User Access Issues via Centralized Deployment in Excel (Desktop)

[acaibowl]

We have setup and are hosting an Add-in for Excel developed with the OfficeJS API. We have had success in building, hosting, and testing the Add-in, but are now seeing a very strange issue when users try to access the Add-in within Excel. For context, the Add-in has been developed with React, the OfficeJS API, and is intended to be loaded within Excel and primarily interacted with via the taskpane window using Excel for Desktop.

We have deployed the Add-in to our first clients using the Centralized Deployment method. The Add-in's manifest was uploaded to each client's respective Office 365 account and set to have "Everyone" on the account have access to the Add-in.

Our current users are instructed to download a workbook which has been setup to automatically open the centrally deployed Add-in. All users are provided with an account for the Office domain which the Add-in has been deployed to and given a license to Excel as they are required to utilize the Desktop version of Excel. We are currently supporting users on Windows and Mac OS.

Expected Behavior

Our Office Add-in for Excel should be accessible by users within the same account it has been centrally deployed.

When a workbook has been setup to automatically launch the Add-in it should open the taskpane with the Add-ins content loaded.

Current Behavior

A subset of our users are unable to access the Add-in.

We are noticing this for a good portion of our users, but not all of them. Some are able to immediately access the workbook/automatically load the taskpane with the Add-in's content without issue, while others run into our main issue:

Issue Description

• Taskpane opens
• No add-in content loads
• Error message is at top of taskpane stating:

  • ADD-IN ERROR
    You don't have permission to use this add-in. Contact your system administrator to request access.

Steps to Reproduce, or Live Example

1. Host Add-in via Centralized Deployment Set permissions so that "Everyone" has access.
2. Setup a workflow to tag Excel workbooks to automatically launch the Add-in taskpane. Use this workflow to setup a new workbook that is setup to automatically open the Add-in hosted in Step 1.
3. Send the worksheet to a user for the same account the Add-in was centrally deployed to in Step 1.
4. Repeat Step 3. for some number of users. Some percentage of the users who receive the workbook seem to receive the ADD-IN ERROR described above.

We can provide more information, but the live examples are all centrally deployed to client accounts.

To-date, the only workaround we have found is to setup a new account for impacted users. This does seem to solve the issue, but we are unsure of the underlying root cause or how we can reliably prevent this from happening in the future.

Context

We are trying to host an integrated teaching tool which is embedded within the Excel workbooks to allow for easy usage and access for students.

This current issue has significantly impacted our current launch efforts as many of our users are fully blocked from accessing the Add-in without intervention (potentially involving new account creation). This has negatively impacted our launch operations and ability to collect meaningful user feedback in our first launches of the tool.

Your Environment

• Platform [PC desktop, Mac, iOS, Office Online]: PC desktop, Mac

• Host [Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.]: Excel

• Office version number: Varies*

• Operating System: Varies*

• Browser (if using Office Online): N/A

• This appears to be impacting users on Windows and Mac OS across various versions of Office. We are working on collecting specific version numbers.

Useful logs

We previously logged this as a question on Stack Overflow, but were directed to log as an issue report in this repository.

[sohailzafar]

We are investigating the issue

[mscharlock]

@lumine2008 - Can you take a look at this Excel issue? Thanks!

[acaibowl]

Has your team has had any success in identifying or fixing this issue? We are hoping to start a new round of user on-boarding sessions and can also report back if we are still experiencing the issue. Thank you for taking time to look into this!

[acaibowl]

Just checking in @sohailzafar @mscharlock @lumine2008 - please let us know if there is any additional information we can provide. We are preparing for new users using to use our add-on next week.

[ElizabethSamuel-MSFT]

@sohailzafar @lumine2008 Any update here?

Thanks.

[ElizabethSamuel-MSFT]

@acaibowl If this is still an issue, do comment and we can reopen. You can also create a new issue if you so choose.

Thanks.