What the assistant can do in your workbook

What the assistant can do in your Excel workbook

The assistant works directly on the workbook you have open. It can read it (a full map of sheets, ranges, tables and charts, plus values, formulas and your selection), search cells, write values and formulas, restructure sheets, format ranges, run find and replace, and insert, update or delete charts.

It also combines workbook work with your project data — for example, reading a punch list from a sheet and creating issues in your project from the open rows. Just describe what you want in plain language.

Reading your workbook — the workbook map

Ask the assistant what is in your workbook and it builds a full map: every sheet, its used range, and the tables and charts on it. This is how it finds its way around before reading or editing anything.

Example asks:

• "What's in this workbook?"
• "List the sheets and the tables on each".

Reading never changes your workbook and never requires approval.

Reading ranges, formulas, and your selection

The assistant can read exactly what your cells contain:

• Values and formulas from any range — it sees the formulas, not just the results.
• Your current selection: select some cells and ask about them, e.g. "Explain this selection". The read is merge-aware, so merged cells are reported correctly.
• A chart's details: ask about any chart in the workbook.

Example: "Read A1:F30 on Sheet2 and tell me which formulas look wrong".

Searching cells and taking a picture of a range — it can see your sheet

Two more ways the assistant understands your data:

• Cell search: "Find all cells containing 'TBD' and list them" — it searches across cells and reports where each match is.
• Range snapshot: the assistant can take a picture of a range, with row and column coordinates included, so it can literally SEE your sheet — layout, formatting, and all. Useful when the visual arrangement matters, e.g. "Look at the header area and tell me how this report is laid out".

Writing values and formulas

The assistant can fill your sheets for you:

• Write values or formulas to any range — "Put a SUM of column D in D31", "Fill B2:B13 with the month names".
• Clear ranges you no longer need.

Like every workbook edit, writes follow your chat's approval mode, so you can require confirmation before anything lands in the sheet.

Restructuring — rows, columns, sheets, and tables

The assistant can change the structure of your workbook:

• Insert or delete rows and columns.
• Add, delete, or rename sheets — "Create a new sheet called Summary".
• Create or delete tables.

Example: "Build a commissioning progress summary on a new sheet with a chart" — the assistant creates the sheet, writes the data, and adds the chart in one go (asking for approval per your approval mode).

Formatting and auto-fit

Ask the assistant to make your sheet presentable:

• Format ranges — e.g. "Format the header row", "Make the totals bold".
• Auto-fit columns and rows so content is fully visible — "Auto-fit the columns on Sheet1".

A popular combined ask: "Format the header row and auto-fit the columns".

Find and replace across a sheet

The assistant can run find and replace across a sheet for you: "Replace every 'Site A' with 'Site B' on the Overview sheet".

If you only want to know where something is without changing it, ask it to search instead — "Find all cells containing 'TBD'" — which never modifies the workbook.

Charts — insert, update, and delete

The assistant can manage charts in your workbook:

• Insert a chart from your data — around 25 chart types are supported, including the column, bar, line, pie, doughnut, area, and scatter families.
• Update an existing chart.
• Delete a chart.
• Read a chart's details when you ask about one.

Example: "Insert a doughnut chart of issues by priority next to the table".

Merged cells — merging, unmerging, and how they are read

The assistant handles merged cells carefully:

• It can merge cells (including "merge across", which merges row by row) and unmerge them.
• Safety first: if a merge would discard non-empty cells, it refuses by default and lists exactly which cells would lose their content. If that's what you want, tell it to go ahead and it will.
• When reading, merged regions are reported as merged spans with their anchor value — the assistant won't mistake a merged heading for repeated data.

Note: merged-cell awareness when reading needs a newer Office build; on older builds it degrades gracefully.

Approvals — you confirm before the workbook changes

Every action that modifies your workbook is a write, and writes follow your chat's approval mode:

• Auto: edits run without asking.
• Ask for critical: only critical actions ask first.
• Ask for edits: every workbook edit shows an approval card first — nothing changes until you approve.

The approval card lists each pending action with a checkbox, so you can approve some and decline others. Reading your workbook never asks for approval.

Approved edits are applied straight to the workbook. The tracked-changes review of the Word add-in does not exist in Excel.

Good example prompts for workbook work

Some prompts that show what the assistant does well in Excel:

• "Build a commissioning progress summary on a new sheet with a chart".
• "Read the punch list on Sheet1 and create issues for the open rows".
• "Find all cells containing 'TBD' and list them".
• "Format the header row and auto-fit the columns".
• "Read A1:F30 and explain the formulas".

Combine project data with workbook edits in a single ask — that is where the add-in shines.

Limits and good to know

A few things to keep in mind:

• The assistant works on the workbook currently open next to the pane, and the pane must be open for it to act.
• Edits happen in YOUR open copy of the workbook — you keep normal control over saving.
• Some newer features, like merged-cell awareness when reading, need newer Office builds and degrade gracefully on older ones.
• If a write times out, the assistant checks the workbook with a read before retrying, so an edit is not applied twice.
• An action that cannot finish fails with a clear error after about 4 minutes instead of hanging. A cell left in edit mode or an open dialog box in Excel is a common cause.
• Project actions (creating issues, reading documents, and so on) always respect your project permissions. In personal mode (My Workspace) there are no project actions, so prompts like "create issues for the open rows" need a project first.