Make your add-in more efficient to use by making specific actions accessible on the ribbon.Make your add-in more discoverable by placing add-in buttons with relevant user flows.When you adopt commands, you make it easier for users to access and use your add-in. Users expect to be able to find all the tools and actions that they need on the Office ribbon. Pickit add-in command in the Office ribbonīenefit: Increased discoverability and retention Boomerang add-in extending the Message tab in Outlookįigure 2. The following are some examples of add-ins that use commands.įigure 1. To see add-in commands in action, watch the Add-in commands in the Office ribbon video. You can extend existing tabs, create your own custom tab, or extend contextual menus. Benefit: Integration with the Office UIĪdd-in commands allow you to extend the Office UI to add custom buttons to the Office ribbon. We are also announcing the deprecation of the custom pane extension point in Outlook add-ins. In this post, we highlight some of the important benefits that commands introduce, as well changes we are making to Office Store policies to require the use of commands in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint add-ins. We have seen that users are more likely to continue to use add-ins that have command entry points in the Office ribbon, so using add-in commands can increase the retention rate for your add-ins. Commands enable you to extend the Office UI across multiple platforms. Add-in commands were made available in Outlook in November 2015. In March 2016, we released add-in commands for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Office desktop and Office Online.