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I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, but regardless I think this will still be huge and single-hand

I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, but regardless I think this will still be huge and single-handedly modernizes Excel by a large margin. This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. I can think of a past project at a previous job I did building an analytics website used only by a handful of people internally that could have been just as well served with something like this, had it existed at the time.

ZeroCool2u 3y ago
Oh the cloud part is going to be a huge deal breaker in so many industries. This will automatically be blocked by default at my work place for certain.
layer8 3y ago
It sort of makes sense to limit it to the cloud, because making Python an integral part of the Excel file format would reduce its portability and introduce all sorts of compatibility headaches going forward.
- felixgallo 3y ago
  Excel already has versioned file formats with significantly different affordances, and hasn't appeared to have all sorts of compatibility headaches as a result.
  - layer8 3y ago
    Integrating a whole separate language ecosystem is one or two orders of magnitude more complex though. It’s more like HTML5/WHATWG suddenly adding Python as a first-class scripting language besides JavaScript, and web browsers having to integrate that.
    - bafe 3y ago
      Isn't this what people are trying to do with pyscript? Although in that case it uses WASM?
      - layer8 3y ago
        It’s different because WASM is much more strictly defined and has a more limited scope than Python. Thanks to WASM, browsers don’t have be able to understand Python/PyScript. The trade-off is that you can’t, for example, view/edit the Python code in the browser’s devtools. A WASM-like approach wouldn’t work very well for Excel, because you’re supposed to be able to edit the source code/formulas within the Excel application.
- giaour 3y ago
  Whether it runs in the cloud or locally, the included python source will be written for a specific runtime version and environment. If excel were to run python locally, it would presumably bundle an interpreter (+ any needed pip packages) rather than relying on whatever was installed locally. The cloud execution model does still have an advantage in that it can retain old runtimes in perpetuity for backwards compatibility, though
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    Making software available for download perpetually is less complex than making software available for cloud execution perpetually.
    - giaour 3y ago
      Under the model you're proposing, would I potentially need to download an old copy of Excel because the sheet I'm trying to load relies on an older python runtime?
      - depereo 3y ago
        Isn't that already an issue? I've definitely needed specific versions of excel to open particular workbooks before.
      - pseudalopex 3y ago
        Computers are computers. Potentially new Excel would be incompatible with old cloud Python environments. Potentially new Excel would be compatible with old local Python environments.
- baz00 3y ago
  If you've ever dealt with AWS Lambda you will know what a versioning and upgrading shit show this is going to be wherever you stick it, be that client or cloud. I worked on a very early python integration used as a workflow DSL back in 1998 and they had to dump it and write their own DSL in the end.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > It sort of makes sense to limit it to the cloud, because making Python an integral part of the Excel file format Moving it from the cloud to local doesn't make it an integral part of the Excel file format. Whatever python service is running in the cloud could just run locally.
inglor 3y ago
Hi I work on Excel, can you write a summary of why that's important to you and send it to bgruenbaum@microsoft.com ? I'll get it in front of a PM. Alternatively PMs read all the feedback sent via the feedback UI on Excel web and desktop so you can use that instead if you prefer.
- sneak 3y ago
  It won't work offline, for one. I use Office exclusively without internet as otherwise who knows what private stuff it's sending back to Microsoft, which then becomes eligible for warrantless surveillance by the federal police. I know it's old fashioned to want local software to only change things on my local file system, but if I didn't want that paradigm, I'd just use Google Docs.
  - nmstoker 3y ago
    Yes, this is important where you're online but not on a high throughput connection or any part of the connection has intermittent faults. The disruption from even a few outages is enough to prefer to run things locally. We had issues with people unable to sign into Excel and everyone went mad (rightly so, as Excel was running locally not 365 but it blocked usage) And on top of that, there are scenarios where you'd want to process substantial amounts of data that would be prohibitive to upload, process and return the results, where locally handling it would take way less time.
  - LispSporks22 3y ago
    I eventually gave up on it because of the locals vs cloud differences. The documentation for the whole thing was terrible as well. I think they’re in transition (assuming cloud only). In my case, I just went and used Calc from LibreOffice.
- sixothree 3y ago
  Can you just please fix the issue with date strings (such as "20230822090811") being converted into scientific notation? I've received literally hundreds of these documents over the past decade. And as long as this problem exists, I will keep receiving them. Can you please just add a button - "unmess this document"? The number of man-hours I've wasted re-creating documents is countless. My job is to do other things not fix excel documents.
taylodl 3y ago
> This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data I catch flak for this all the time! Our users just want to be able to use Excel to free-form analyze their data. IT, of which I'm a part of, insists on building web apps to do that for them. They're never happy because all they wanted was Excel. I keep explaining all we have to do is build a data mart built using SQL Server, and use our ETL tools to keep it populated with the data they need to analyze. Don't let them anywhere near the source data. They keep looking at me like I have ten heads. Instead they want to launch multi-million dollar projects to bring Tableau to our users - and they don't want it! It's asinine!
- rawgabbit 3y ago
  To be fair, Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, and Tableau Cloud are great if expensive products. With Tableau Prep, you get a visual ETL tool. Being technical, I prefer SQL, but for business folks Tableau Prep is more of a REPL so they see what their actions are going to do. They can schedule these Prep flows in Tableau Cloud which will ETL and produce daily datasets which users can then interact via the dashboards on Tableau Cloud. IMO, Excel is on the right path with out of the box connectors to Salesforce, Azure databases, etc. What it really needs is full blown SQL with REPL output so the users can see the effects of their SQL. (The way Tableau Prep does it is that it defaults to a sampling of rows to output immediate results). There used to be a Microsoft service called Excel online but it was another thing you had to buy and was super confusing. Excel needs to let users schedule their ETL/datasets in SharePoint online and then let other users subscribe to it. They can call it Excel Super+ and charge a small fortune. I am positive there are people with their wallets open.
  - datavirtue 3y ago
    DataIku
  - taylodl 3y ago
    > I am positive there are people with their wallets open. Take our money! The entirety of the Fortune 1000 would license it on day one!
_8j50 3y ago
I too would love this, but I can tel you, even in a sandbox python would be very easy to abuse from a security perspective. Consider how much havoc on humanity (no exaggeration!) VBA Macros have caused.
cpuguy83 3y ago
Adding python support for local use would be a great way for me never to open an excel file ever again. That is so dangerous. Wasm maybe, full-blown runtime without any sandboxing? Nope.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  What's the difference between Python and VBA in that respect? Do you open Excel files now? Pretty sure that wild Office macros were once one of the main sources for computer herpes.
  - cpuguy83 3y ago
    There is no difference except decades making vba in excel less horrible.
siva7 3y ago
Being powered in the Cloud they can protect you from malicious code
localhost 3y ago
There are few key reasons for running in a hypervisor isolated container on Azure with no access to the Internet: - We can guarantee a consistent experience for all users. Imagine having to maintain your own local distribution of Python and guaranteeing that it works with Excel as versions diverge over time? Yikes. - We make it possible to share your Excel workbook with other users and have the calculation just work. That wouldn't work with random local installs of Python and users would be super frustrated by this. - Security. Imagine opening an Excel workbook that can execute Python code running locally as you. Also, I totally agree with your second point. Trying to write an internal app in Python that integrates with all of your existing IT infrastructure is an exercise in frustration at best. Excel is already part of the IT infrastructure virtually everywhere and is a programmable reactive canvas. Disclosure: I work on the design team for the feature.
- snickerbockers 3y ago
  I agree with point 3, but points one and two don't make any sense because games have been skipping with Python scripting for decades and this is never a problem. The python interpreter is embedded into your program as a library and it doesn't have any dependency on the whatever python version the user installed.
  - localhost 3y ago
    > games have been skipping with Python scripting for decades That only works if there is a forever fixed version of Python embedded in your game. The value of Python in this context is its ecosystem and folks will need to install additional packages and libraries into the execution environment. Now you're managing a local distribution of Python.
    - SiempreViernes 3y ago
      Yeah, but if the big value is supposed to be in the libraries you sort of have to accept dependency hell? Otherwise you're in the world where a small set of libraries can deliver all the functionality ever needed. Of the currently available solutions, "cloud environment made by Microsoft" doesn't sound that different from "software update made by Microsoft" in terms of how it solves the dependency hell: basically, the critical library you need is either in or out, but there is nothing you can do about it. Admittedly, here I'm assuming Microsoft won't let you install things into the environment yourself since that basically means hosting virtual machines running arbitrary code and putting the Excel brand in front.
fzumstein 3y ago
> I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally Have a look at xlwings, which runs on any cloud and also locally.
niam 3y ago
It running in Microsoft Cloud is precisely what I think will actually allow this to be useful functionality for my company in ways that macros aren't, because macros are seen here to present a vector for running malware on client machines, whose utility doesn't justify the risk.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Just wait for someone to run malware on your mystery cloud instance of Excel. Have you seen the cross-instance and cross-domain security holes Microsoft has been running into? The latest and greatest was on their Power Platform ("Excel-like"). Nothing like silently shipping your data off to a remote location for inspection by blackhats. Microsoft cloud security is torn apart and laying all over the floor right now...nevermind all the half baked features that let you get kneck deep in a project before you see the grande middle finger from project hellscape.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, There are existing solutions for that, but it would be more complicated for MS to support and secure.
tsujamin 3y ago
As a red teamer, I also wish it supported running python locally :)
Aardwolf 3y ago
> This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. But Microsoft Cloud is a website!
personalityson 3y ago
Is the idea that you will not be able to use these scripts without a subscription?

ZeroCool2u 3y ago

Oh the cloud part is going to be a huge deal breaker in so many industries. This will automatically be blocked by default at my work place for certain.

layer8 3y ago

It sort of makes sense to limit it to the cloud, because making Python an integral part of the Excel file format would reduce its portability and introduce all sorts of compatibility headaches going forward.

felixgallo 3y ago
Excel already has versioned file formats with significantly different affordances, and hasn't appeared to have all sorts of compatibility headaches as a result.
- layer8 3y ago
  Integrating a whole separate language ecosystem is one or two orders of magnitude more complex though. It’s more like HTML5/WHATWG suddenly adding Python as a first-class scripting language besides JavaScript, and web browsers having to integrate that.
  - bafe 3y ago
    Isn't this what people are trying to do with pyscript? Although in that case it uses WASM?
    - layer8 3y ago
      It’s different because WASM is much more strictly defined and has a more limited scope than Python. Thanks to WASM, browsers don’t have be able to understand Python/PyScript. The trade-off is that you can’t, for example, view/edit the Python code in the browser’s devtools. A WASM-like approach wouldn’t work very well for Excel, because you’re supposed to be able to edit the source code/formulas within the Excel application.
giaour 3y ago
Whether it runs in the cloud or locally, the included python source will be written for a specific runtime version and environment. If excel were to run python locally, it would presumably bundle an interpreter (+ any needed pip packages) rather than relying on whatever was installed locally. The cloud execution model does still have an advantage in that it can retain old runtimes in perpetuity for backwards compatibility, though
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  Making software available for download perpetually is less complex than making software available for cloud execution perpetually.
  - giaour 3y ago
    Under the model you're proposing, would I potentially need to download an old copy of Excel because the sheet I'm trying to load relies on an older python runtime?
    - depereo 3y ago
      Isn't that already an issue? I've definitely needed specific versions of excel to open particular workbooks before.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      Computers are computers. Potentially new Excel would be incompatible with old cloud Python environments. Potentially new Excel would be compatible with old local Python environments.
baz00 3y ago
If you've ever dealt with AWS Lambda you will know what a versioning and upgrading shit show this is going to be wherever you stick it, be that client or cloud. I worked on a very early python integration used as a workflow DSL back in 1998 and they had to dump it and write their own DSL in the end.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> It sort of makes sense to limit it to the cloud, because making Python an integral part of the Excel file format Moving it from the cloud to local doesn't make it an integral part of the Excel file format. Whatever python service is running in the cloud could just run locally.

inglor 3y ago

Hi I work on Excel, can you write a summary of why that's important to you and send it to bgruenbaum@microsoft.com ? I'll get it in front of a PM. Alternatively PMs read all the feedback sent via the feedback UI on Excel web and desktop so you can use that instead if you prefer.

sneak 3y ago
It won't work offline, for one. I use Office exclusively without internet as otherwise who knows what private stuff it's sending back to Microsoft, which then becomes eligible for warrantless surveillance by the federal police. I know it's old fashioned to want local software to only change things on my local file system, but if I didn't want that paradigm, I'd just use Google Docs.
- nmstoker 3y ago
  Yes, this is important where you're online but not on a high throughput connection or any part of the connection has intermittent faults. The disruption from even a few outages is enough to prefer to run things locally. We had issues with people unable to sign into Excel and everyone went mad (rightly so, as Excel was running locally not 365 but it blocked usage) And on top of that, there are scenarios where you'd want to process substantial amounts of data that would be prohibitive to upload, process and return the results, where locally handling it would take way less time.
- LispSporks22 3y ago
  I eventually gave up on it because of the locals vs cloud differences. The documentation for the whole thing was terrible as well. I think they’re in transition (assuming cloud only). In my case, I just went and used Calc from LibreOffice.
sixothree 3y ago
Can you just please fix the issue with date strings (such as "20230822090811") being converted into scientific notation? I've received literally hundreds of these documents over the past decade. And as long as this problem exists, I will keep receiving them. Can you please just add a button - "unmess this document"? The number of man-hours I've wasted re-creating documents is countless. My job is to do other things not fix excel documents.

taylodl 3y ago

> This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data I catch flak for this all the time! Our users just want to be able to use Excel to free-form analyze their data. IT, of which I'm a part of, insists on building web apps to do that for them. They're never happy because all they wanted was Excel. I keep explaining all we have to do is build a data mart built using SQL Server, and use our ETL tools to keep it populated with the data they need to analyze. Don't let them anywhere near the source data. They keep looking at me like I have ten heads. Instead they want to launch multi-million dollar projects to bring Tableau to our users - and they don't want it! It's asinine!

rawgabbit 3y ago
To be fair, Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, and Tableau Cloud are great if expensive products. With Tableau Prep, you get a visual ETL tool. Being technical, I prefer SQL, but for business folks Tableau Prep is more of a REPL so they see what their actions are going to do. They can schedule these Prep flows in Tableau Cloud which will ETL and produce daily datasets which users can then interact via the dashboards on Tableau Cloud. IMO, Excel is on the right path with out of the box connectors to Salesforce, Azure databases, etc. What it really needs is full blown SQL with REPL output so the users can see the effects of their SQL. (The way Tableau Prep does it is that it defaults to a sampling of rows to output immediate results). There used to be a Microsoft service called Excel online but it was another thing you had to buy and was super confusing. Excel needs to let users schedule their ETL/datasets in SharePoint online and then let other users subscribe to it. They can call it Excel Super+ and charge a small fortune. I am positive there are people with their wallets open.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  DataIku
- taylodl 3y ago
  > I am positive there are people with their wallets open. Take our money! The entirety of the Fortune 1000 would license it on day one!

_8j50 3y ago

I too would love this, but I can tel you, even in a sandbox python would be very easy to abuse from a security perspective. Consider how much havoc on humanity (no exaggeration!) VBA Macros have caused.

cpuguy83 3y ago

Adding python support for local use would be a great way for me never to open an excel file ever again. That is so dangerous. Wasm maybe, full-blown runtime without any sandboxing? Nope.

pessimizer 3y ago
What's the difference between Python and VBA in that respect? Do you open Excel files now? Pretty sure that wild Office macros were once one of the main sources for computer herpes.
- cpuguy83 3y ago
  There is no difference except decades making vba in excel less horrible.

siva7 3y ago

Being powered in the Cloud they can protect you from malicious code

localhost 3y ago

There are few key reasons for running in a hypervisor isolated container on Azure with no access to the Internet: - We can guarantee a consistent experience for all users. Imagine having to maintain your own local distribution of Python and guaranteeing that it works with Excel as versions diverge over time? Yikes. - We make it possible to share your Excel workbook with other users and have the calculation just work. That wouldn't work with random local installs of Python and users would be super frustrated by this. - Security. Imagine opening an Excel workbook that can execute Python code running locally as you. Also, I totally agree with your second point. Trying to write an internal app in Python that integrates with all of your existing IT infrastructure is an exercise in frustration at best. Excel is already part of the IT infrastructure virtually everywhere and is a programmable reactive canvas. Disclosure: I work on the design team for the feature.

snickerbockers 3y ago
I agree with point 3, but points one and two don't make any sense because games have been skipping with Python scripting for decades and this is never a problem. The python interpreter is embedded into your program as a library and it doesn't have any dependency on the whatever python version the user installed.
- localhost 3y ago
  > games have been skipping with Python scripting for decades That only works if there is a forever fixed version of Python embedded in your game. The value of Python in this context is its ecosystem and folks will need to install additional packages and libraries into the execution environment. Now you're managing a local distribution of Python.
  - SiempreViernes 3y ago
    Yeah, but if the big value is supposed to be in the libraries you sort of have to accept dependency hell? Otherwise you're in the world where a small set of libraries can deliver all the functionality ever needed. Of the currently available solutions, "cloud environment made by Microsoft" doesn't sound that different from "software update made by Microsoft" in terms of how it solves the dependency hell: basically, the critical library you need is either in or out, but there is nothing you can do about it. Admittedly, here I'm assuming Microsoft won't let you install things into the environment yourself since that basically means hosting virtual machines running arbitrary code and putting the Excel brand in front.

fzumstein 3y ago

> I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally Have a look at xlwings, which runs on any cloud and also locally.

niam 3y ago

It running in Microsoft Cloud is precisely what I think will actually allow this to be useful functionality for my company in ways that macros aren't, because macros are seen here to present a vector for running malware on client machines, whose utility doesn't justify the risk.

datavirtue 3y ago
Just wait for someone to run malware on your mystery cloud instance of Excel. Have you seen the cross-instance and cross-domain security holes Microsoft has been running into? The latest and greatest was on their Power Platform ("Excel-like"). Nothing like silently shipping your data off to a remote location for inspection by blackhats. Microsoft cloud security is torn apart and laying all over the floor right now...nevermind all the half baked features that let you get kneck deep in a project before you see the grande middle finger from project hellscape.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> I wish it wasn't solely powered only by Microsoft Cloud and could support python running locally, There are existing solutions for that, but it would be more complicated for MS to support and secure.

tsujamin 3y ago

As a red teamer, I also wish it supported running python locally :)

Aardwolf 3y ago

> This alone could eliminate the need for websites that just want this sort of data. But Microsoft Cloud is a website!

personalityson 3y ago

Is the idea that you will not be able to use these scripts without a subscription?