Install the Office add-ins

Two task-pane add-ins — one for Word, one for Excel. Both call the same agent API as the browser. Each user installs once per device.

1. Get a key from Knowledge → Agents

1. Open Knowledge in the browser and go to Agents.
2. Pick (or create) the agent you want to use from Word/Excel.
3. Open the agent → Keys tab → + Mint key. Give it a friendly name (e.g. "Word — Sarah's laptop") and copy the token shown once.

Each key is bound to a single agent. You'll paste this token into the add-in once and it's remembered per device. See Agents — every field explained if you don't have an agent yet.

2. Download the manifest

Pick the host you want to install for:

Word manifest (.xml) Excel manifest (.xml)

3a. Easiest — Office for the web

1. Go to office.com and open any Word or Excel document there (even a blank one).
2. Insert tab → Add-ins (or "Get Add-ins").
3. In the dialog that opens, look at the bottom for a small link: Upload My Add-in. Click it, pick the manifest.xml.
4. A "Knowledge Agents" task pane appears on the right.
5. Click + Add connection, paste the API key, hit Connect.

This is the most reliable path and works on Windows, Mac, and ChromeOS.

3b. Windows desktop — Shared Folder Catalog

One-time setup. After this, manifests dropped into a folder appear automatically inside Word/Excel.

1. Create a folder, e.g. C:\Users\<you>\Documents\OfficeAddins\. Put manifest.xml inside.
2. Right-click the folder → Properties → Sharing → Share with yourself (Read access). Note the network path that appears (e.g. \\YOUR-PC\OfficeAddins).
3. In Word: File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings… → Trusted Add-in Catalogs.
4. Paste the network path into Catalog URL → click Add catalog → tick Show in Menu → OK.
5. Close and reopen Word/Excel — the catalog is only read at startup.
6. Insert → My Add-ins drop-down → Shared Folder tab → "Knowledge Agents" → double-click.

3c. Mac desktop

Insert → Add-ins → My Add-ins → in the top-right of that dialog there's a "…" or gear menu with Upload My Add-in. Pick the manifest.xml.

3d. Org-wide rollout — M365 admin center (for O365 admins)

Use this path if your tenant admin has disabled per-user sideload, or you want to push the plugin to many users at once. This is Microsoft's Centralized Deployment feature.

Before you start — prerequisites

• Admin role: you need to be a Global Administrator, Exchange Administrator, or Microsoft 365 Apps Administrator. The "Integrated apps" page is hidden for other roles.
• Tenant eligibility: Centralized Deployment requires Exchange Online and that your users sign in to Office with an organisational account (work/school). Standalone consumer accounts are not supported.
• Manifest in hand: the manifest.xml from step 2 (one for Word, one for Excel). Each is deployed separately.
• Endpoint reachable: the URLs in the manifest (e.g. https://your-host/addins/word/index.html and /api/run.php) must be HTTPS, publicly resolvable, and not blocked by tenant network policy.

Step-by-step upload

1. Sign in to admin.microsoft.com with an account that has one of the roles above.
2. In the left rail, click Show all if needed → Settings → Integrated apps. (Direct link: admin.microsoft.com/#/Settings/IntegratedApps.)
3. Click Upload custom apps at the top of the page.
4. In the side panel: App type = Office Add-in, Choose how to upload the app = Upload manifest file (.xml) from device. Browse to the manifest and click Upload.
5. Wait for the validation result. If you get "This manifest is not valid", jump to the troubleshooting list below — don't continue.
6. On the Add users page choose one of: Just me (pilot/test), Entire organization, or Specific users/groups (recommended — assign to a mail-enabled security group or M365 group so membership is easy to manage later).
7. On Accept permissions requests review the requested scopes shown from the manifest, then click Next → Finish deployment.
8. Repeat steps 3–7 for the second manifest (Word and Excel are separate deployments).

When users will see it

• Office on the web (office.com): within ~15 minutes of finishing deployment.
• Word/Excel desktop on Windows and Mac: after the user closes and reopens the app. First-time provisioning typically takes up to 6 hours, occasionally up to 24h on the first push to a brand-new tenant.
• Users find it under Home → Add-ins (or Insert → Add-ins → Admin Managed tab in older builds). No manual sideload required.

Managing or removing later

• Back at Settings → Integrated apps, click the deployed app row to edit assigned users, update the manifest (re-upload a new XML — version number in the manifest must be higher), or remove the deployment.
• Removing here pulls the add-in from every assigned user automatically — they don't need to uninstall manually.
• The same flow is scriptable via PowerShell with Get-OrganizationAddIn / New-OrganizationAddIn / Set-OrganizationAddIn from the Exchange Online module, if you prefer infrastructure-as-code.

Troubleshooting

• "Manifest not valid" — the most common causes are a non-HTTPS URL in <SourceLocation>, a <Id> GUID that clashes with a previously uploaded version, or a <Version> that isn't strictly greater than the deployed one. Validate locally first with npx office-addin-manifest validate manifest.xml.
• Upload button greyed out — your role doesn't include Integrated Apps. Ask a Global Admin to either grant Microsoft 365 Apps Administrator or do the upload for you.
• App doesn't appear for users after 24h — check Settings → Integrated apps → app row → Status column. If "Deployment in progress" is stuck, retry. If a specific user is missing, confirm they're in the assigned group and signed into Office with their org account (not a personal Microsoft account).
• "Add-ins are turned off" for end users — check Microsoft 365 apps → Cloud Policy / OCT settings; admins sometimes block all Office Add-ins via group policy. Centralized Deployment bypasses the per-user sideload block, but a tenant-wide "disable all add-ins" policy will still hide it.

Reference: Microsoft Learn — "Deploy add-ins in the Microsoft 365 admin center" (docs.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/admin/manage/manage-deployment-of-add-ins).

4. Using the Word add-in

The task pane has three controls above the prompt: Skill, Use as context, and Output. Pick the skill first — the other two get sensible defaults. The skills available today:

• Free prompt — your existing flow. Type a prompt, response is inserted at the cursor (or replaces the selection if "Replace selection" is chosen as output).
• Verify document — fact-check claims against the agent's KB; findings come back as Word comments with verdict + evidence + suggested rephrasal. Also available in the browser via Doc review (with PDF + OCR support).
• Audit document — sends the whole document section-by-section to the agent with an audit prompt; findings come back as Word comments anchored to each offending paragraph. Use when you have rules (ISO 13485, GDPR, internal SOPs) in the agent's KB.
• Fill template from sources — walks every Heading 1/2/3 in the document and generates a body paragraph for each, grounded in the agent's KB. Open a template with empty sections, click Run, and each heading gets populated.
• Summarize document — inserts a concise executive summary at the cursor.
• Translate selection — type the target language (e.g. French), highlight the source text, click Run. The selection is replaced with the translation.

The Output dropdown changes where results land: cursor (default for generation), comments (default for audit), tracked changes (for proposed edits a reviewer accepts/rejects), or appended report table (a 4-column table at the end of the doc).

Tick "Add source citations as footnotes" to drop a Word footnote on each inserted block listing the KB documents that grounded the response. Useful for regulated work.

Full skill reference: Word & Excel add-ins.

5. Using the Excel add-in

• Pick a skill from the dropdown — for security/compliance questionnaire work, choose Answer questionnaire (pre-bundled prompt: "Answer the question using the knowledge base. Reply UNKNOWN if unsupported.").
• Set Input range = column of questions (e.g. B2:B50). Click Use current selection to fill this automatically.
• Set Output column = where answers land (e.g. C).
• Optional Context column (e.g. A): each row's value in this column is sent to the agent as additional context for that row only. Use when column A holds the section title or related background and column B holds the question.
• Optional Sources column (e.g. D): writes a short citation list per row ("[1] Policy.docx p.4; [2] ISO 13485.pdf p.12") so questionnaire reviewers can audit each answer.
• Tick Skip rows where the output column already has a value (on by default) so re-runs only process rows that haven't been answered yet. Lets you incrementally fill a large questionnaire across multiple sittings.
• JSON-mode agents still support the existing field → column mapping for structured outputs.

Up to 100 questions? You may prefer the no-install browser Questionnaires flow — same per-row pipeline, same KB grounding, with a visual sheet + column picker and a downloaded copy that preserves the original formatting.

6. Security notes

• Each key is bound to one agent and can be revoked any time from Agents → Keys.
• For browser-only callers, set the key's CORS origin to your origin so the token can't be re-used elsewhere.
• Set rate limits and a monthly token budget on each key so a runaway plugin can't drain the quota.