Welcome to Ignite 2022! We’re excited to share the latest Office Add-ins announcements with our developer and IT admin community. These new features will help you create solutions so you can do more with less. 

In this blog post

• What’s new in Excel add-ins
• What’s new in Outlook add-ins
• What’s new in Word add-ins
• Word add-in partner update
  • Mendeley Cite | Reference and citation management made easy
  • Edword | Feedback made easy
  • officeatwork | Document management and assembly made easy
• Additional add-in resources

What’s new in Excel add-ins at Ignite 2022

Excel JavaScript API 1.16 requirement set 

In the Excel API 1.16 requirement set release, we’re excited to announce that we’ve removed the preview tag from the data types APIs in Excel. 

Data types are a revolution of the types of data that Excel understands. Excel cells can now contain images from the web, formatted number values that retain their format throughout calculations, and most remarkably, entity cards. Additionally, entity cards extend the potential of Excel add-ins beyond a 2-dimensional grid. They display an icon within a cell that opens a card modal window in the Excel UI when selected. An entity card can display a wide variety of information, such as images, product name, price, and category information as shown in the following image.

So utilize these new data types APIs to take advantage of all the new types that can be stored in the grid or returned from custom functions and supercharge your add-in today!

Data types code samples 

The data types APIs add powerful new features to Excel. To try them out, explore the code snippets and samples to experiment with various scenarios. 

To try the Script Lab snippets, start by installing Script Lab. The following data types snippets are available in Excel. 

• Create entity values from data in a table 
• Formatted numbers 
• Web images 
• Set error values 
• Custom functions 
• Entity value attribution properties 
• Entity values with references 

In addition to the Script Lab snippets, we also have a Data types explorer code sample which builds an add-in that allows you to create and edit data types in an Excel workbook.  

What’s new in Outlook add-ins at Ignite 2022 

Mailbox 1.12 JavaScript API requirement set 

Without doubt, the experience of sending emails and scheduling appointments is the best yet with the release of the Mailbox 1.12 requirement set. Mailbox 1.12 includes the Smart Alerts feature to enable your add-in to activate upon sending emails and appointments. Offer your users the opportunity to further improve their emails and meeting invites by providing them with recommendations and requirements prior to sending a mail item. Verifying that appropriate sensitivity labels have been applied and ensuring that applicable attachments have been attached based on certain keywords in the email are now all made possible through Smart Alerts. 

Mailbox 1.12 also introduces support for the OnMessageCompose and OnAppointmentOrganizer events, so that in addition to being able to activate your add-in when creating a new message or appointment, you’re now also able to do so while editing drafts. 

Preview item multi-select in Outlook on Windows 

Item multi-select, one of the highly requested features for Outlook add-ins, is now available for preview in Outlook on Windows. With item multi-select, you’re now able to activate an add-in and perform operations on multiple selected emails in one go. Certain operations, such as uploading emails to your CRM system or categorizing numerous items, can now be easily completed with a single click! We invite you to test item multi-select today and we look forward to your feedback. 

Set your preferred online meeting provider in Outlook on Windows 

With the release of Every Meeting Online (EMO), users can set their preferred online meeting in Outlook on the web, on Mac, and on mobile to ensure that an online meeting link is added to all the meetings they organize. To further promote hybrid collaboration in Outlook, you can now set your default online meeting provider in Outlook on Windows as well. Once you select and set your preferred meeting provider through one supported Outlook client, your setting persists in all other supported clients used. 

Mailbox 1.11 is now supported in the new Outlook on Mac 

The Mailbox 1.11 requirement set introduced additional events to activate your event-based add-in and methods to manage a mail item’s session data in compose mode. We’re pleased to share that Mailbox 1.11 is now supported in the new Outlook for Mac. Extend the capabilities of your add-ins in the Mac client today—gather data on specific mail items for analysis, run an operation after the user dismisses the InfoBar, send an update when your meeting’s attendees change, and so much more! 

We have a new look to our Outlook Dev Center as well as new content. Have a look!

What’s new in Word add-ins at Ignite 2022 

We’re excited to announce Word JavaScript API 1.4 requirement set, an updated online-only requirement set, and refreshed API preview. The new features continue to support key Word scenarios and enrich our ecosystem. For more details, see the feature areas listed in the following tables. 

Word JavaScript API 1.4 requirement set 

Word JavaScript API online-only requirement set 

Word JavaScript API preview 

As always, find many great Word sample snippets in Script Lab. 

Word add-ins partner update 

Our partners are actively using JavaScript-based Office Add-in solutions to extend and customize Word for end users. There are several scenarios that are very popular in the Word ecosystem, including citation management, content insertion, and document assembly. Using Word JavaScript API 1.4 and the online-only requirement set, many new, innovative add-ins were just created. Now, existing add-ins can refresh with modern features. At Ignite 2022, we introduce three partner add-ins that increase efficiency, improve collaboration, and provide attractive content. 

Mendeley Cite | Reference and citation management

Reference and citation management add-ins utilize Word JavaScript API features to insert and manage citations from an existing content library into the document. Users can style them, edit them, create a bibliography, and have appropriate citations show up as footnotes or endnotes in the document.

Mendeley provides citation management solutions used to manage and share research papers and generate bibliographies for scholarly articles. The company started modernizing their Word add-in in 2019. Now, their new JavaScript-based add-in Mendeley Cite provides extra benefits for users to work seamlessly with Word. With Mendeley Cite, you can:

• Search the Mendeley library and insert individual or multiple references and bibliographies in just a few clicks. 
• Create citations without opening or installing the Mendeley Desktop, minimizing potential performance loss. 
• Keep your document in view as you cite. Mendeley Cite opens as a separate panel in Word alongside your document window, not over it, so your whole document remains visible as you find, select, and insert references. 

Edword | Extend Word with a powerful tool for in-document feedback

Use Edword to save time when providing feedback. Reuse your comments. Add video and audio comments or integrate a screen recording. Edword was created for education and is useful for all customers who work with documents. The Edword Office Add-in takes advantage of the latest Word JavaScript API features (e.g. Comments APIs) to provide in-document feedback capabilities.

Watch video: Edword from EasyCorrect

The Edword Word feedback add-in adds extended feedback functionality directly to Word in Teams, Word on the web, or in the desktop application to save time and avoid repetitive tasks. Integrated functionality includes:

• Screen recording, video, and audio feedback
• Rubrics
• Library comment bank (create, modify, share)
• Plagiarism detection
• Snippet comments (Word templates, long text comments)
• Feedback report (Statistics overview)

Interested in trying it out? Please email hello@edword.com.

officeatwork | Smart document management 

People create, automate, and manage documents and emails individually and collaboratively across countries, and in multiple languages. Currently, officeatwork add-ins are built on top of the latest Word JavaScript API features with Microsoft 365 to optimize how people work, what they produce, and the overall impact of the outcomes. On Microsoft AppSource, you’ll find many document management add-ins such as:

• Template Chooser makes sure users can easily access your branded organizational templates across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Teams, SharePoint, and other applications. 
• Designer and Wizard let you connect documents to your data to automate content updates so users will never have to re-type any existing data in Office Documents again. 
• Content Chooser acts like an organization-wide clipboard, filled with all the approved assets like images, sales pitches, clauses, icons, slides, mail responses, etc., accelerating accuracy and quality across the entire organization.

Watch video: Template Chooser Introduction

Additional Office Add-ins resources 

We hope you’re as excited about these new features as we are! Engage with us and learn more. 

• Learn more about Office Add-ins and Script Lab. 
• Ask questions on:
  • Microsoft Q&A and tag with office-addins-dev
  • Stack Overflow and tag with office-js or outlook-web-addins
  • GitHub 
• Stay current with our blogs:
  • Office Add-ins developer blog
  • Access developer blog 
• Share your feedback about Office Add-ins on the Microsoft 365 Developer Platform Ideas forum. 
• To get the latest news, join us on our monthly community calls the second Wednesday of every month at 8:00 AM Pacific Time. 
• Join the Microsoft 365 developer program to get the access and resources you need to develop your Office Add-in. 
• Discover resources for Office Add-ins at the Office Dev Center. 

Happy coding!

The Office Platform team