Microsoft Office 365 gets powerful add-in system

Microsoft has announced its Office applications will be able to use add-ins which run across multiple platforms and extend the features of software such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Speaking at Build 2015, Rob Lefferts, general manager of Office Extensibility at Microsoft, demonstrated a number of these add-ins.

Among them was a DocuSign plugin for the new desktop version of Word, which lets you digitally apply signatures to documents.

Lefferts also showed how an add-on for SAP would look the same on Excel for Windows desktop, Excel online, and Excel for iPad.

An add-in for Uber on Microsof’s e-mail and information manager software Outlook was also demonstrated.

The Uber add-in can be used to set ride reminders for meetings, which will trigger notifications on non-Microsoft platforms such as iPhone.

Outlook will then automatically populate the Uber request with the destination set in the calendar entry.

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said these add-ins for Office 365 will have their access restricted with permissions set using policies and access control lists in Active Directory.

Uber, DocuSign, SAP, LinkedIn, and SalesForce plugins for Office apps have been demonstrated by Microsoft.