Office AssistantHow-to guide for staff
Everyday tasks in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, one line each.
On the ribbon it's labelled Tessellant Assistant, or a name your organisation chose. It works on the file you have open, only when you ask, and by default asks before changing anything. Your organisation chooses which apps it is turned on in, so you may see it in some apps and not others yet.
It works on the open file in Word and Excel, and in PowerPoint and Outlook where your organisation enables them.
How: select its button on the Home tab, or select text or cells, right-click and choose Ask Tessellant Assistant (or your organisation's name for it).
In Outlook the button appears when you read or write an email or open a meeting. Pin the pane to keep it open.
How: select Sign in with Microsoft and use your usual work account.
How: type in the message box at the bottom. New chat is the pencil at the top left, and + holds attachments, skills, settings, Help and Sign out.
How: select a skill card on a new chat, or type / and pick one. Nothing happens until you press Enter.
Skills are ready-made tasks, such as Proofread in Word or Audit workbook in Excel. Add your own words after the name, for example /proofread section 3 only.
How: say what you want, where in the file, and what to leave alone.
For example: "Proofread this report to Australian English. Leave clause numbers and defined terms alone." Select text or cells first and right-click Ask to keep it focused.
How: select +, then Attach a file or one of your knowledge bases, then ask your question.
PDF, Word, Excel, text and Markdown files, up to 25 MB each. Your organisation decides whether attaching is available.
How: while it's working, type your next request and press Enter. It waits in a numbered list and runs in turn.
You can edit or remove a request until it starts. If you press Stop or start a new chat, the queue pauses and asks whether to Run or Clear it.
How: select the round Stop button where Send usually is.
The answer so far is kept, and anything waiting for your approval is declined.
How: check the change shown above the message box, then choose Allow once (Enter), Deny (Esc) or Always allow (every change for the rest of the chat).
How: select the hand switch in the message box.
On, the default, you approve each change. Off (it shows Auto), changes are made without asking and can still be reverted.
How: select +, then switch on Track the agent's edits. Accept or reject them in Review.
Your organisation may require this for everyone. The switch then shows Required by your organisation.
How: under a turn that changed your file, select Revert this turn's changes.
How: select a link in the answer to jump to that paragraph, cell range or slide in your file.
How: open the pane on the same file and select Continue your last chat, or choose one from Earlier chats.
In Outlook, chats follow the email conversation.
How: under an answer, select thumbs up or thumbs down, and add a comment if you like.
It can't send email (it writes drafts only), open other files or mailboxes, search the web, run macros, accept or reject tracked changes, change page setup in Word, restyle charts in Excel, or add a chart to an existing slide. If you ask, it should say so and offer what it can do instead.
Ideas for the Office Assistant. None of them has a date, and none is promised.
On the roadmap
Being explored
It reads the open file, and anything you attach, only when you ask. It sends that content to your organisation's own platform and saves the chat in your history there. Open in platform shows the chat in the web chat, but you can only continue it in Office. Your IT team has the detail.
| If | Do this |
|---|---|
| It asks you to sign in again | Select Sign in with Microsoft. If no window appears, check Office isn't blocking pop-up windows. |
| It isn't enabled for this app yet | Ask your IT team. It's turned on app by app. |
| Your account isn't set up | Ask your IT team for access, then open the pane again. |
| Sign-in is blocked in Office on the web in Safari | Use Edge, Chrome or the Office desktop app. |
| The button isn't there | New add-ins can take 24 to 72 hours to appear. Restart Office, then ask your IT team. |
| A citation can't find the text | The text has probably changed since. Ask again. |