How to install add-ins in Excel? There are two groups of add-ins: “classic” Excel
add-ins, and Office add-ins. Let’s start with the first group: “classic” Excel
add-ins. For these add-ins, you go to File – Options – Add-ins. By the way, the Excel
version you are looking at here is Excel 2019.
A popular add-in for financial analysts is the Excel Solver tool.
Solver is listed among the currently inactive application add-ins.
An add-in is software that adds new features into Microsoft Excel. Not everyone needs that additional functionality,
so if you want it, you have to go get it yourself! You might think that double-clicking on that Solver line item would install it, but that’s not
the case. You actually have to go down here to “Manage”, and then select the type
of add-in you are looking for. The type is listed right here in this column. Next to
it, in the middle, is the file path or location where the Solver add-in file resides. Basically,
what you are asking by enabling this add-in is for Excel to load the SOLVER.XLAM file.
Solver is an Excel add-in, as you see there are four other types to choose from. Press
“Go”, and a list of available add-ins comes up. We tick the box next to Solver,
and at the bottom see a message that Solver is a tool for optimization and equation solving.
If the Excel add-in that you are looking for is not listed here, then by clicking “Browse”
you can go look for the XLAM file that you want to enable. Solver is listed, so we can
simply click OK, and return to Excel. As Solver is very closely related to other types of
What-If Analysis like Scenario Manager and Goal Seek, the Solver menu is added right
here in the Data tab, which is a logical place for it.
A second example of a “classic” Excel add-in is Microsoft Power Pivot. Go to File
– Options – Add-ins, click Microsoft Power Pivot, and you’ll see that this is a DLL
file, in the COM add-in type. Down here in “Manage”, we select “COM Add-ins”,
and click “Go”. Check the box next to Microsoft Power Pivot for Excel, and you will
see at the bottom of the dialog box what the path of the file is, and that it will be loaded
at startup of Excel. Click OK. In the case of Microsoft Power Pivot, you get a new menu
on the ribbon! This brings us to one of the most common troubleshooting
items for Excel add-ins. If you don’t see the add-in that you just enabled, then you
might have to right-click, and go to “Customize the ribbon”. As you can see, the Power Pivot
tab is enabled in my version of Excel, but the Draw and Develop tabs are not. You can
change that by ticking the boxes, and clicking OK.
If you now close Excel, wait a few seconds, and then reopen it, you will see a message
on the Excel loading screen stating that SOLVER.XLAM is being opened. If you missed that, here’s
the screenprint! If we check on the Data tab, we do see Solver is available. All is well,
you can start using the add-in. Now for the second group: Office add-ins.
These you will find in the “Insert” tab. Click on “Get Add-ins”, and you get into
the Office add-ins store. Why is this called the Office add-ins store, and not the Excel
add-ins store? The answer to that is right here: add-ins like for example Script Lab
apply to multiple Office products: Excel, Word and PowerPoint. So not just Excel, but
multiple Office applications. You can browse the Office add-in store by category. Be aware
that some of these add-ins have been developed by Microsoft, and others by external software
makers. Some add-ins are free, while for other add-ins there might be a fee. If you work
in a corporate environment, the ability to install add-ins might be restricted, you need
admin access to download and install. To the side of this Office add-in section
on the Insert tab, are several recommendations from Microsoft. Visio is a data visualizer
add-in to build flowcharts and organization charts. The Bing Maps add-in provides data
visualization based on location data. And People Graph is an add-in that helps you create
infographics. Let’s build one! If you click on the People Graph icon, you get a default
picture which you can customize by linking it to your own data. For example, for the
Finance Storyteller YouTube channel, for every 100 viewers, 21 live in the United States,
18 in India, and 6 in the Philippines. Click the Data icon on the People Graph, update
the title to “FOR EVERY 100 VIEWERS”, select data through clicking the green button,
and highlight the cells you want to visualize. You can update the type of infographic, the
theme, as well as the shape. Looks pretty nice and professional, right? An infographic
is an attractive way to visualize data. Give it a go, play around with “classic” Excel
add-ins, and Office add-ins, and see which additional functionality is useful for you!