How to turn on co-authoring as an admin

Updated Oct 22, 2024

This article describes a feature available to certain types of admins on Dropbox Standard, Advanced, Business, Business Plus, and Enterprise.

Admins on Dropbox Standard, Advanced, Business, Business Plus, or Enterprise teams with a Microsoft 365 Business license can enable co-authoring for their team.

Turning on co-authoring from the admin console

Co-authoring is enabled by default for most teams. However, if you have connected apps blocked by default for your team you’ll need to enable co-authoring by allowing your team to connect Microsoft Office 365 to Dropbox.

To do so:

Log in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
Click Admin console in the left sidebar.
Click Settings.
Under Apps, select App permissions.
Next to Microsoft Office 365, click “…” (Ellipsis).
Select Allow.

Turn on co-authoring from the admin console

Protected view on Windows

Windows will automatically begin co-authoring sessions with documents from untrusted sources in view-only mode. Dropbox is an untrusted source by default on Windows computers.

There’ll be a banner across the top of your screen warning you that files from the internet can contain viruses. To begin editing the document, click Enable editing.

To skip this step, you can set Dropbox as a trusted source. To do so:

Open the Control Panel.
Click Internet options.
Select the Security tab.
Select Trusted sites.
Click Sites.
Under Add this website to the zone enter the following web address: https://wopi.dropbox.com

This process will need to be completed by each person using co-authoring on your team. The team IT administrator can use Group Policy Objects to make Dropbox a trusted source for your entire organization.

Learn more about global authorization from Microsoft’s documentation.

How to auto-provision Dropbox as a Place for your team

Note: The following instructions are aimed at the IT administrator of your team. We highly recommend you read both this guide and the Microsoft Add-a-Place Provisioning for Desktop documentation before beginning the auto-provisioning process.

Auto-provisioning will allow you to add Dropbox as a Place on Office 365 for every member of your team, without having to manually do so for each account. Each of the setup methods below will require every user on your team to sign in to their Dropbox account in order to authenticate Dropbox as a storage location.

Group Policy Objects

To create and implement a new Group Policy Object:

Create a file containing the following PowerShell script:

$DropboxForTeamsServiceId = 'TP_DROPBOX_PLUS';
function Get-DropboxForTeamsExists {
    param ($OfficeVersion)
    $serviceExists = 0;
    $localServices = Get-ChildItem -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Office\$OfficeVersion\Common\ServicesManagerCache\Local"
    foreach ($value in $localServices) {
        $service = Get-ItemProperty "HKCU:\$value"
        if ($service.ServiceId -eq $DropboxForTeamsServiceId) {
            $serviceExists = 1;
            break
        }
    }
    $serviceExists;
}
# Get current office version
function Get-OfficeVersion {
    $officeVersionX32 = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -WarningAction SilentlyContinue) | Select-Object -ExpandProperty VersionToReport
    $officeVersionX64 = (Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -WarningAction SilentlyContinue)
    if ($officeVersionX32 -ne $null -and $officeVersionX64 -ne $null) {
        $officeVersion = $officeVersionX64 #Use x64 as default.
    } elseif($officeVersionX32 -eq $null -or $officeVersionX64 -eq $null) {
        $officeVersion = $officeVersionX32 + $officeVersionX64
    }
    $officeVersionMain = $officeVersion.Split(".")[0] + '.0'
    $officeVersionMain
}
Write-Host "Dropbox for Teams provisioning script initialized."
Write-Host "Detecting Office version."
$officeVersion = Get-OfficeVersion
Write-Host "Office version detected: $officeVersion"
$dropboxForTeamsExists = Get-DropboxForTeamsExists -OfficeVersion $officeVersion
if($dropboxForTeamsExists -eq 0) {
    Write-Host "Dropbox for Teams not found, running provisioning script."
    <#
        Paremeters used within script
        - `asp`    = Add storage provider command
        - `d`      = Read service identifier field
        - `o`      = This is lower-case letter ‘o’ not zero. Read operation identifier to indicate is silent or not
        - `1`      = Invoke in silent mode (intended to be invoked on user login)
        - `a`      = Lower-case letter ‘a’. Read the invoking application identifier
        - `script` = The application invoking the protocol handler for debugging and logging use. In this case it is script.
    #>
    start "ms-office-storage-host:asp|d|$DropboxForTeamsServiceId|o|1|a|script"
    Write-Host "Provision script finished."
} else {
    Write-Host "Dropbox for Teams found exiting..."
}

Create a new Group Policy Object (GPO):
1. Read the Microsoft documentation.
2. Open the Group Policy Management console as a user who is part of Group Policy Creator Owners.
3. Find Group Policy Objects for the given domain and click New.
4. Name your new Group Policy Object.
Set up the logon script:
1. Read the Microsoft documentation.
2. Open the Group Policy Management Console.
3. Under User Configuration, expand Windows settings and select Scripts.
4. Double-click on Logon in the Scripts Logon/Logoff window.
5. Click the PowerShell Scripts tab in the Logon Properties window.
6. Click Add.
7. Click Browse next to Script Name.
8. Copy the PowerShell script from the first step into that window and select it once the copy is completed.
9. Click Open.
  - This defaults to the Users-Scripts-Logon folder within the GPO object in the “Sysvol – Policies” folder.
Accept all changes and close Group Policy Management Editor.
Link that policy to any Organizational Unit (OU):
1. Read the Microsoft documentation.
2. Navigate to the desired OU in the Group Policy Management Console.
3. Right-click on this OU and select Link an Existing GPO.
4. Select the GPO you want to link and click OK.
The script will be executed when the team member logs in.
- Recommend or force the restart of the team member’s machine if required.

Applying the script using Intune

The PowerShell script can be applied in similar fashion through Intune. Read the official Microsoft documentation for more details.

Make sure to:

Target only Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices
Execute script in user context
Run the script using the logged-on credentials
Disable script signature check
Run script in 64-bit mode

Each of these options configure OfficePrePopulatedThirdPartyCloudStorageProviders entry under the com.microsoft.office domain.

Shell script

The below script has to be executed within user context. If any Microsoft apps are open when the script is executed, they’ll need to be restarted.

#!/bin/zsh
office_settings=$(defaults read com.microsoft.office)
if [[ ${office_settings} != *"domain com.microsoft.office does not exists"* ]] ;
then
  echo "Office detected"
  if [[ ${office_settings} == *"TP_DROPBOX_PLUS"* ]] ;
  then
    echo "Dropbox entry is present. No action taken."
  else
    echo "Adding Dropbox storage account entry..."
    defaults write com.microsoft.office OfficePrePopulatedThirdPartyCloudStorageProviders -array '{CSPServiceID=TP_DROPBOX_PLUS; }'
    echo "Entry added."
  fi
  exit 0
else
  echo "Office not installed."
  exit 1
fi

To revert the changes made, execute this shell script:

#!/bin/zsh
defaults write com.microsoft.office OfficePrePopulatedThirdPartyCloudStorageProviders -array '{}'

Apple Device Management install

Create a file with the extension .mobileconfig using any text editor.
Copy the below script and replace the #UUID1# and #UUID2# values with randomly generated values:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-
1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
        <dict>
                <key>PayloadContent</key>
                <array>
                        <dict>
                                <key>OfficePrePopulatedThirdPartyCloudStorageProviders</key>
                                <array>
                                        <dict>
                                                <key>CSPServiceID</key>
                                                <string>TP_DROPBOX_PLUS</string>
                                        </dict>
                                </array>
                                <key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
                                <string>Microsoft Office</string>
                                <key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
                                <string>com.microsoft.office.#UUID1#</string>
                                <key>PayloadType</key>
                                <string>com.microsoft.office</string>
                                <key>PayloadUUID</key>
                                <string>#UUID1#</string>
                                <key>PayloadVersion</key>
                                <integer>1</integer>
                        </dict>
                </array>
                <key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
                <string>Add Dropbox Storage Account to O365</string>
                <key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
                <string>com.dropbox.o365connectedservices</string>
                <key>PayloadOrganization</key>
                <string>Dropbox, Inc.</string>
                <key>PayloadRemovalDisallowed</key>
                <false/>
                <key>PayloadScope</key>
                <string>System</string>
                <key>PayloadType</key>
                <string>Configuration</string>
                <key>PayloadUUID</key>
                <string>#UUID2#</string>
                <key>PayloadVersion</key>
                <integer>1</integer>
        </dict>
</plist>

Upload the file to an Apple Device Management software (like JAMF or MobiControl).
Settings will be visible after restart of Office app.

Generating a .mobileconfig file using mcxToProfile

mcxToProfile is a simple command-line utility to create "Custom Settings" Configuration Profiles without the need for the Profile Manager Device Management service in OS X Server 10.7 and 10.8.

It can take input from property list files on disk or directly from a Directory Services node (Local MCX or Open Directory).

To use this method:

Create a new file with .plist extension using text editor.
Copy the below XML file.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>OfficePrePopulatedThirdPartyCloudStorageProviders</key>
    <array>
      <dict>
        <key>CSPServiceID</key>
        <string>TP_DROPBOX_PLUS</string>
      </dict>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

Convert .plist into .mobileconfig using the mcxToProfile tool.
Upload the file to MDM software (like JAMF or MobiControl).
Settings will be visible after restarting the Office app.

Storage account authentication

Once the above steps have been implemented, each user on your team will need to manually authenticate Dropbox as a place in the Office 365 desktop app. To do so:

Open any Microsoft Office 365 desktop app.
Click Open in the left sidebar.
Under Other locations, click Dropbox for Teams.
Click Sign in.
Log in to your Dropbox account.
Select the Dropbox account you’d like to link to Office 365.

Users may have to restart the Microsoft 365 app before Dropbox appears as a place.

Turning on Dropbox apps for Microsoft Teams

How to add the Dropbox app in Microsoft Teams

If you have all connected apps turned off by default, you‘ll need to add the Dropbox app for your team members using Teams’ app setup policy. To do so:

Sign in to Teams admin center and access Teams apps > Setup policies.
Select Add.
Provide a name and description for the policy.
Under Installed apps, select Add apps.
In the Add installed apps pane, search “Dropbox”.
Click Select next to Dropbox.
Select Add.

How to pin the Dropbox app in Microsoft Teams

To pin the Dropbox app in Microsoft Teams:

Sign in to Teams admin center and access Teams apps > Setup policies.
Select Add.
Provide a name and description for the policy.
- Optionally, turn on User pinning to allow users to pin apps and change the order of the pinned apps.
Under Pinned apps, select Add apps.
In the Add pinned apps pane, search for “Dropbox” and then select Add.