Installation Guide

How to Install Shayntech Excel AI Agent

Takes about 5 minutes. Works on Windows with Microsoft Excel (desktop version).

Always the current version — served from this site, the same file Excel loads. Source on GitHub

Download the manifest file

Click the green Download manifest.xml button above (or below). This is the file Excel uses to load the add-in. Save it somewhere you can find it — your Downloads folder is fine.

Browser download notification — manifest.xml saved to your Downloads folder

Create the add-in folder

Open File Explorer and navigate to your C: drive. Create a new folder called ExcelAddins.

path

C:\ExcelAddins

⚠️The folder name must be exactly ExcelAddins — capital E and capital A, no spaces.

$C:\ExcelAddins folder created on your C: drive$

C:\ExcelAddins folder created on your C: drive

Copy manifest.xml into the folder

Move the manifest.xml file you downloaded in Step 1 into the C:\ExcelAddins folder.

manifest.xml inside the ExcelAddins folder

Share the folder as a network share

Excel requires the add-in folder to be shared as a network location. Follow these steps:

Right-click the ExcelAddins folder
Click Properties
Go to the Sharing tab
Click Share
Click Share again in the popup
Click Done

ℹ️You are sharing with yourself — this is just a technical requirement from Microsoft. No one else on the internet can access this folder.

$ExcelAddins Properties → Sharing tab — the folder is shared as \\localhost\ExcelAddins$

ExcelAddins Properties → Sharing tab — the folder is shared as \\localhost\ExcelAddins

Add the catalog in Excel Trust Center

Open Microsoft Excel. Navigate to:

File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings → Trusted Add-in Catalogs

In the Catalog Url field, type the path below exactly, then click Add catalog.

Check the Show in Menu box next to the catalog you just added. Click OK on all dialogs.

path

\\localhost\ExcelAddins

🚫Type \\localhost\ExcelAddins exactly — two backslashes at the start, no spaces, capital E and A.

File → Options at the bottom of the left sidebar

Excel Options — click Trust Center in the left panel

Click the Trust Center Settings… button

Trusted Add-in Catalogs tab — your catalog appears in the table

Make sure Show in Menu is checked, then click OK

Restart Excel

Close Excel completely and reopen it. This step is required — the catalog won't appear until Excel restarts.

Closing Excel completely before reopening — required for the catalog to appear

Insert the Add-in

In Excel, go to Insert → My Add-ins. Click the SHARED FOLDER tab. You will see Shayntech AI Agent listed. Click it, then click Add.

The task pane will open on the right side of Excel.

Excel ribbon — Insert tab with My Add-ins button highlighted

My Add-ins → SHARED FOLDER tab showing Shayntech AI Agent — click Add

Excel with the Shayntech AI Agent task pane open on the right side

Configure your AI provider

In the task pane, click the Settings tab. Choose your AI provider, enter your API key, and click Save Settings.

Get a free API key from:

openrouter.ai — free models available, no credit card needed
aistudio.google.com — Google Gemini, generous free tier
console.groq.com — Groq, free tier available

Settings tab — choose your AI provider, paste your API key, then click Save Settings

You're ready!

Go back to the Chat tab. Type a command like Analyze my data and create a chart and press Enter. The AI agent will start working.

The Shayntech AI Agent task pane working inside Excel — type a command and the agent responds

Need the manifest.xml file?

Always the current version, served from our own domain — source on GitHub.

Download manifest.xml

How to use it in Excel

Open the task pane and describe what you want in plain English — no formulas, no macros, no script. These are the kinds of commands that work well.

🧮

Write formulas

Describe the calculation in words — the agent writes the formula and places it in the right cells.

Add a Margin % column calculated from Revenue and Cost

Write a nested IF that grades each row A, B or C from the Score column

VLOOKUP the customer name from the Customers sheet into this one

Calculate the running total of column D and put it in column E

📊

Create charts

The agent reads your data, picks a sensible chart type and builds it in the workbook.

Create a bar chart comparing sales by product for Q1

Turn this table into a line chart with a trendline

Add a chart showing revenue by month

🔍

Analyse and clean data

Ask questions about the sheet, or have the agent tidy it up in place.

Which region had the biggest drop between Q1 and Q2?

Find duplicate invoice numbers and highlight them

Remove blank rows and trim extra spaces in the Name column

Split the Full Name column into First Name and Last Name

📋

Build dashboards

Ask for a KPI view and the agent lays out the summary, charts and formatting together.

Build a dashboard with total revenue, top 5 products and a monthly trend chart

Summarise this sheet — what stands out?

Add conditional formatting to the KPI cells

Before it changes anything

✅ Plan approval. The agent shows you the steps it intends to take, and nothing is written to your workbook until you approve.
↩️ Undo. It snapshots the workbook before every write, so any change can be rolled back.
🔒 Your key, your data. Requests go from Excel straight to the AI provider you configured with your own API key. Nothing passes through our servers.
💾 Agent memory. It keeps context between sessions, so you can ask follow-up questions instead of re-explaining the task.

Tips for better results

Keep headers in row 1 with one table per sheet — the agent detects your data range from them.
Name the columns you mean (“the Revenue column”) instead of “that column”.
Ask for one job per message. “Clean this, then chart it” works well; five separate jobs at once does not.
If a result is not right, say what is wrong (“the formula should ignore blanks”) rather than starting the whole task again.

Troubleshooting

Something not working? Check these first.

I don't see the "Shared Folder" tab in My Add-ins

You skipped Step 5 or didn't restart Excel. Go back to Trust Center Settings and make sure the catalog URL is exactly \\localhost\ExcelAddins and the Show in Menu checkbox is checked. Then fully close and reopen Excel.

It says "Add-in could not be loaded"

The add-in loads its task pane from shayntech.com/excel-ai/taskpane.html. Open that in your browser — if the page loads, the server is up and the problem is local, so try the cache step below. If it does not load, check your internet connection or a proxy/firewall blocking the site. The add-in is hosted on our own server, so there is no third-party service that can go to sleep.

The task pane is blank or showing an old version

Excel caches the add-in. To force a refresh: Close Excel → open File Explorer → navigate to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Wef\ → delete all files inside that folder → reopen Excel.

Settings tab or buttons are not clickable

Same cache issue as above. Clear the Wef folder and restart Excel.

I see "Office.js is loaded outside of Office client" warning

This warning appears when you open the taskpane URL in a regular browser. It is completely normal and does not affect how the add-in works inside Excel.

Can I use this on Mac?

Not currently. The manifest sideloading method described here only works on Windows. Mac support requires a different installation method — contact us if you need Mac support.

Still stuck?