{"id":4673,"date":"2020-05-19T08:17:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T16:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/officedevblogs.wpengine.com\/?p=4673"},"modified":"2021-08-31T14:20:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T21:20:47","slug":"power-up-with-office-add-ins-build-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/microsoft365dev\/power-up-with-office-add-ins-build-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Power up with Office Add-ins @ Build 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re\u00a0excited to announce new capabilities that let you create your own custom experiences in Microsoft<\/span>\u202f<\/span>365, and enable your users to achieve more in the\u00a0<\/span>Office\u00a0<\/span>products they already use every day<\/span>:\u00a0<\/span>Outlook, Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Driven by feedback from\u00a0<\/span>the Office developer community<\/span>, these capabilities\u00a0<\/span>and tooling\u00a0<\/span>make it easy for you to bring your experiences to over 2<\/span>35<\/span>\u00a0Million Office<\/span>\u202f<\/span>365 commercial monthly active users<\/span>!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New\u00a0c<\/span>apabilities across Office\u00a0<\/span>A<\/span>dd-ins<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The dialog is a heavily used command surface, allowing a greater surface area to display information. It is commonly used to provide users richer data selection\/manipulation capabilities – for example when constructing arguments for complicated custom functions (Formula Builder) or drilling into data or trends.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All these scenarios require a robust two-way communication between the dialog and taskpane. We\u2019ve streamlined this channel with the new\u00a0messageChild\u00a0API, allowing the parent page to send data directly to the dialog box. Complementing the existing\u00a0messageParent\u00a0API (which allows messaging from the dialog to taskpane), this provides an easy, seamless way for your dialog and taskpane to interact.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0messageChild\u00a0API is generally available for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. In addition, we\u2019re also announcing a preview for Outlook\u00a0for Windows. For more information, read\u00a0<\/span>Passing data and messages to a dialog box from its host page<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Create\u00a0contextual<\/span>\u00a0experiences in Excel<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

In addition to expanding on the dialog capabilities, we\u2019re making the platform more powerful, as well as continuing to add requested API’s, all while simplifying your developer experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Excel\u00a0Generally\u00a0<\/span>A<\/span>vailable f<\/span>eatures<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Enterprise-grade solutions need an enterprise-grade runtime model. We understand add-ins are an important part of your workbooks\u2019 entire lifecycle rather than moments in time.\u00a0\u00a0To better meet these needs, we\u2019re making it possible to move from a short-lived execution model, to one that can be long running, allowing your add-ins to respond to events, even when it is closed by the user.\u00a0\u00a0We also want to make it easy to deliver the information that you need in the relevant context that makes the most sense for the user, whether it\u2019s within the worksheet via a custom function, a UX container like dialogs and task panes, or in the future, a keyboard shortcut customization. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Shared Runtime for Excel adds powerful new\u00a0capabilities\u00a0making it\u00a0even easier to build holistic add-ins\u00a0within a common context:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n