Inven for Excel and PowerPoint — Support
Help with the Inven add-ins for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint.
Contact us
Email info@inven.ai with a description of the problem. Including the following gets you a faster answer:
- Which add-in (Excel or PowerPoint), and whether you are on Windows, Mac, or Office in a browser.
- The email address you sign in to Inven with.
- For Excel, the exact formula in the cell and what it returned.
- A screenshot of the task pane, if something looks wrong in it.
We aim to reply within one business day.
What you need
The add-ins are clients for Inven. Using them requires:
- An Inven subscription, with the relevant add-in enabled for your organisation. There is no separate free tier for the add-ins. Contact us or your Inven account manager if you are not sure whether yours is enabled.
- Microsoft 365 — Excel or PowerPoint on Windows, on Mac, or on the web. Perpetual Office 2019 and later are supported on Mac.
Installing
Get the add-in from within Office: Home > Add-ins > Get Add-ins, then search for Inven. Your Microsoft 365 administrator may instead deploy it centrally, in which case it appears on the Home tab without you installing anything.
Once installed, choose the Inven button on the Home tab to open the task pane.
Signing in
- Open the Inven task pane from the Home tab.
- Enter your Inven email address and choose Continue.
- A window opens on Inven's sign-in page. Enter your password, or complete your organisation's single sign-on.
- The window closes and the task pane shows you signed in.
You stay signed in between sessions. To sign out, use the overflow menu at the top of the task pane.
Inven for Excel
The task pane runs the Inven assistant against the open workbook, and the add-in adds six worksheet functions under the INVEN namespace, such as =INVEN.DATA("stripe.com","INV_TOTAL_REV").
Full documentation of the functions, their arguments and the available field codes is at inven.ai/legal/excel-add-in-docs.
Formula results that are not numbers
Excel has no built-in error value for account problems, so the functions return these as text:
| Cell shows | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
#SIGN_IN |
No Inven session | Sign in from the task pane |
#NO_ACCESS |
Your organisation does not have the Excel add-in, or that data is outside your subscription | Contact us |
#CREDIT_LIMIT |
Your organisation has used its data credits | Contact us |
#RATE_LIMIT |
Too many requests at once | Wait a moment and recalculate |
#N/A |
Inven has no value for that company and field | Nothing — the data does not exist |
Inven for PowerPoint
The task pane runs the Inven assistant against the open presentation. Ask it to research companies, investors or deals and to build the slides, and it edits the deck directly.
Troubleshooting
The Inven button is missing from the Home tab. Close and reopen Excel or PowerPoint. If it is still missing, the add-in may not be installed for your account — check Home > Add-ins, or ask your Microsoft 365 administrator.
The task pane is blank or will not load. Close the pane and reopen it. If it stays blank, your network may be blocking inven.ai; ask your IT team to allow excel.inven.ai, powerpoint.inven.ai and api.inven.ai.
The sign-in window does not open, or closes immediately. Pop-up blocking and strict cookie settings can interfere in Office on the web. Try Office on the desktop, or allow pop-ups for the Office site.
Formulas return #SIGN_IN even though the pane shows me signed in. Recalculate the sheet with Ctrl+Alt+F9 (Cmd+Alt+F9 on Mac). If it persists, sign out and back in.
A formula shows #BUSY!. The request is still running; it resolves on its own.