365 ‘Work’ or ‘School’ account with a license to use Office Online. WorkDocs administrators can enable this feature in the admin console. Once the capability has been enabled at the site level, users will need to authenticate with Office Online using their Microsoft Office 365 subscription.

What are Office 365 Licensing requirements?

Users will need a Microsoft Office 365 ‘Work’ or ‘School’ account with license for Office Online. Please refer to this link for further details on Licenses.

How can a customer get a valid Microsoft Office 365 License that allows them to use Open with Office Online?

Users are solely responsible for obtaining all required licenses from Microsoft to use Open with Office Online and for complying with all applicable Microsoft licensing requirements. Please refer to the links below to learn more about obtaining a valid Microsoft Office 365 license:

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans

https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-office-products?tab=2

How can a user edit files in the web-client if they do not have a Microsoft Office 365 license?

If WorkDocs’ users do not have a valid Microsoft Office 365 license, they can use WorkDocs Companion available in the WorkDocs’ web client to make edits to their files. WorkDocs Companion allows users to open any Microsoft Office, .pdf, .txt file directly in the native application and changes made get saved back automatically to WorkDocs, without requiring any additional steps.

What capabilities do users get with the Open with Office Online feature?

Office online capabilities are detailed at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office-online-service-description.aspx

How can a user access Open with Office Online?

There are 2 ways users can use Open with Office Online:

Users can log into Amazon WorkDocs and select a Microsoft Office file in the file explorer view. User can click on the Edit icon and the latest version of the file will open in Office Online and the user can start editing the document.

Users can open a file in the preview view of the Amazon WorkDocs web application, and click on the Edit icon in the file actions menu. The latest version of the file will be opened using Office Online. Users can also select a version of the document in the file actions menu if they want to edit a specific version of the document.

What happens when an edit session ends while working with Open with Office Online?

All edits to the document are automatically saved in WorkDocs as a new version.

What file types are supported by Open with Office Online?

The files types with extensions .pptx, .docx, .xlsx can be used with Open with Office Online.

What browsers does Open with Office Online work on?

The Open with Office Online feature is supported on the most recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. For details see https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/faqs/

What permissions does a user need to have to open a file using Open with Office Online?

A user needs to have owner, co-owner or contributor permissions to be able to edit a file using Open with Office Online.

What happens to user data when Open with Office Online is enabled?

All of your file and folder information is stored only in WorkDocs. Enabling the Open with Office Online feature does not automatically grant Microsoft access to your organization’s files and folders. By enabling the optional Open with Office Online feature for your WorkDocs site, you will allow Office Online to access only those files your users choose to edit using Office Online and only for the limited duration of the file editing session. When the edit process is completed the file is securely stored back in WorkDocs.

When and where is the file saved with Open with Office Online?

All of your file and folder information is stored only in WorkDocs. Enabling the Open with Office Online feature does not automatically grant access to your organization’s files and folders. By enabling the optional Open with Office Online feature for your WorkDocs site, you will allow Office Online to access only those files your users choose to edit using Office Online and only for the limited duration of the file editing session. When a user clicks on the Edit icon, the Office Online service is given access to the file and it will reside on the Office Online servers for the duration of the edit session. When the edit session is terminated the finished document is sent back to WorkDocs to be saved as a new version.

How can multiple users collaboratively edit a file?

The editing session starts with a user editing the file. When other users view the same file, they will see a Live Edit icon that they can click to join the collaborative editing session assuming they have the right permissions (owner, co-owner, contributor) for the file.

What happens when an edit session is initiated in Office Online by a user and a collaborator tries to open the file in the WorkDocs Companion from the web application?

The collaborator will not be able to edit the file using WorkDocs Companion. When collaborator clicks on Open with Companion, they will see a message ‘WorkDocs Companion is not available for edit’ util the edit session with Office Online is over. User can continue editing the file using Open with Office Online.

What happens when an edit session is initiated in Office Online by a user and a collaborator tries to open the file in WorkDocs Drive?

The collaborator will not be able to edit the file using WorkDocs Drive and will get a message indicating the file is locked when attempting to save. The original user can continue editing the file using Open with Office Online.

What happens when a file is opened by a user in WorkDocs Companion or WorkDocs Drive and collaborator tries to edit the file using Open with Office Online?

The collaborator will be able to edit the file using Open with Office Online. User will not be able to save the changes made to the file using WorkDocs Companion or the WorkDocs Drive app until the editing session using Open with Office Online is over.

What happens if a user is editing a file using Open with Office Online and a collaborator tries to put a lock on the file?

The collaborator will not be able to put a lock on the file and will get a tooltip message ‘The lock is unavailable’. User can continue editing the file using Open with Office Online.

What happens if a file is locked by user and collaborator tries to edit the file using Open with Office Online?

The collaborator will not be able to edit the file using Open with Office Online. The lock feature will work as designed.

Can external partners edit documents using the Open with Office Online feature?

External partners are users such as vendors, contractors, or other business relations who need to access and collaborate on files saved in WorkDocs. In cases where external partners have been upgraded to paid users, they can become collaborators on a document and can use the Open with Office Online feature to edit documents. External partners will need to have a valid Microsoft Office 365 ‘Work’ or ‘School’ account in order to Open with Office Online. Please refer to the links to see how you can get a valid Microsoft Office 365 license to use Office Online:

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans

https://products.office.com/en-us/compare-all-microsoft-office-products?tab=2

Can you edit password protected Microsoft Office files using Office Online?

No, you cannot edit password protected Microsoft Office files using Open with Office Online.

What happens when my edit session ends while working with Open with Office Online?

When the edit session ends, the file that was being worked on is saved to WorkDocs with all the changes made by users in Office Online. This file is saved as a new version in WorkDocs.

What happens when the edit session is running for a long time without any active edit work done by any of the editors/users while working with Open with Office Online?

The edit session does not expire but Microsoft Office 365 prompts the user to refresh the document. Changes made by users are automatically saved in WorkDocs.

What browsers does the Open with Office Online feature work on?

Open with Office Online works on all browsers that Amazon WorkDocs supports, i.e. recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. For details see https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/faqs/.

When should a user use WorkDocs Companion vs. WorkDocs Sync vs. WorkDocs Drive vs. Open with Office Online?

When users are connected to the internet, they can choose WorkDocs Companion or Open with Office Online. When users are not connected to the internet, they can use Amazon WorkDocs Drive or Amazon WorkDocs Sync. Open with Office Online enables Amazon WorkDocs users to collaboratively edit and co-author documents.