OfficeJS: Create a (VERY) Basic Add-in for Excel

March 3, 2017July 3, 2017 David E. Craig3 Comments

Recently, I was asked what is needed in order to create the most basic add-in you can. The least amount of files, work and effort. Technically, you only need two files:

An HTML file with all your JavaScript inline and all the Office and JQuery libraries being pulled from a CDN.
An XML Manifest file that defines the add-in.

You publish the HTML file to a web server, get the address to where it is published, update the manifest with that information and then install the XML file as an add-in. The XML file will define the add-in name/description and points to the HTML file for the code. When you launch the add-in, the task pane will open and the HTML page will be loaded in it. From there your JavaScript will execute and your add-in will come alive. It is THAT easy. 2 files.

To demonstrate this, I created a simple Excel add-in. Here is the code for the bare minimum manifest XML:

[code lang=”xml” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the github.com embedding below is not visible.”]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OfficeApp
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/appforoffice/1.1"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:bt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/officeappbasictypes/1.0"
xmlns:ov="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/taskpaneappversionoverrides"
xsi:type="TaskPaneApp">
<Id>5226365f-62d0-435f-a4af-cc6a7bd753b2</Id>
<Version>1.0.0.1</Version>
<ProviderName>TheOfficeContext.com</ProviderName>
<DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
<DisplayName DefaultValue="BasicAddin" />
<Description DefaultValue="This is a basic addin."/>
<IconUrl DefaultValue="" />
<Hosts>
<Host Name="Workbook" />
</Hosts>
<DefaultSettings>
<SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://basicaddin.azurewebsites.net/home.html" />
</DefaultSettings>
<Permissions>ReadWriteDocument</Permissions>
</OfficeApp>
[/code]

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<OfficeApp
	xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/appforoffice/1.1"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:bt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/officeappbasictypes/1.0"
	xmlns:ov="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/taskpaneappversionoverrides"
	xsi:type="TaskPaneApp">
	<Id>5226365f-62d0-435f-a4af-cc6a7bd753b2</Id>
	<Version>1.0.0.1</Version>
	<ProviderName>TheOfficeContext.com</ProviderName>
	<DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
	<DisplayName DefaultValue="BasicAddin" />
	<Description DefaultValue="This is a basic addin."/>
	<IconUrl DefaultValue="" />
	<Hosts>
	<Host Name="Workbook" />
	</Hosts>
	<DefaultSettings>
	<SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://basicaddin.azurewebsites.net/home.html" />
	</DefaultSettings>
	<Permissions>ReadWriteDocument</Permissions>
	</OfficeApp>

view raw

BasicAddin.xml

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here is the HTML file that is quite basic, I am not even using the Microsoft Fabric for the controls. This is a simple HTML page, period:

[code lang=”xml” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the github.com embedding below is not visible.”]
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge" />
<title>Excel Basic Add-In</title>
<!–using JQuery CDN so we do not need to include–>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="https://appsforoffice.microsoft.com/lib/1/hosted/office.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
        (function () {
            "use strict";
            // The initialize function must be run each time a new page is loaded.
            Office.initialize = function (reason) {
                $(document).ready(function () {
                    // Add a click event handler for the button.
                    $(‘#simple-button’).click(function () {
                        Office.context.document.getSelectedDataAsync(Office.CoercionType.Text,
                        function (result) {
                            if (result.status === Office.AsyncResultStatus.Succeeded) {
                                $("#banner-text").text(‘The selected text is: "’ + result.value + ‘"’);
                                $("#banner").show();
                            } else {
                                $("#banner-text").text(‘Error: ‘ + result.error.message);
                                $("#banner").show();
                            }
                        });
                    });
                    $("#banner-close").click(function () { $("#banner").hide(); });
                    $("#banner").hide();
                });
            }
        })();
    </script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="content-main">
<div class="padding">
<h1>Basic Addin</h1>
<div>Select a cell with text and then…</div>
<button id="simple-button">Click Here!</button></div>
</div>
<div id="banner" style="position:absolute;bottom: 0;">
<div id="banner-text"></div>
<button id="banner-close"> <i>X</i> </button></div>
</body>
</html>
[/code]

	<!DOCTYPE html>
	<html>
	<head>
	<meta charset="UTF-8" />
	<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge" />
	<title>Excel Basic Add-In</title>
	<!–using JQuery CDN so we do not need to include–>
	<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
	<script src="https://appsforoffice.microsoft.com/lib/1/hosted/office.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript">
	(function () {
	"use strict";

	// The initialize function must be run each time a new page is loaded.
	Office.initialize = function (reason) {
	$(document).ready(function () {
	// Add a click event handler for the button.
	$('#simple-button').click(function () {
	Office.context.document.getSelectedDataAsync(Office.CoercionType.Text,
	function (result) {
	if (result.status === Office.AsyncResultStatus.Succeeded) {
	$("#banner-text").text('The selected text is: "' + result.value + '"');
	$("#banner").show();
	} else {
	$("#banner-text").text('Error: ' + result.error.message);
	$("#banner").show();
	}
	});
	});
	$("#banner-close").click(function () { $("#banner").hide(); });
	$("#banner").hide();
	});
	}
	})();
	</script>
	</head>
	<body>
	<div id="content-main">
	<div class="padding">
	<h1>Basic Addin</h1>
	<div>Select a cell with text and then…</div>
	<button id="simple-button">Click Here!</button>
	</div>
	</div>
	<div id="banner" style="position:absolute;bottom: 0;">
	<div id="banner-text"></div>
	<button id="banner-close"> <i>X</i> </button>
	</div>
	</body>
	</html>

view raw

Home.html

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

What this add-in does is very simple. It opens the task pane with a single button. Enter some text in a cell in Excel, select that cell, and then click the button. It gets the text and displays it in a popup at the bottom of the pane. I have published this add-in manifest here:

https://basicaddin.azurewebsites.net/basicaddin.xml

You can run it by using these steps:

Open Excel Online. I first log into https://outlook.office365.com. Then I click on the menu button in the upper left and select Excel.
I select to create a “New blank workbook.”
On the Insert tab, I click Add-ins.
In the upper right, I select “Upload My Add-in”
I click Browse and in the Filename box, I put https://basicaddin.azurewebsites.net/basicaddin.xml and then click Open. This will download the add-in to the cache on your system and you will get a file name like “basicaddin[1].xml.”
Click Upload.
The add-in will load from my Azure site and you will see the button demonstrated above.

Now, to go ahead and answer a question I know are coming. How did I upload this Azure without Visual Studio publishing tools:

I went to my Azure Protal (portal.azure.com).
I clicked the +New button on the left side.
I selected Web + Mobile, then Web App
I filled in the required information: Name and resource group and clicked Create.
After it was done, I followed these steps to get to the site via FTP: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kaushal/2014/08/01/microsoft-azure-web-site-connect-to-your-site-via-ftp-and-uploaddownload-files/
I uploaded ONLY the HTML file.
I got the path to the location from the Azure portal:
Next, I updated the XML manifest to point to https://basicaddin.azurewebsites.net/home.html
Then I used the steps above to load it into Excel Online.

This is fairly simple from a web developer perspective. Now, if you are not a web developer (but a traditional Office developer), you are probably still on the fence on how/why you would want to go through all of this. Again, the primary thing I am demonstrating here is how you can build an add-in with as few files as possible. But, I want to reiterate how these new add-ins are truly cross-platform. Follow these steps on your iPad and you will know what I mean. It is incredible and this work really is not that difficult to perform. It might just be a tad time consuming in the beginning as you are getting used to the new interfaces.

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me.

Testing a Web Add-in with Multiple Manifest

July 13, 2016December 19, 2016 David E. Craig5 Comments

First, let’s discuss the architecture and from an Outlook/Exchange perspective:

First, you load your manifest on the Exchange server. The manifest is simply an XML file that contains pointers to your web site (on the IIS server).
When you load Outlook Web Access and click the add-ins button, the Add-ins pane will appear and each application manifest you have loaded will appear in the list.
When you click on one of the add-is, the task pane will load (in Orange) and your site (located on the IIS Server) will populate in the pane.

The problem arises when you have but ONE Exchange server or ONE developer account for development and test. Developers want to be able to debug the code they are working with which typically loads from the local instance of IIS Express (localhost). But testers need to be able to work with the latest release build to test.

So, how do you do this?

The key is in the Manifest file. If you open the Manifest file, you will see the <Id> field. This is the most important piece, but there are other areas you should/need to update as well. What you will essentially have is two copies of your manifest file:

The first file will use the default ID provided in the project, it should have a name like Developer Release and it will point to your localhost (this is default with the setup of a new Web Add-in).

[code language=”xml”]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
…
<Id>aaaaaaaa-3c56-4091-951e-18fda9e471d4</Id>
<Version>1.0.0.2</Version>
<ProviderName>David E. Craig</ProviderName>
<DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
<DisplayName DefaultValue="Demo Developer Release" />
…
<FormSettings>
<Form xsi:type="ItemEdit">
<DesktopSettings>
<SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://localhost:44303/AppCompose/Home/Home.html"/>
</DesktopSettings>
</Form>
</FormSettings>
…
</OfficeApp>
[/code]

The second file will have a different unique ID, a different name (like Tester Release) and it will point to your IIS website.

[code language=”xml”]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
…
<Id>bbbbbbbb-3c56-4091-951e-18fda9e471d4</Id>
<Version>1.0.0.2</Version>
<ProviderName>David E. Craig</ProviderName>
<DefaultLocale>en-US</DefaultLocale>
<DisplayName DefaultValue="Demo Tester Release" />
…
<FormSettings>
<Form xsi:type="ItemEdit">
<DesktopSettings>
<SourceLocation DefaultValue="https://TestServer/AppCompose/Home/Home.html"/>
</DesktopSettings>
</Form>
</FormSettings>
…
</OfficeApp>
[/code]

The real key is having different ID’s and publishing them separately. In Visual Studio the developers will have everything set as shown above (essentially leave everything as default). When they are ready to drop a build to the testers:

Right-click on the Website project and click Publish. Follow the steps to publish the site to the Testers server.
Right-click on the Manifest project and click Publish. Click the “Package the add-in” button.
In the resulting dialog, enter the URL to the Testers site, This will ONLY update the URL, but not change the ID.
Open the <manifest>.xml file in Notepad and then change the fields as shown above:
- Modify the ID
- Change the name so that you can identify which one is which
- Verify the URL is correct.

At this point you are ready to go. And you can create MULTIPLE versions of your manifest. If for example you need one for Testers, one for Developer and then another for Pilot and yet another for experimental testing (each pointing to different IIS instances, sites or even to the Cloud (Azure). You can create as many manifests as you need this way, have them all show up in the Add-ins task pane allowing the testers/users to select the one they wish to work with.

Useful Refresh Command

April 29, 2016December 19, 2016 David E. CraigLeave a comment

I recently watched a video by my colleague Michael Zlatkovsky in which he demonstrates the changes to the OfficeJS Libraries. And in this video he proposed a nifty little trick I have been using ever since to refresh the task pane app without having to stop and reload the solution (which saves minutes each time you need to stop debugging). What you do is place a refresh button at the bottom of your task pane HTML, like this:

[code language=”html”]
<id="refresh-button">Refresh</button>
[/code]

Then you wire it up like this:

[code language=”javascript”]
$(‘#refresh-button’).click(function () {
location.reload();
});
[/code]

Simple eh?! Thanks Michael for the nifty tip!

Simple Web Service Controller for Office Add-in

April 28, 2016July 3, 2017 David E. CraigLeave a comment

I have found Web Service Controllers in Office Add-ins to be quite useful. There are a number of reasons you might want to keep functions of your add-in on a server, including obfuscation, complex calculation, data intense, service mashups, and much more. However, every time you want to use your Web Ser4vice from the JavaScript interface, there is a lot of code associated with the AJAX call you have to make. This begs for simplicity and that is what I have done. In my App.js project, I added a simple makeAjaxCall function that takes the command you want to invoke, the parameters you want to pass it (as an array) a callback when the call is complete and a callback if there was an error. Here is the core code for the makeAjaxCall() method:

[code lang=”javascript” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the docs.com embedding below is not visible.”]
// Helper function to call the web service controller
app.makeAjaxCall = function (command, params, callback, error) {
var dataToPassToService = {
Command: command,
Params: params
};
$.ajax({
url: ‘../../api/WebService’,
type: ‘POST’,
data: JSON.stringify(dataToPassToService),
contentType: ‘application/json;charset=utf-8’
}).done(function (data) {
callback(data);
}).fail(function (status) {
error(status);
})
};
[/code]

	// Helper function to call the web service controller
	app.makeAjaxCall = function (command, params, callback, error) {
	var dataToPassToService = {
	Command: command,
	Params: params
	};
	$.ajax({
	url: '../../api/WebService',
	type: 'POST',
	data: JSON.stringify(dataToPassToService),
	contentType: 'application/json;charset=utf-8'
	}).done(function (data) {
	callback(data);
	}).fail(function (status) {
	error(status);
	})
	};

view raw

makeAjaxCall.js

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Here is a sample of my web service controller:

[code lang=”javascript” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the docs.com embedding below is not visible.”]
/// <summary>
/// CORE SERVICE FUNCTION
/// This function will take a web request which will contain the command the caller wants
/// to initate and then the paramaters needed for that call. We enter a SELECT statement
/// below to determine the command given and we then call the proper helper function
/// </summary>
/// <param name="request"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
[HttpPost()]
public WebServiceResponse WebService(WebServiceRequest request)
{
WebServiceResponse response = null;
switch(request.Command)
{
case "DoFunctionA":
return functionA(request.Params);
case "DoFunctionB":
return functionB(request.Params);
case "DoFunctionC":
return functionC(request.Params);
case "DoFunctionD":
return functionD(request.Params);
}

response = new WebServiceResponse();
response.Message = "Unknown command";
return response;
}
[/code]

	/// <summary>
	/// CORE SERVICE FUNCTION
	/// This function will take a web request which will contain the command the caller wants
	/// to initate and then the paramaters needed for that call. We enter a SELECT statement
	/// below to determine the command given and we then call the proper helper function
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="request"></param>
	/// <returns></returns>
	[HttpPost()]
	public WebServiceResponse WebService(WebServiceRequest request)
	{
	WebServiceResponse response = null;
	switch(request.Command)
	{
	case "DoFunctionA":
	return functionA(request.Params);
	case "DoFunctionB":
	return functionB(request.Params);
	case "DoFunctionC":
	return functionC(request.Params);
	case "DoFunctionD":
	return functionD(request.Params);
	}

	response = new WebServiceResponse();
	response.Message = "Unknown command";
	return response;
	}

view raw

OfficeControllerWebService.cs

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

And here is how you call it:

[code language=”javascript”]
app.makeAjaxCall("DoFunctionA", ["Value1", "Value2"], function (data) {
var result = $.parseJSON(data.Message);
// do something with the retuirned result here…
});
[/code]

For more information on how to create a Web Service controller, there is a great blog post from a colleague of mine, Michael Zlatkovsky on how to do this:

Create a web service for an app for Office using the ASP.NET Web API

[UPDATE] In which Application is my Add-in running?

April 11, 2016July 3, 2017 David E. CraigLeave a comment

UPDATE: The code outlined in this post will no longer work with Office Online. See this post for more information: http://stackoverflow.com/a/32851938/678505. Specifically, this block:

Update Dec 5, 2016: We will soon be releasing an API to detect the platform info (partially in response to the fact that the _host_info URL paramater, which folks had unofficially relied on, needed to be recently removed for Office Online). We also have a temporary workaround in anticipation of the forthcoming official API. See “In Excel Online, OfficeJS API is not passing the host_Info_ parameter anymore to Excel Add-In” for information on the API and workaround.

Original post:

In case you missed the news, there was an update to the Office API’s. Version 1.2 was announced at //build and released 2 weeks ago. This API enhancement gets us closer to parity with the native object models used in VBA and VSTO. One interesting aspect of the new Office add-ins (formally known as Apps for Office) is how you can use the same codebase across all the applications. However, as the API becomes richer they are also becoming more product specific. Meaning, there is now the Excel.run() and Word.run() commands (PowerPoint is a little lagging in this area, but it is supposedly on the horizon). These allow you to do Excel Workbook (or Word document) context specific commands. And there is a lot of other goodies (like promises). But, I digress…

I was working on a proof of concept for my customer when I found that I needed to use the same codebase for a lot of the same work, but in some cases I needed to do something specific in Word and in another, something specific in Excel. I came up with the following function that I placed in my App.js file:

[code lang=”javascript” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the docs.com embedding below is not visible.”]
var current;
app.hostTypes = { Word :"Word", PowerPoint :"PowerPoint", Excel :"Excel"};
app.getHost = function () {
if (current == null) {
if (Office.context.requirements.isSetSupported(‘WordApi’)) {
current = app.hostTypes.Word;
} else if (Office.context.requirements.isSetSupported(‘ExcelApi’)) {
current = app.hostTypes.Excel;
} else {
var host = $.urlParam("_host_Info");
if (host.toLowerCase().indexOf("word",0) >= 0) {
current = app.hostTypes.Word;
} else if (host.toLowerCase().indexOf("excel",0) >= 0) {
current = app.hostTypes.Excel;
} else {
current = app.hostTypes.PowerPoint;
}
}
return current;
}
else {
return current;
}
};
[/code]

	var current;
	app.hostTypes = { Word :"Word", PowerPoint :"PowerPoint", Excel :"Excel"};
	app.getHost = function () {
	if (current == null) {
	if (Office.context.requirements.isSetSupported('WordApi')) {
	current = app.hostTypes.Word;
	} else if (Office.context.requirements.isSetSupported('ExcelApi')) {
	current = app.hostTypes.Excel;
	} else {
	var host = $.urlParam("_host_Info");
	if (host.toLowerCase().indexOf("word",0) >= 0) {
	current = app.hostTypes.Word;
	} else if (host.toLowerCase().indexOf("excel",0) >= 0) {
	current = app.hostTypes.Excel;
	} else {
	current = app.hostTypes.PowerPoint;
	}
	}
	return current;
	}
	else {
	return current;
	}
	};

view raw

getHost.js

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

To use this you would do this for Word:

[code language=”javascript”]
/// WORD
if (app.getHost() == app.hostTypes.Word) {
// Word specific code where
}
[/code]

Or, this for Excel:

[code language=”javascript”]
/// EXCEL
if (app.getHost() == app.hostTypes.Excel) {
// Excel specific code here
}
[/code]

Debugging with Office Online

February 17, 2016December 19, 2016 David E. CraigLeave a comment

Recently I began working on an Office Add-in (formally known as Apps for Office) that interfaces with Excel, PowerPoint and Word online. By default, when you create a new Office Add-in in Visual Studio 2015, it will default to using the installed Office Desktop Client. I have done a lot of work with Mail Apps, but this was the first time I really delved deeply into Office Add-ins with the express need to design against the online versions. After pulling my hair out looking for the settings in the debug tab of the Manifest Project settings, I found this in the Properties page of the Manifest Project file:

When you select the project at the top, you see these properties in the Properties window (F4).

Simply change these as such:

You then specify the URL to your Office 365 subscription. To get this, I logged into my Office 365 developer account from http://office365.com selected my OneDrive folder from the menu and the copied the full path from the address bar and placed it in the field. I got a prompt to log in and then all was good.

The next problem I had was with side loading the application. When I tried to Debug, I got this error in Visual Studio:

Error occurred in deployment step ‘Install app for SharePoint’

According to the documentation and everything I can find, you should not get this error if you are using an Office 365 Developer account. I am, and I am still getting this error. So, I had to go into my account and enable Side loading. I searched and searcha nd then found this blog by Tobias Lekman: https://blog.lekman.com/2012/11/sharepoint-2013-sideloading-of-apps-is.html. He gives two simple enough sounding steps:

Download and install the SharePoint Online Management Shell for PowerShell
Download the script Sideload.ps1 and execute it within the SharePoint Online Management Shell.

Sounds easy. So, I downloaded and installed this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30359.

Then, I downloaded script and placed it right in my PowerShell folder: http://lekman.codeplex.com/releases/view/98505.

Now, I am the first to admit, I am a developer and not a PowerShell scripter. So I have next to no experience with PowerShell. When I ran the script I got an error:

Essentially there is an execution policy preventing my PowerShell script from running. So, I went to the link provided: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh847748.aspx. From there I found I needed to run this command:

After, I did that I was able to run the Sideload.ps file, it asked for my url, username and password and then setup my side to allow the side load for testing.