Feature Requests and Feedback
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Fix GeneralExceptions being thrown when multiple workbook are opened
Sometimes when more than one workbook is opened, then a:
GeneralException: There was an internal error while processing the request
is thrown during various office-js operations.See https://github.com/OfficeDev/office-js/issues/771 for details.
I know there's a workaround:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/force-excel-to-open-new-instance
but it's impossible to force clients to use it.150 votesThanks for reporting this issue! The bug is now in our backlog and it’s under investigation, we will let you know the update once we have
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Office Add-ins should run in Chromium-based Edge, not EdgeHTML
At the moment addins run in EdgeHTML
Recently Chromium-based Edge has been released which is much faster than EdgeHTML
Add-ins should run in new, Chromium-based Edge.
Will it be "just done" at the next Windows update?
Similar to previous suggestion:
https://officespdev.uservoice.com/forums/224641-feature-requests-and-feedback/suggestions/31155925-office-add-ins-should-run-in-edge-not-ie11100 votesThanks for the input – we’re working closely with the Edge team to use the WebView2 control for add-ins, and hope to have something to share later this year. Stay tuned!
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Trace Precedents/Dependents
Function/ability to trace precedents and dependents with the office.js API (similar to GetPrecedents in VBA).
34 votesThis feature is in backlog, we are working on Precedents API now. it would be in Preview soon.
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Add ContextMenu Extension Point to modern Outlook Add-ins
It would be useful to allow Outlook Add-ins to have context menu extension points to allow for more granular action controls (e.g. Right-clicking THIS specific email allows me to act on it with THIS add-in)
It seems that the context menu isn't off limit to all Office programs, such as Word or Excel, but there is not any support for Outlook.
https://dev.office.com/reference/add-ins/manifest/extensionpoint
125 votesThanks for your feedback! This is in our backlog but lower priority than a few other features. We’ll keep you posted with updates.
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JS API function to prevent user from sheet interaction
It would be extremely helpful in certain cases to prevent user to interact with the sheet/workbook while some action in the task pane is required or when some process is running (e.g. when some complex sheet changes are being performed - formatting, inserting columns, inserting data, charts....).
82 votesThank you for your input! We’ve added this to our backlog as something we want to implement. There are many items on the backlog, so we can’t set an exact estimated time for this, but we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Add "Change Tracking" API
Need a Change Tracking API in Word.
419 votesThank you for your input! We’ve added this to our backlog as something we want to implement. There are many items on the backlog, so we can’t set an exact estimated time for this, but we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Add Workbook.CancelEdit or WorkSheet.CancelEdit to get around GeneralExceptionError when cell being edited
It would be great to have a CancelEdit or have the Range Select / setting range values automatically cancel the editing and avoid this error which seems to have no workaround.
Whenever a cell is being edited by the user, any attempt to select a different range or update values in different ranges causes the General Exception error. There is no method to Cancel the Edit (essentially just need to send the ESCAPE keystroke to the workbook).
To reproduced just double-click on a cell to go into edit mode and then execution of this code fails:
Excel.run(function (ctx) {
…//this
66 votesHi Brian. Thank you for your input, it is greatly appreciated! We’ve added this to our backlog as something we want to implement. There are many items on the backlog, so we can’t set an exact estimated time for this, but we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Office.js support comapre document functionality equivalent to Application.CompareDocuments
VBA COM Object model supports Application.CompareDocuments to compare and merge word documents. Office.js lacks this capability. Please support this through Office.js
112 votesHi Pankaj, thank you for your input! We’ve added this to our backlog as something we want to implement. There are many items on the backlog, so we can’t set an exact estimated time for this, but we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Support dynamic content in Add-in commands ribbon dropdown menu
It would be very useful if add-ins dropdown menu could contain dynamically generated items. Now the displayed content in the ribbon dropdown need to be hardcoded even for sub-menus which limit the capabilities of add-ins commands.
See question on stackoverflow
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36315571/dynamic-content-in-add-in-command-with-ribbon-dropdown-menu207 votesBenoit, thank you for your input, it is greatly appreciated. This is definitely something we’d like to get to soon, but unfortunately there are a few other higher priority items. We’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Extend Word Javascript api to close the editing window
In a workflow scenario (not sharepoint workflow, something custom) where we want to have a button in a Word Add-In taskpane to close the Word Online window after saving the file. In this button we initiate a next workflow step by saving the document, initiate the next step by e.g. setting a flag in sharepoint and closing the document editing session of the user.
This could either be an office general api or a word specific api (this is where we need it the most).
156 votesHi Ernst, thank you for your input! We’ve added this to our backlog as something we want to implement. There are many items on the backlog, so we can’t set an exact estimated time for this, but we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Allow Outlook add-in commands to be used on selections of multiple items
Currently an add-in command will disable if multiple Outlook mail items are selected. It would be really useful to be able run certain commands by iterating over a collection of the selected items.
287 votesThanks for your feedback! This is in our backlog but lower priority than a few other features. We’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Provide functionality for Outlook Add-In to automatically launch in the task pane
Our very successful commercial Outlook add-in ePredict for SharePoint (http://ww3w.docauto.com/product/epredict-for-sharepoint) automatically launches its UI in the task pane in desktop versions of Outlook. Our customers are interested in a version for Office 365 Outlook online. However, Office 365 Outlook online requires user input to launch a task pane add-in. Our users would not accept this. Please add functionality, probably in the manifest, that would allow a user to give permission to an add-in to automatically launch in the task pane when an existing email is opened or a new email is being created. Thanks!
179 votesThanks for your feedback! This is in our backlog but lower priority than a few other features. We’ll keep you posted with updates.
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Invoke built-in ribbon commands from Javascript
We are able to invoke a built-in Ribbon command in VBA by using:
Application.CommandBars.ExecuteMso(“Copy”)
Could we have a way to invoke built-in functionality from Javascript
35 votesThank you for the feedback! We’ve added this to our backlog and we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Provide an Add-in IDE inside Office applications with macro recorder
Do you want to popularize Office JS Add-in development? Why don't you do as you did with VBA? There is a macro recorder and the VBE (VBA's IDE).
Anyone with a regular Office instalation can be a "developer" - just press Alt+F11 and start coding. This is a great incentive for begginer programmers.
If you recluse Office JS programming to Visual Studio it'll be no use even if the framework is great, because there'll be no adoption by the community.
You have to tease your customers' mind so he'll get addicted in macro recording and will want to learn more…31 votesHi Felipe,
Thanks for your suggestion. This is actually on our backlog already. We understand the importance and how much people love macro recorder. So stay tuned and it is coming.
Thanks,
Office Developer Team -
Support an option to insert content pane from add-in commands
Recently we got an option to insert task panes using add-in commands which is really nice feature. It would be very useful to have an option to insert content panes in Excel, Word and Power Point as well.
7 votesThank you for the feedback! We’ve added this to our backlog and we’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Provide more information with the Binding.BindingDataChanged event (for Excel table bindings)
The current BindingDataChangedEventArgs object passed to the event handler for the Binding.BindingDataChanged event only contains properties for the binding that raised the event and the type of event. There is no specific information about what cells, columns, or rows in the table object were changed. When dealing with tables with many rows and columns and/or end-user gestures that edit/insert/delete many cells/rows/columns at once, this API is not very useful. Contrast this to the (Excel) COM APIs where, at least, the SheetChanged event provides a Range object that describes what was changed.
34 votesThank you for your request!
We are collecting API requirements for developing Office Add-ins in Excel, specifically for Events API.
If you are considering moving an existing COM/VSTO/VBA Add-in to Office Add-in, or creating a new Office Add-in in Excel, and have events requirements, please fill the survey below and help us focus on the right set of events and design. We truly appreciate your help!
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Provide a feature which enables to create the bindings to named range which has multiple ranges in it
Can you please provide a feature which enables to create the bindings to named range which has multiple non contiguous ranges in it ?.
10 votesThank you for your request!
We are collecting API requirements for developing Office Add-ins in Excel, specifically for Events API.
If you are considering moving an existing COM/VSTO/VBA Add-in to Office Add-in, or creating a new Office Add-in in Excel, and have events requirements, please fill the survey below and help us focus on the right set of events and design. We truly appreciate your help!
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Allow mail apps to be OWA only
The new Mail Apps make adding functionality to OWA very easy, however they lack some of the power of a full-on Outlook addin. I suspect that a common use case will be to create a full-powered addin, and a "lite" mail app that handles what it can for OWA. At present, this doesn't work because the mail app shows up in both. Furthermore, it is possible to create functionality that only applies to one client or the other. It should be possible to specify an app as belonging to OWA or to Outlook.
116 votesThanks for your feedback! This is in our backlog but lower priority than a few other features. We’ll keep you posted with updates.
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Add worksheet activate/deactivate; workbook shutdown events to the Office Add-in Javascript APIs
The enhanced Excel-specific APIs available for developing Office Add-ins that run with Excel 2016 are a nice start. There are some key missing APIs. One area in need of extending is eventing. For workbooks that contain multiple worksheets, it is critical for the Add-in to be able to determine when a worksheet is activated/deactivated so that the Add-in's UI can adapt accordingly. Similarly, the Office Add-in should be able to hook an event so that when the workbook gets closed/shut down (and maybe Saved), the Add-in can persist in-memory state into the workbook.
33 votesThank you for your request!
We are collecting API requirements for developing Office Add-ins in Excel, specifically for Events API.
If you are considering moving an existing COM/VSTO/VBA Add-in to Office Add-in, or creating a new Office Add-in in Excel, and have events requirements, please fill the survey below and help us focus on the right set of events and design. We truly appreciate your help!
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team -
Provide Mail App Compose appointment functionality to manage resources
In compose app scenario there is no way to manage resources.
1. if you open a meeting in OWA that has resources configured, you cannot access to this resources.
2. if you create a meeing in Outlook and you add "Room Mailboxes" as required or optional attendees, OL resolve those partecipants as Resources and you can no longer manage those elements.54 votesThanks for your feedback! This is in our backlog but lower priority than a few other features. We’ll keep you posted with status updates.
Thanks!
Office Extensibility Team
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