excelDNA and Office 365

[Alberto Cherubini]

Is there a way to use addins created via excelDNA on Office 365?

I would assume the answer is negative, as googling around it appears that Office 365 does not really support .xll, but I might be wrong of course!

thanks,

a.c.

[Govert van Drimmelen]

Hi Alberto,

Office 365 is the name for the Office subscription plan, which includes online storage of files, online versions of the applications, and on most of the subscription plans also the full desktop versions of the applications.

Excel-DNA is supported on the Windows desktop version of Excel, which most Office 365 subscribers can install.

However, the online version of Excel does not support VBA or .xll add-ins at all, so Excel-DNA is not supported there. I think the online versions support the Javascript-based "Apps for Office" add-ins, but I have no experience with these.

Regards,

Govert

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Subject: [ExcelDna] excelDNA and Office 365

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[Alberto Cherubini]

Tx Govert. Indeed I meant the online version. It is a real shame that it does not support .xll (I care esp. about Excel of course).
It seems very shortsighted of Microsoft, as it will seriously hamper adoption of it by the heavier users (e.g. financial institutions)

[Benoît PATRA]

Hi Alberto,

Indeed, the fact that the addins are not (and will not be) supported by Excel Online is a pity. However, I don't believe we should see Excel Online as an alternative to Excel Desktop. There is far less features in Excel Online compared to Excel desktop. However, you can use it on a computer where Office is not setup and it is super easy to consult quickly a doc or update few figures.

If you are interesting on implementing custom features to both Excel Desktop and Excel Online at the same time, then you may check App for Office. I have developed an App For Office for retrieving Google Analytics data within Microsoft (Keluro Web Analytics) and I think App for Office are promising. However, the technological stack is very different from those involved with addin, here it is Html5 + js +css. The js api is much more restrictive for now compared to an addin, where you can basically do what you want, but it is also more secure. Remark also that you are not obliged to publish your app publicly on the store you may also deploy "on house" for your company.

Sincerely

Benoit

[Alberto Cherubini]

Thanks for your comments Benoit - we love developing our libraries using ExcelDNA, and are not really interested in doing a lot of work to wrap them in other ways. I think we will look for other solutions, different from Excel Online, if our customers need cloud usage of excel (e.g. remote desktops)

[Govert van Drimmelen]

My understanding is that Microsoft intends to develop Apps for Office further, including the ability to create UDFs for Excel using JavaScript in an App for Office.

 

Personally, I think as long as VBA does not run in the online Excel (and there is no indication that this is currently planned) it’s a non-starter for any serious Excel work.

My focus with Excel-DNA continues to be via the .xll / C API interface to the ‘real’ Excel. In the long term I want to see Excel-DNA and .NET become a viable alternative to VBA.

 

-Govert

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[Alberto Cherubini]

I agree - I believe VBA is a thing of the past, but excelDNA + NET allows to write powerful .xll (say in C# or F#) that make Excel a great UI for serious technical libraries