A Guide on Business Central Excel Add-In

Dynamics 365 Business Central Excel Add-In

Excel is a useful tool for just about every business, and being able to easily use Excel along with Business Central streamlines your workflow. Happily, Business Central includes an add-in that allows for edits made in Excel to be published in Business Central. It’s called Edit in Excel and differs from Open in Excel. The name of the add-in is Microsoft Dynamics Office Add-in. In this post, we describe how the add-in can be deployed.

Options for Business Central Excel Add-In

Depending on your organization’s needs, you can choose to either have individual users install the add-in themselves, or you can use the centralized deployment option. Each method requires specific steps, which we describe below.

Individual acquisition

Depending on the structure of your organization you may want to allow users to install the add-in themselves. In order to install the add-in, users will need to be able to download files from the Office Store. If some users who need the add-in are restricted, centralized deployment may be a better option.

However, if everyone has access to download files from the Office Store, individual acquisition may be the most feasible method for your organization. Here are the steps each user should follow:

1. Open Excel and any workbook
2. Open the Insert menu, choose Add-ins > get add-ins
3. Go to Admin managed and find Microsoft Dynamics Office Add-in. Select it, then choose Add. (if it’s not there, you have to go to the Store, search, and follow the instructions to add it)

Centralized Deployment

For larger organizations, or where only certain users need access to the add-in, centralized deployment may be a better option. With centralized deployment, the entire organization, certain groups, or specific users can be provided with the add-in without each of them downloading files from the Office Store.

Follow these steps to deploy the add-in:

1. Search for Excel Add-in Centralized Deployment in Business Central
2. Read the information on the set up page, then click next
3. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center and choose Integrated Apps, then follow these steps:
   1. Choose Get Apps (opens the app store)
   2. Search for Microsoft Dynamics Office Add-in and choose get it now
   3. On the Add Users page, list the users you want to have the add-in and click next
   4. Review the accept permissions requests, click next and then finish deployment
   5. A green check mark will appear next to deployed, once it’s there, click done
4. Return to the Excel Add-in Centralized Deployment set up assistant in Business Central and click next.
5. Turn on the Use Centralized Deployment, then click finish.

Once you’ve finished, you can go back and make changes as necessary. It may take 24 hours for the add in to deploy to all automatically in Excel for users.

Making Changes to Your Business Central Excel Add-In

Regardless of which way the add-in is deployed, you can make changes, but the files created before the transition are affected. Users will still be able to open Excel worksheets created previously, but may not be able to update the data in the file from Business Central or publish changes in Business Central.

Get Support with Velosio

If you need help in determining whether or not the add-in will be beneficial for your organization or workflows, deciding which method of deployment is best for your needs, troubleshooting issues, or changing from one form of deployment to another, our team is here to help. As experts in Business Central, Velosio offers our clients implementation support at all stages.