Can an Excel add-in toolbar (.xlam) be deployed via Office 365?

Question

I have a .xlam add-in which gives users an additional ribbon in Excel with several macros.

In the past, I have distributed these sorts of add-ins by saving the file to a saved network location, and asking the users to follow 5/6 simple steps to install (Excel > Options > Add-ins > Find the file and select OK). This also means that to update the toolbar across all users, I just need to overwrite the one file and everybody will then see the new version.

However, for the business I actually work for, many of our users are regularly at client sites, with no access to our own network - so the approach of saving the file to the network (as above) won't work.

I had heard that Add-ins could be rolled out via Office 365 admin center 'centralised deployment', however am I right in thinking this is for a different type of 'add-in'?

If so, are there any other approaches I can take to roll out a .xlam add-in to multiple users via the Cloud?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Deployment by Office 365 Admin center is only for Web Add-in, the new generation, so your add-in in .xlam could not be deploy like that.

To deploy to many user you can do it by share network like you did, or by tool like SCCM to deploy more easily to lot of user

Answer 2

For info, I managed to solve this by saving the .xlam file into a Shared OneDrive folder, and instructing the users to install it from this location.

This allows me to update the .xlam file on OneDrive with new versions, and this will then automatically sync onto the users machines, meaning the toolbar is always up to date.