Submit add-ins with custom functions (update?)

Question

I asked a question regarding submitting add-ins with custom functions 6 months ago. The conclusion at the moment was an add-in that uses custom functions cannot currently be published to the Office Store or via Office 365 centralized deployment.

But I realize that the document has changed, now it is

Known issues

... ...

Deployment via the Office 365 Admin Portal and AppSource are not yet enabled.

Moreover, I found the new functions button in Script Lab. Users could register a function like =ScriptLab.BlankSnippet1.add10(…) and use it in Excel.

So my questions are

1) Has Script Lab successfully submitted a function ScriptLab in AppSource?

2) Today, could other developers outside Microsoft submit add-ins with custom functions like Script Lab?

Evie

Answer 1

Update - Custom Functions are now generally available, so you can now submit add-ins that contain custom functions for validation in the store. If submitting an add-in with Custom Functions, please see the validation policies here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/store/validation-policies#15-add-ins-with-excel-custom-functions

Frazzle

Thanks for your note... but it is not very very clear... I want to make sure that, at the moment, I could not make custom functions as Script Lab did. I will ask in this way: did your team do some exception for Script Lab (that you could not do for developers outside Microsoft) such that the function ScriptLab is enabled? – Evie

Hi there, do you mean for testing purposes for yourself or so you can distribute the add-in with the custom function to all users? If later, the feature is still in developer preview at this time, and any submissions to the AppSource containing custom functions will fail. They only way to distrubute the add-in for testing purposes would be through the file share – Frazzle

I mean "distribute the add-in with the custom function to all users"... Out of curiosity, what did you do internally to ScriptLab such that the custom function ScriptLab is distributed to all the users? – Evie

We allowed it to enable developers to use it and explore custom functions, as an exception. While we'd love to enable everyone to submit their custom functions, we still have a lot of work to do before we can enable it up for all users. Cool to see your excitement and we're working hard to get there :) – Frazzle

Do you have an approximate date for this feature? So that i will be able to come back and double check... – Evie

Not yet, but our team is planning on a call next month. if you fill that out, we can make sure you get the invite. Also curious to understand what you're working on :) aka.ms/customfunctionscall – Frazzle

I just got an email which told me "Custom functions are officially in Preview! Try them! more info in aka.ms/customfunctions". But on that page Deployment via the Office 365 Admin Portal and AppSource are not yet enabled. is still there. So today developers outside Microsoft still can NOT submit add-ins with custom functions? – Evie

Hey yes that is correct. We won't be able to open up the store until when we get closer to general availability. – Frazzle