This Excel addin was initially used in a German DAX-40 corporate to save its employees time when working with contact details of co-workers in Excel. The tool has been saving hundreds of - if not more - working hours since 2019. I figured it can be used by the public as well to help more people speed up certain monotonous tasks... so here we go :)
The addin is essentially an extension for Excel. When the addin is installed it will add a tab to Excel as shown in the following screenshot:
I developed another addin, which extends Excel's default functionality by more than 50 tools.
The addin assumes that your spreadsheet contains contact details of the people who you are working with (ie. one of the following: e-mail address, full names, alias). It also assumes that these contact details are managed in an Active Directory. If that is the case, the addin can do the following things for you:
- Show contact: Show all other relevant contact details of the e-mail address or name in the active cell
- Convert contacts: Convert multiple cells containing e-mail addresses or names into other contact details of your choice (e.g. phone number, location, etc.)
- Search address book: Like Outlook's address book, but within Excel
If the active cell in your spreadsheet contains an e-mail address or full name, the tool will show all contact details associated with that e-mail address or full name. For example, if the cell you selected in your spreadsheet contains an e-mail address, a window will pop up displaying all contact details associated with that e-mail address. Clicking the +-button next to an entry will paste that entry into the active cell.
This tool will replace e-mail addresses or full names in multiple cells in your spreadsheet with another contact detail associated with that e-mail address or full name. Select a range of cells, which contain e-mail addresses or full names (can be mixed), in your spreadsheet and select a contact detail which you would like to have instead of the existing e-mail address or full name. For example, if your range contains e-mail addresses the tool will automatically convert all of those into phone numbers or street addresses or last names or whatever you selected in the tool.
If there are cases where the contact information in the selected cell(s) does not uniquely identify exactly one user - this can be the case when a cell contains a name and there are multiple people with the same name - the addin will prompt you with a list of all users it has found, allowing you to select the one you wish.
Open a search bar and search for users in the Active Directory and list their contact details. Double-clicking an entry will open its business card. You can search (fuzzy) for e-mail addresses, full names, first names, last names, or aliases.
- The add-in only works for local installations of Microsoft Excel, i.e., this add-in does not work with a browser-version of Microsoft Office.
- The add-in will only work if your workplace's IT-infrastructure uses Active Directory to manage its users... and you need access to that Active Directory. If you do not use Active Directory or are not connected to one, this add-in will be useless to you. The unavailability of the Active Directory will reveal itself through annoyingly long (30 seconds at max) Excel-freezes when attempting to run one of the tools. If you have a VPN at your workplace, it could be that the Active Directory is only available while you are connected to the VPN. So please make sure you are connected.
- Download the file named excel-contact-tools-addin.xlam
- Install the addin-file according to the instructions for xlam-addins. Head to the official Microsoft website or simply ask google How to install xlam-addins in Excel?
- Restart Excel
- A new ribbon named Contacts should have appeared
- Congrats! The addin is installed and you should be able to use it. If not, check out the troubleshooting-section.
- If a yellow banner appears at the top of your spreadsheet, you will have to click
Enable Content, before the add-in becomes usable (see screenshot):
- Head to File >> Options >> Trust Center >> Macro Settings in Excel and make sure that macros and the VBA-object model are both enabled (see screenshot):
- If you have a corporate VPN at your workplace, it could be that the Active Directory is only available while you are connected to the VPN. So please make sure you are connected.
Do whatever you want with the source code, but make it open source when you publish anything based on the conents of this repository! Also do not sue me and do not make me responsible for any damage caused by the use of the addin. When using VBA-based addins its always a good idea to save your work regularly - trust me.
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