Open this task button in Office 2016

Question

Hi,

I would like to know if Open this task button is still available in Office 2016 applications. This button comes from a standard Approval Workflow in SharePoint 2010. It works fine for users with Word 2010 Professional Plus but does not appear anywhere for users with Word 2016 Standard. I know that DIP is no longer available and document properties can now be accessed in the File - Info tab but I cannot find there any workflow-related information. 

Is Office 2016 no longer compatible with SharePoint 2010 workflows? Or is this a matter of the license? Is it available in Word Professional Plus 2016?

I've seen a topic in which it was mentioned that Open this task button might be available in Outlook client but is there any other way to approve a document directly from Word or Excel? Without using Outlook client or going directly to a SharePoint site to approve the task? Because in the current scenario it works with SharePoint 2010 + Office 2010 but in Word 2016 there is no yellow workflow taskbar. 

Thanks,

Piotr

Moved from: [ Office / Word / Windows 10 / Office 2016 ]

Answer 1

Hi Piotr,

Office 2016 ProPlus supports this. Based on my test, you need to add the SharePoint site to IE trusted sites first. Then the task bar can appear. To do so, please follow the steps below:

1. Open the SharePoint site in IE.
2. IE settings>Internet Options>Security>Trusted Sites>Sites>Add this website to the zone>Add>ok

Then please check the normal steps below to approve via Office desktop client:

1. You receive a workflow email.
2. Click the file link to open the file in your Office desktop client.
3. See the task bar.

Please also check the normal steps to approve via Outlook desktop client:

1. You receive a workflow email
2. Open the email> Message tab>click “Open this Task” button>it will redirect you to the SharePoint workflow management page.

Reference: All about Approval workflows

Note: The workflow I made in the test is by going to the library >Library settings>workflow settings to add the SharePoint 2010 approval workflow. If your workflow is not created in this way, there can be a little different.

Thanks,

Rena

Answer 2

Hi Piotr,

I notice that the issue you have is happening only in the volume licensing Office Standard 2016 client.  I suggest you go to Volume Licensing Service Center for support to confirm how this feature works in this client version.

Thanks,

Rena

Answer 3

Hi Rena,

Thank you for taking time to look into this. The SharePoint site is already in my trusted sites. As I mentioned earlier, this works in Office 2010 Professional Plus but does not work in Office 2016 Standard. My workflow was made the same way as yours. 

In my case it is:

1. You receive a workflow email. +
2. Click the file link to open the file in your Office desktop client. +
3. See the task bar. - there is no task bar in Word 2016 Standard

Please also check the normal steps to approve via Outlook desktop client:

1. You receive a workflow email +
2. Open the email> Message tab>click “Open this Task” button>it will redirect you to the SharePoint workflow management page. +

It works in Outlook but is there a way to make it available in the Word application as well? The way it works in Word 2010. So that an approver can read the document and click approve from within Word without the need of using Outlook or going directly to the task page. 

Unfortunately, I do not have the possibility to test it in Office ProPlus so perhaps this is just a matter of licensing. If it's not available in the Standard version, a simple confirmation that it is a ProPlus feature would be sufficient for me.

Thanks,

Piotr

Answer 4

Hi,

Does anyone know the answer to my question?

Thanks,

Piotr