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32 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | S P R I N G 2 0 2 0 With Office 365 Add-ins, nothing need be installed locally. The web-based Office Add-ins are pushed to the Office 365 application from the Office 365 tenant. They are coded in CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, and kept in an "XML manifest file" that integrates with the web application. Administrators can deploy and distribute the add-ins centrally and easily. And because they are in Office 365, a cloud platform, they will be available everywhere immediately; on desktops, mobile devices, and in browser-versions like Outlook Web Access, an integration that legal vendors have not been able to achieve previously. The Office Add-ins are also operating system agnostic. They can run on Windows, Mac, and iOS. No code runs on the user's device itself or in the Office Client. The host application, such as Word, reads the add-in code and adjusts its interface accordingly. There are no DLL files. Office Add- ins do not consume local memory or CPU resources, and therefore have no impact on application load times or on performance and stability. This is a big change from COM and VSTO. NetDocuments recently released a version of its email filing add-in ndMail called "ndMail for Office 365." In the past, you would have had to install a COM add-in via MSI to extend this filing functionality to Outlook. With ndMail for Office 365, you don't have to install anything on the workstation. Once you deploy it to your central Office 365 tenant, users will be able to file to NetDocuments via Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and in mobile systems like iOS (via the Outlook for iOS app). Now, if you highlight an email in your iPhone, you can go to the Actions menu and file it right to NetDocuments using ndMail, with all of its predictive filing functionality provided to you from the cloud. It's not exactly the same as the older COM add-in, but then again, this is only the first iteration of the new delivery model. The company's goal in the next twelve to eighteen months is to move more of their more traditional COM add-ins to this model. A few of the big-name vendors now offer Office 365 Add-ins. Both Clio Practice Management and LawToolBox offer these new add-ins. If they do not, they probably soon will, as more customers embrace the Office 365 model and start demanding integration with Office in web browsers and on mobile devices. What Else to Consider About Office Add-ins Office Add-ins bring new flexibility to Office 365. Possibilities for extended functionality now seem limitless. But are there drawbacks? The new add-ins, such as ndMail for Office 365, depend on cloud-based data and applications. Does this mean you have to be in the cloud to benefit from the new add-ins? The short answer is "yes." You have to, at least, not be averse to the SaaS model. The cons of the new add-ins are the same ones that apply to cloud-based technolo in general. Functionality depends on internet connectivity and access to the firm's network. There are questions about offline functionality (which applies to all of Microsoft 365). Spotty Wi-Fi may cause difficulty integrating with locally installed resources. Contemporary technolo, however, such as DirectAccess, VPN (Windows 10 AutoVPN in particular), widespread Wi-Fi, and 5G, should drastically mitigate these concerns. F E A T U R E S "No code runs on the user's device itself or in the Office Client."

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