Shared Email Templates for Microsoft Outlook

Privacy, security, and data safety notes

The protection of your personal information is our priority. We want you to feel safe while using our Shared Email Templates for Microsoft Outlook ("Shared Email Templates" or "SET"). However, Shared Email Templates would not work if we didn't collect certain data. On this page, you can find detailed information on what data we collect, how we protect it, and where we store it.

What data we collect

Personal data

When you create an account, you provide your first and last name, username, email address, and password. We collect this information so that you can sign in to your account.

Templates

While creating a template for email messages, appointments, signatures, and mail merge, you enter its name, description, and the template itself. All this information is saved so that you can use your templates.

Note. When you attach files or insert pictures from any cloud storage to your templates, we do not save your files and credentials for these storages (OneDrive or SharePoint). These files and pictures are transferred from your cloud storage to the currently opened message when you insert your templates, directly without us—any our services or code—in the middle.

Teams

We save the names of your teams, descriptions, members, their email addresses, and teammates permissions.

Cookies

We use cookies and/or similar technologies to operate the core functions of Shared Email Templates. You can find more information in Privacy Policy (https://www.ablebits.com/docs/outlook-shared-templates-privacy-policy/#annex-one).

Activity

We save the date and time when you last started the add-in to identify accounts that are inactive, inform users who have inactive accounts, and delete such accounts.

Communications

When you contact our customer support service, we keep all your email and chat messages.

Required permissions

Your use of our products does not give us access to any sensitive personal data stored in your Microsoft account such as physical address or credit card details.

Depending on the Shared Email Templates feature you're going to use for the first time, you'll get the corresponding permissions request like the one in the screenshot below:
Permissions requested when you're attaching a file from SharePoint with a macro

We use each of the permissions granted by you for a specific purpose. Please see detailed descriptions of required permissions in Privacy Policy (https://www.ablebits.com/docs/outlook-shared-templates-privacy-policy/#annex-two).

How you can revoke the granted permissions

If you have a Microsoft work or school account

Follow instructions available on the Microsoft Support website on the Edit or revoke application permissions in the My Apps portal help page.

If you have a personal Microsoft account

  1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/account and sign in to your account.
  2. Select Privacy > App Access.
  3. Next to Shared Email Templates, select Details.
  4. In the dialog that will appear, select Stop sharing.

Where we store the collected data

Your data in Shared Email Templates.

All your templates are stored in an encrypted cloud-based database hosted by Amazon Web Services. This is a protected storage inside an isolated private network. All data can only be accessed through the template sharing service, the core back-end service of Shared Email Templates.

When you create an encrypted team, you add one more layer of encryption. In this case, all templates are encrypted with the AES symmetric-key algorithm before being saved to the cloud database. Please note, you are the only person who knows the Team Password and passes the password to your teammates in a safe way.

Also, SET stores local copies of your templates (the local templates cache) in the following locations on your devices:

  • web browser local storage in case of the Shared Email Templates web app or the Shared Email Templates add-in running in Outlook on the web (Outlook Online)
  • Outlook cache in case of the Shared Email Templates add-in running in your desktop Outlook.

The local templates cache is isolated and not accessible by other browser extensions or Outlook add-ins. We store the local templates cache unencrypted because of the performance reasons. Otherwise we would have to decrypt templates each time you start Shared Email Templates, which would dramatically increase its startup time.

The local templates cache is refreshed with each change in templates, e.g. if your teammate creates a new template, the new template goes to the cache.

How it works

Shared Email Templates is designed and built taking care of your privacy and security; it is architected and developed following the zero-trust and privacy-by-design principles. The diagram below explains how Shared Email Templates works for the main use case—inserting a template into the email message you are writing. Your mail, attachments, images, and other Outlook or cloud-based data stay on your device and on your cloud storage. No data is sent to Shared Email Templates services or any 3rd-party service, and all actions and transformations are done locally, in your Outlook.
This is a data handling diagram.

  1. A user starts the Shared Email Templates add-in.
  2. From the Shared Email Templates services, the add-in loads and decrypts the user's and a team's templates, as well as profile and team properties.
  3. The user inserts the selected template into the currently opened email message.
  4. The add-in parses the template and its macros.
  5. From Outlook, the add-in reads the current email message if macros referring to the message content are found.
  6. From Azure Active Directory, the add-in reads the user's properties if macros referring to AD properties are found.
  7. The add-in asks Outlook to attach files or insert pictures if the Attach or InsertPicture macro is found.
  8. The add-in changes email message fields if corresponding macros are found.
  9. The add-in inserts the processed template into the current cursor position.
  10. The add-in replaces the current signature (if there's any) with the signature embedded into the template.

What data others collect, but we don't

We do not collect any payment information, such as bank account details, credit card information, and check information.

You might find that Microsoft Office telemetry is run together with the Shared Email Templates app and add-in. This is because we use Microsoft's office.js framework.

Who can access your personal data at our office

We develop and test our products on specially created testing configurations, so access to your personal data is very limited and only a few people at our office have permissions.

However, no one has permissions to access your templates and passwords, including your personal password and Team Passwords.

Read-only access (provided on request only) is given to a few of our core engineers and only in case they need to figure out some complex technical thing.

Read-only access is provided to our senior system administrator to perform online monitoring and periodic maintenance of our servers and services.

Read-only access to your data is also given to our customer support service and sales specialists. They need your personal data to assist you when you contact us with related questions.

Note. Please be prepared that our customer support service team may ask you to send them the HTML code of your template if they think the problem is in it. However, we will never ask for your password or Team Passwords.

How we control access to your data at our office

We make a lot of effort to keep your data safe. Firstly, we restrict physical access to our office and to our computers with door locking, access control systems, alarm system, and surveillance facilities. Secondly, we restrict access to our systems by using central management of system access, no guest accounts policy, password and authentication policies.

Also, we control access to data with the help of differentiated access rights, access rights defined according to duties, measures to prevent the use of automated data-processing systems by unauthorized persons.

To prevent unauthorized access, data alteration and disclosure, all our communication channels are encrypted using virtual private networks for remote access, transport and communication of data. All our sub-networks are joined into a wholly-owned private network. Finally, all our computers are protected with antivirus software and firewall systems.

You can find detailed information on our technical and organizational security measures in our Data Processing Agreement at https://www.ablebits.com/docs/outlook-shared-templates-dpa/#annex-two.

How to erase your data

To remove your data, simply delete all the teams where you are the administrator, and then delete your account in the Profile section. To have all your communications with us removed from our systems, please contact our customer support service.

How you can make sure that everything above is true

You can see all the information that is sent to our services and storages with your own eyes with the help of the Fiddler tool or your browser console. Also, you can inspect our client-side source code directly in your web browser.

Data access using Microsoft Graph

Sign in/Sign up with Microsoft

Graph Permission Permission Type Justification Azure AD App ID
openid delegated Required by Azure AD authorization flow. To sign users in and ensure their consent to using the Shared Email Templates app. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
profile delegated To read basic user information. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
offline_access delegated To refresh access token, when the active one is expired. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
User.Read delegated To read the profile of signed-in users. Also allows the Shared Email Templates app to read basic company information of signed-in users. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
User.ReadBasic.All delegated To read a basic set of profile properties of other users in the organization on behalf of the signed-in user. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce

General Shared Email Templates functionality

Graph Permission Permission Type Justification Azure AD App ID
openid delegated Required by Azure AD authorization flow. To sign users in and ensure their consent to using the Shared Email Templates app. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
profile delegated To read basic user information. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
User.Read delegated To read the profile of signed-in users. Also allows the Shared Email Templates app to read basic company information of signed-in users. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
Files.ReadWrite.All delegated To read and upload files to the signed-in user's OneDrive or SharePoint folders. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
Sites.Read.All delegated To read site and folder items in all site collections on behalf of the signed-in user. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
Mail.Read delegated To read email in user mailboxes. Required for Outlook Draft functionality. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
Mail.Read.Shared delegated To read mail that the user can access, including shared mail. Required for Outlook Draft functionality. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce
or
680093f8-3534-48f1-8dae-3a13343cc03c
directory.read.all delegated Required by Azure AD authorization flow. To read data in groups of the user's organization. c1e89043-a87e-4168-9620-996b6174f9ce

Mail Merge functionality

Graph Permission Permission Type Justification Azure AD App ID
openid delegated Required by Azure AD authorization flow. To sign users in and ensure their consent to using the Shared Email Templates app. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
profile delegated To read basic user information. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
offline_access delegated To refresh access token, when the active one is expired. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
User.Read delegated To read the profile of signed-in users. Also allows the Shared Email Templates app to read basic company information of signed-in users. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
Files.ReadWrite.All delegated To read and upload files to the signed-in user's OneDrive or SharePoint folders. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
Mail.Send delegated Allows the Shared Email Templates app to send mail as signed-in users. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15
Mail.Send.Shared delegated Allows the Shared Email Templates app to send mail as the signed-in user, including sending on behalf of others. 6e8e4d5c-1979-4b55-a2e8-a7531167af15

Responses

Why would this app collect and send information about my emails and calendar items and send them to a third party? Who is the third party? And why are you collecting and sending them my personal information? This seems to fly in the face of everthing you say about protecting privacy.

Hello Janet,

Thank you for your comment. The only third party that can get access to your data is Microsoft itself because our add-in is built on Microsoft Office extensibility technology and your Outlook account should be connected to Microsoft 365, Exchange Online, or Outlook.com. I think we need to clarify this point and update our privacy policy. Thank you once again for sharing your feedback with us.

Hi,

I was wondering the routine for restoreing missing templates? and how is the backup routine on your end? can i be sure my data won't be lost?

Katerina Bespalaya (Ablebits Team) says:
January 29, 2020 at 3:12 pm

Hi Maren,

Thank you for your questions. The Trash folder as well as the Export / Import feature are on our roadmap for upcoming beta releases. As for the backup routine, we use a cloud-based database with its own backup scheme in Amazon Web Services.

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