Excel Add-in Trouble (Confirm Button not Enabled)

[DB1To3]

Has anyone ever gotten the excel add-in to work on Azure Databricks, for Excel?

I created a trusted catalog for the Excel Add-in, I launch the Excel, and activate the add-in, I sign into my workspace, I click the button to connect, I select my SQL warehouse serverless compute, I preview my data, and I click the button to import the data to Excel.

But that is where things stop working.  For some reason the "confirm" button remains disabled.  See image.

Does anyone know what is going on here?  If I look at browser traces I can't figure out what is preventing the confirm button from becoming available.  Maybe I'm doing something dumb (IE. I don't know what an "import name" is supposed to be, for example).

Any help would be appreciated.

[SumeshKashyap · Accepted solution]

Hi @DB1To3 

You're not doing anything dumb. "Import name" is just an optional label for the saved import, so "aaaa" is fine and isn't what's blocking you. A greyed-out Confirm usually means the add-in can't write to the workbook at that moment. The most common reason is that a cell is still in edit mode: the docs list "data loading might fail if any cell in the workbook is in edit mode" as a known limitation, and Excel blocks add-ins from writing while you're editing a cell. Click into the grid, press Esc, then try Confirm again.

If that doesn't do it, work through these in order:

1. Switch Output destination to "New sheet". If Confirm enables, the problem is the target on the current sheet - usually a protected sheet, or a range that overlaps an existing table/merged cells at A1. Pick an empty cell or unprotect the sheet (Review -> Unprotect Sheet).

2. Make sure the workbook isn't read-only/Protected View (yellow "Enable Editing" bar) or in a shared/co-authoring state that locks the file.

3. Reload the add-in: info icon in the top right of the add-in pane -> Reload. This is the documented fix when the add-in stops responding in Excel Desktop.

4. Try the same import in Excel for the web with the same add-in file. If it works there, the issue is your desktop Excel build. The add-in needs Microsoft 365 Excel on Windows, so update Office if you're on an older or perpetual-license version.

Your setup is fine: the sign-in, warehouse selection and preview all working shows the add-in file and trusted catalog are configured correctly. That's why the problem looks local to the workbook rather than the connection.

Docs: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/integrations/excel/query-data

Setup and troubleshooting: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/integrations/excel/connect

[DB1To3 · Accepted solution]

I should have shared more of my screenshot, because it wasn't big enough.  The window I posted was actually opening outside of Excel, in my default browser.  In that context the "confirm" button will not be enabled.

I circled back to the instructions and realized that I had not actually finished all the steps.
https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/integrations/excel/connect#set-up-the-add-in-file
I had not entered the AppDomain in my add-in file:

After editing this, I cleared out my add-in cache (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Wef\) and closed and reopened Excel.  This time the add-in was properly being displayed inside of excel, rather than in a separate window:

Everything seems to work properly now.

I really appreciate your help.  I suspected there was something obvious that I was missing.  The problem is that everything worked so WELL in the separate browser window, and it wasn't until may steps down that path when I ran into trouble, so it wasn't clear where I took a wrong turn.  That grayed-out "confirm" button wasn't enough to help me realize that I was running this code in a totally wrong app window! 

[SumeshKashyap]

hi @DB1To3 hope the answer was helpful, I would request you to accept it as solution so that it is useful for other community members 🙂