Your step-by-step blueprint to connect Excel, invite your team, and troubleshoot Desktop Add-in installation.
The journey begins at the A7 GUIDE Portal. By creating an Administrator Account, you establish a secure, centralized hub (Workspace) that acts as the brain connecting your Excel Add-In, RPA bots, and human team members.
Once registered, the Administrator controls who has access to the workspace. You can invite colleagues by navigating to Dashboard ➔ Team Members and assigning specific roles (e.g., Viewer, Editor, Manager).
The system needs to know exactly which Excel files are authorized for synchronization and Playwright bot extraction. This prevents unauthorized data access and ensures pinpoint accuracy when writing data back to Excel.
Register the exact filename (e.g. Shipments_2026.xlsx) inside your web dashboard. The system generates a cryptographic RPA Secret Token linked strictly to that file. The Add-In uses this token to authenticate WebSocket connections.
Define Sheet1 (or your specific sheet) as the Active Workspace. When RPA bots extract data from web forms, they map the HTML payload directly into the coordinate grid (e.g., cell B4) of this specific sheet.
The Web App Dashboard is the core engine of A7 GUIDE. It's a comprehensive command center built for administrators to monitor, control, and audit every interaction between their team, the RPA bots, and Excel.
Live metrics displaying active Excel connections, currently online team members, pending cell revisions awaiting approval, and recent Playwright bot extractions.
Every cell modification made by any team member or bot is logged securely into the Supabase PostgreSQL database. Admins can view the exact old value, new value, timestamp, and author, allowing for easy rollbacks and auditing.
Suspend accounts, reset passwords, change access privileges, and monitor the activity status of all invited workspace members from a centralized table.
Configure Playwright automation flows (e.g. "Extract invoices from Web Portal X at 9:00 AM") and map the extraction paths directly to columns in your registered Excel workbook.
The A7 GUIDE Add-In is a lightweight, secure Task Pane that lives directly inside Excel. Once installed, it connects Excel to your Web App Dashboard via secure APIs.
manifest.xml file.How it operates: When you launch the Task Pane, it uses Microsoft's Office.js library to read and write cell data. It establishes a real-time WebSocket connection to the A7 GUIDE server. When a team member changes a cell in another city, the server pushes an event to your Task Pane, and the Add-in highlights that specific cell on your screen instantly.
If your Desktop Microsoft Excel (Windows) throws security errors or won't allow direct sideloading of local manifest files, follow this official Enterprise Shared Network Path fix to force Excel to trust your Add-In:
Step 5.1: Create & Share Manifest Folder
Create a folder (e.g. C:\A7_Manifest) and place your manifest.xml inside. Right-click folder ➔ Properties ➔ Sharing ➔ Share... to generate a UNC Network Path.
Step 5.2: Copy Sample UNC Network Catalog Path
\\YOUR-PC\A7_ManifestStep 5.3: Configure Desktop Excel Trust Center
CRITICAL: FULL EXCEL RESTART REQUIRED
Close all running instances of Microsoft Excel completely. Re-open Excel ➔ Navigate to Insert ➔ My Add-ins ➔ Shared Folder. Your A7 GUIDE Task Pane will now load seamlessly!
Join enterprise teams using A7 GUIDE to automate web forms and stream cell revisions in real-time.