Enabling Modern Authentication in DMF and Message

MacroView DMF and Message version 8.5 and later support Modern Authentication and enables this feature by default.

What is Modern Authentication?

Modern authentication brings Active Directory Authentication Library (ADAL)-based sign-in to Microsoft Office client applications, enabling sign-in features such as:

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
• SAML-based third-party Identity Providers with Office client applications
• Smart card and certificate-based authentication

Modern authentication also removes the need for Outlook to use the basic authentication protocol.

Enabling or disabling Modern Authentication

Once you are signed in with Modern Authentication enabled in MacroView DMF and Message, you will only be asked to log in or authenticate if you change your password, sign out or do not use DMF/Message for long periods of time.

This means you will not be prompted to authenticate to SharePoint Online each time you start Outlook, DMF Explorer or use the Open from and Save to SharePoint options in Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

To enable Modern Authentication set the below registry value to 1 (default) or to disable it set the value to 0:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MacroView\DMF\UserOptions\EnableModernAuthentication

What is different when Modern Authentication is enabled?

When Modern Authentication enabled, right-clicking the SharePoint Online tenant node in the tree-view will show who you are currently signed in as and allow you to sign-in with a another account.

You can also go to MacroView Options > Servers > Edit to see the current signed in user and an option to sign in as a different user for the specified SharePoint location. See the screenshot below.

When you select a library or other location on SharePoint Online (Office 365) that you don't have access to, or are not currently signed into, the top of the file list will show a gold bar warning message with an option to sign in.

More than one SharePoint Online (Office 365) tenant?

If you have multiple SharePoint Online (Office 365) tenants that are licensed to use MacroView DMF or Message, you can access them all in the same DMF session if Modern Authentication has been enabled. With Modern Authentication disabled you can access only a single SharePoint Online (Office 365) tenant.

For more information see Working with multiple SharePoint Online tenants.