Customize
Ribbon buttons
Add custom buttons to the Excel ribbon that open your taskpane, run one of your functions, or launch a dialog — placed on a built-in tab or your own branded tab.
6 min read
From an environment's Resources → Ribbon buttons page, add controls that show up directly on the Excel ribbon — no taskpane click required. Each button has a label, a tooltip, an icon, a tab placement, and one of three actions.
Action kinds
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
show_taskpaneOptional | Show taskpane | Opens your taskpane — the built-in launcher. Works on any tab, built-in or custom. |
execute_functionOptional | Execute function | Inserts =NAMESPACE.MODULE.FN() into the active cell with no arguments — only functions with no required parameters can be assigned. Must sit on your custom tab. |
open_dialogOptional | Open dialog | Launches one of your configured dialogs, which collects input and inserts the composed formula. Must sit on your custom tab. |
A function that needs input goes behind a dialog
An Execute function button clicks straight to a formula with no arguments, so only functions with every parameter optional can be assigned to one. A function that needs a value first — a customer id, a date range — belongs behind an Open dialog button instead, which collects the input before inserting the formula.
Placement
Buttons sit on either a built-in Excel tab (Home, Insert, Formulas, Data, Review, View) or your add-in's own custom tab. Built-in tabs may only host Show taskpane buttons — Execute function and Open dialog buttons always need the custom tab, since Office reserves built-in tabs for the launcher only.
Rename your custom tab from the same Ribbon buttons page; it defaults to your add-in's brand name. See White-labeling for the rest of the add-in's brand controls.
Icons and order
Upload a PNG, JPEG, WEBP, GIF, or SVG — it's rasterized server-side into 16/32/80px variants — or pick one already in your organization's icon library. Reorder buttons with the drag handles in the list; the order you set is the order Excel renders them in their group.
The twelve-button cap
Each environment can define up to 12 ribbon buttons. The create button in the dashboard disables once you hit the cap — delete or repurpose one to add another.
Most changes need a manifest re-deploy
Adding, removing, relabeling, reordering, restyling, or re-iconing a button changes the Office manifest — your users need to re-install it before Excel shows the change. The one exception is retargeting: pointing an existing Execute function or Open dialog button at a different function or dialog applies live, with no re-deploy, because the button's identity in the manifest never changes.
Taskpane builder
Design the taskpane your add-in's users open from the ribbon — drag blocks into tabs, brand it with your own colors and logo, and publish changes to every open workbook without a re-deploy.
White-labeling
Replace every ConnXL mark your end users would otherwise see — the add-in's name, its icon, the ribbon tab, and the taskpane's whole look — with your own brand, sourced from one shared assets library.