Office Add-ins developer platform community call – September 13, 2023

Office Add-ins developer platform community call – September 13, 2023

Office Add-ins developer platform community call - September 13, 2023

This month’s agenda and presenters

The call was hosted by Preethika Kiruveedula, Product Manager, Microsoft.

  • Update on changes to app entry point and dev sideloading Go over new updates to UI sideloading for Outlook add-ins and discuss potential delay in sideloading. Kate Everitt, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft.

  • Writing assistance Update from the Word Extensibility team Released a new feature called Writing Assistance for Word add-ins that will allow developers to leverage some of the on-canvas elements present in the editor in Word. Can begin testing feature now. Yun Wang, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft. Ana Pegan, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft.

  • Security enhancements to callback tokens for Office add-ins Enhancements have been made to callback tokens to increase security, have released a new API that incorporates these changes. Akhilesh Shah, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft.

  • Add-in entrance moved from Insert Tab to Home Tab and File Menu The add-in entrance for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint has moved from being under the Insert tab to being located on the Home tab and File menu. Adrian Wu, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft.

  • Q&A. See question and answers at end of call and in chat throughout call. Preethika Kiruveedula, Product Manager, Microsoft.

View video segments

  • Introduction 00:00
  • Update on changes to app entry point and dev sideloading 01:21
  • Writing assistance Update from the Word Extensibility team 07:35
  • Security enhancements to callback tokens for Office add-ins 14:50
  • Add-in entrance moved from Insert Tab to Home Tab and File Menu 18:05
  • Q&A 25:26
  • Closing 26:09

Call to action

Q&A (Question & Answers)

A few months ago, Smart Alerts for Outlook were introduced. At the time, one of the slides said that Smart Alerts run in “js-engine” for Win32 and WebView for OWA. We are finding that there are limitations when using the “js-engine” runtime; the same code works when using WebView for OWA. Where can we find documentation on the “js-engine” features and limitations?

Still investigating this question.

Will the delay be removed for the centralized deployment as well? Admin deployed addins from the store?

I don’t have the answers to this but I hear the need for quick deployment across multiple surfaces.

Does the pin feature still apply only for Outlook? Or also for other products?

Right now we are doing pinning per client - so it would apply to Outlook only M365 Admin will be auto pinned. We aspire to have them have pin/unpin level of control but no timeline on that.

“Customer is able to pin or un-pin” Does “customer” here refer to end user or M365 Admin?

Customer refers to the end user.

Will sideloading work the same way in Word and Excel as well?

The new Store provides a new view of AppSource to help you search and install add-ins for Outlook.

Where would you go to rate or recommend an addin in this new experience?So the in app experience to rate an add-in is gone?Really? When I go to my add-ins in PowerPoint I can’t see that option anymore. Am I missing something?

You can rate the add-ins on the App Source website: Business Apps – Microsoft AppSource You can still find the rating entry point from the in app store (My add-ins)

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