UiPath Assistant for Excel add-in

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:rocket: We are glad to announce that we released UiPath Assistant for Excel, the new add-in that enables you to run your attended automations without leaving the Excel spreadsheet. So, whenever you need a robot’s help with structuring, analyzing, or updating data, you can simply open Assistant in the Excel panel and access all your Excel-related automations with no disruptions.

The add-in can be accessed and downloaded as follows:

  • Via a direct link from Microsoft AppSource

  • By searching the asset ID = WA200005457 in Office Add-ins Store directly from Microsoft Excel. Access Microsoft Excel → Insert tab → Add-ins → Get Add-ins, search by WA200005457, and then click Add.

  • You can also manually load the add-in as a Manifest file into the desktop Excel application or distribute it among multiple users using the Microsoft 365 admin center (for cloud deployment). The manifest file can be downloaded from here → Just right-click and choose “Save as…”. More details on how to load the manifest file can be found on our documentation page, “Using the manifest file” section.

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:pushpin: So, what do you need to get started?

  • UiPath Assistant 2023.4.2 or higher installed on your computer – please note that this add-in works like an extension of UiPath Assistant

  • An attended license and Orchestrator connection

  • At least one automation created specifically for Excel

  • Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office 2016 or higher

  • Browser compatibility: Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge

:star: What does it mean to create an Excel-related automation?

We have created a template process that we suggest using as a starting point for your Excel Automation. You can find it in Studio on the Official Feed: UiPath Assistant for Excel process template. This template can be very useful as it contains:

  • two fields that are auto-populated at runtime (in_FilePath and in_Selection) to easily transfer data from Excel to the process

  • the excelAddin tag that makes your automation available in the add-in as UiPath Assistant for Excel displays only Excel-related automations

You can also create your own Excel automations, but make sure that they have the excelAddin tag at publishing.

:books: Documentation

More details can be found on our documentation page.

11 Likes
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Hello,

I tried it on an excel Sheet and it works like charm.

But when I create the process using the template, I can’t find where I can modify the in_File argument, because this argument will help me choose an excel file and test my process inside UiPath studio.

Now I can only test my process by publishing it to orchestrator and directly into the excel sheet.

Am I missing something?

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@reda

I believe you can add argument as in_FilePath and use that in the use excel for testing…like any other argument

Cheers

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@Anil_G

Oh wow I can’t believe I missed that, I was so caught up in the fact that in_FilePath was not an argument of Parse Excel selection.xaml - Invoke Workflow File, and I didn’t realize that it’s in the use Excel File all that time.
I knew I was missing something obvious.

Everything make sense now, thank you.

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What would be an appropriate use case for running automations from excel, when UiPath assistant is already there?

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Hi I used the Excel template and published the process to Orchestrator but in Excel it still says “You have no Excel automations available.”
What can I do to fix this?

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Hello, @savantsa

UiPath Assistant for Excel add-in enables you to easily run automations directly from Microsoft Excel, without switching the context.

:star: Having this add-in makes it easier for you to:

  • launch automations without leaving your spreadsheet and so avoid context switching;
  • access and organize Excel-specific automations relevant to your tasks with the help of the excelAddin tag → Just add this tag to your process when publishing and you will be able to see your automations in the add-in;
  • transfer data from Excel to the process with the help of in_FilePath and in_Selection arguments.

:memo:By using the in_FilePath and in_Selection arguments, you can automatically transfer the file path and the selection of Excel ranges to your process. In Excel, simply select the range that you want to use in your automation and click run → the Excel context is automatically transferred to your process.

We suggest starting creating your Excel automation from the UiPath Assistant for Excel process template that you can find within the 23.4.2 Studio official feed. This template contains the excelAddin tag and the two arguments that auto-populate at runtime. More details on how to use the template can be found at “Creating automations using the template” section

This add-in is helpful for every Microsoft Excel user that wants to offload the mundane Excel work :rocket:

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Hello, @Karan_Chauhan
Are you publishing the process to your Personal Workspace Feed or to the Tenant Process Feed? If you’re publishing to the Tenant, please make sure that you click Add and continue button for the new tags, as only the automations that have the excelAddin tag can be accessed from the add-in.

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If this is not the case, please provide us more details and keep the feedback coming :orange_heart:

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Any else had this error or knows how to debug it?
I have Assistant 23.4.4 and have an automation in my Personal Workspace with the appropriate tag.

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It does briefly render the assistant and show the automation but then immediately does this, incase that helps. Are there crash logs anywhere I can read?

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Hey @Jon_Smith

Sorry for my late response, hopefully the answer is still helpful :hugs:
We have some changes in the documentation that maybe were not visible enough: Please check this section in the documentation.

If you downloaded the UiPath Assistant for Excel add-in from the Office Add-ins Store, then you will need to have the latest Assistant version, to keep the compatibility. This is recommended for all Community users.

If you are an Enterprise user, then we recommend using the manifest file instead. This will give completely freedom, especially if you don’t want to update to the latest Assistant version - simply use the manifest file associated to the Assistant version that you use.

The manifest files can be found on the customer portal.

Tell me if this helps :blush: If you want, share some feedback about the Excel add-in.

Thank you!

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Aha, that is indeed really useful and explains why it randomly started working for me, it wasn’t random at all its cause I installed a community build to test out a bug fix whereas previously I was on a stable enterprise version.

This also gives me some clear instructions to give to the IT department that will deploy it across different users, they are indeed trying to use the manifest file so good to know we should make it match an assistant version.

Thanks!

1 Like