Historian Client Office add-in (workbook and report) on Office 64-bit version

Hi Community, Is there any known information on how (or if) it is possible to install and use the Historian Client Office add-in on a client computer that is using 64-bit version of Office.

The installer states that it expects the 32-bit version of Office

We have customers that are using the 64-bit version on all computers in the organization and if its not possible to use this we need to check if there is any plan to support this any time soon?

It is not possible to install both 64-bit and 32-bit version of Office on the same computer.

Or are there any known tricks to get this enabled today.

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  • Search Insource Solutions TN - 1078.

    It is not actually an Install like the old 32 bit product

  • The customer has for many years been using the Excel Add-in for Historian.

    Not to be confused with the Insight add-in, perhaps in time we could get the user to start using this plug-in as an replacement, but they have multiple reports and files in their organization and it is already integrated in their daily work.

    Now that they start replacing computers and the new installations include the 64-bit version of Office they start to encounter issues.

    If you upgrade to Office 64-bit version there is a heap of error messages when starting Excel on a computer that previously had the plugin installed, so I understand that there are issues to be resolved.

    So if there is no plan to support the 64-Bit version of Office there will be a lot of work converting existing reports to the way the Insight add-in works. 

  • The "Classic" (32-bit only) add-in will not support 64-bit Office, but the new "Task Pane" add-in (what Richard called the "Insight add-in" above) supports both 32-bit and 64-bit and can be used side-by-side in 32-bit Excel. These aren't exactly 1:1, but the Task Pane add-in supports the most commonly used capabilities from the Classic one, but organized differently.

    Note the Task Pane add-in was originally introduced with Historian 2017 Update 3 and has had noteworthy enhancements in each subsequent release, so if there are capabilities that seem to be "missing", be sure you understand what is included in the latest release. Where you still find important gaps, please highlight those use cases. 

    Historian 2023 R2 added a "migration utility" to assist users in migrating spreadsheets originally created for the Classic add-in to convert them to use the Task Pane add-in. It isn't perfect, but targets 80% migration from Classic. 

  • Thank you Elliott! That was exactly the kind of information I was after, but just for clarification, there is no plan to have the "Classic" add-in supported on 64-bit Office? Just want to make sure that it is worth the effort in convincing the customer to migrate Slight smile

    We have been trying to evaluate the new Task Pane add-in, named Insight as per the technote provided earlier, or the AVEVA published article with similar information

    https://softwaresupportsp.aveva.com/#/knowledgebase/details/000032879?lang=en_us

    And even this guide

    https://knowledge.insourcess.com/?title=Operational_Efficiency/Historian/Maximize_%26_Optimize/TN_-_1207_Troubleshooting_Excel_Insight_Add-in

    Unfortunately we end up in the same state, both on the customer environment or in our lab, or even on my personal computer.

    The Add-in installation usually get stuck in 'Loading Add-ins' 

    or mostly we get the "Error installing add-ins".

    Any Ideas on what could be the reason for this error is very appreciated, if not, then we will open a support ticket to try and resolve it once and for all.

  • I assume this is the migration tool available?

    I will try to test this out, but initially I encountered some errors when trying to run it using an excel file.

    Perhaps due to running it on a office 32-bit, will try and test it again on my 64-bit installation.

    An error occurred Could not load file or assembly "DocumentFormat.OpenXML.Framework"...

  • Correct, no plans to offer a 64-bit version of the Classic add-in.

    In terms of problems loading the Task Pane add-in, the details differ between Office versions (even between builds) and Historian server versions, so I recommend gathering those details and contacting Tech Support. On the Excel side, the key difference is which version of the "ExcelApi" is supported and this is the best reference I've seen for that. 

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