Managing Office Add-ins in an Organization

Office Add-ins can perform common tasks, like reformatting legal documents, looking up images related to a chosen word in a document, or converting documents to and from PDFs, which require document data to be sent to a third-party server outside the organization’s domain. Microsoft AppSource (also known as Office Store), available from the File | Get Add-ins menu in Office applications, allows users to browse and install Office Add-ins; these Add-ins can also be made available through other organizational sharing methods. Microsoft 365 administrators have some control: they can make specific Add-ins available, block Add-ins, and push line-of-business Add-ins to some or all Office users in a tenancy.

Where Office Add-ins Are Published

Office Add-in developers create and host an Add-in and a small file describing the Add-in, known as an XML manifest. The XML manifest, which describes how the Add-in should be activated when installed, can be published to several locations:

Microsoft AppSource is a catalog of Office Add-ins. An organization can create and submit Office Add-ins to AppSource, where they are validated and published to the store for all users. The catalog is hosted by Microsoft, although available Add-ins are not curated, endorsed, or maintained by the company.