Advanced Excel Formula discussion - Problem with dynamic range
Let's assume I want to rent a house. For each house, if the landlord has an agent, I'll contact the agent; If not, I contact the landlord directly. As below: Landlord Agent House Landlord James Mary W James Linda Michael X David Y Linda Z James Column F: =IFERROR(XLOOKUP(E2:E5,A:A,B:B,E2:E5),E2:E5) This is correct Column G: =XLOOKUP(E2:E5,A:A,B:B,E2:E5) #VALUE! for X-David Column H: =XLOOKUP(E2:E5,A:A,B:B,CHOOSECOLS(E2:E5,1)) Wrong value for X-David, because it returned the first value in range of XLOOKUP([if_not_found]) field My question is: the only difference between G and H is CHOOSECOLS(). If I put =CHOOSECOLS(E2:E5,1) or =E2:E5 in a separate cell, it gives me same result. However, in XLOOKUP, they are recognized differently. What is the logic behind this? Thank you for spending time on reading this.AI Upskilling Framework Level 3 Building
The Global AI Community is excited to bring you the latest updates on AI Upskilling Framework Level 3 Building, straight from Microsoft Ignite! This session dives deep into advanced concepts for building agentic workflows and showcases new announcements that will help developers accelerate their Agentic AI journey.
(Apparently) Unpredictable crazy colors in Excel dark mode
Hi, At LAST, there is a so-called Dark Mode in Excel, thanks for our eyes! Unfortunately, if the developpers wanted to discourage us from using it, they probably wouln't have done it any other way! In short, I tend to use colors in my spreadsheets to highlight value, especially inconsistent or unwanted ones, obviously. Now, someone at Microsoft seems to have deemed it a decent idea to (apparently randomly) display a dirty brown when I ask for yellow, Except in the buttons backgrounds, which renders the text unreadable, to break the "automatic color" feature that should make the text readable whatever the background color, and not to provide any way to predict what will be the end color of a random pick. Is there any way to set Excel so the color I pick is the one that is displayed in Dark Mode? At worst, is there any way to get a formula that will tell me what values I need to enter so I get the color I really want in my cell? Thanks for any decent update to this really needed feature!
Task Module shows popup but Adaptive Card does not render using M365 Agent SDK (Python)
I am using the new M365 Agent SDK for Python to return a Task Module (task/fetch). The popup opens successfully when I click the button in Teams, but the Adaptive Card inside the Task Module does not render. Instead, Teams shows the generic error: “Unable to reach app. Please try again.” My invoke handler returns the following structure: adaptive_card = { "type": "AdaptiveCard", "$schema": "http://adaptivecards.io/schemas/adaptive-card.json", "version": "1.4", "body": [ {"type": "TextBlock", "text": "Sample task module card"}, {"type": "Input.Text", "id": "notes", "isMultiline": True} ], "actions": [ { "type": "Action.Submit", "title": "Submit", "data": {"action": "sample_task_submit"} } ] } task_response = { "task": { "type": "continue", "value": { "title": "Dialog", "width": "medium", "height": "medium", "card": { "contentType": "application/vnd.microsoft.card.adaptive", "content": adaptive_card } } } } return InvokeResponse(status=200, body=task_response) Key symptoms: Task module window opens (so invoke is successful) Adaptive card does not render Shows “Unable to reach app” inside popup No errors in server logs This happens only with Task Modules; normal message replies work fine Questions: Is the above Task Module response format correct for the new M365 Agent SDK for Python? Does the SDK require a different return type or content-type for invoke responses? Are Task Modules fully supported in the M365 Agent SDK preview? Is there an example of returning a Task Module using the Python SDK? Any clarification or working sample for Python would be very helpful. Screen shot -
Microsoft Ignite 2025 AI announcements: What software developers need to know
Igniting what’s next: What software development companies need to know about Microsoft’s AI announcements at Ignite 2025 The AI landscape took a major leap forward at Microsoft Ignite 2025, and for software development companies and digital natives, the announcements represent a massive opportunity: faster innovation, simplified agent development, access to enterprise‑ready AI platforms, and a dramatically expanded ecosystem to build on. This year, Microsoft introduced the era of agentic AI—and software companies are at the center of this shift. Ignite 2025 formally unveiled Microsoft Foundry, our unified platform for building, governing, and scaling intelligent agents. From new agent runtimes to multi‑agent orchestration, enterprise‑grade knowledge access, and one‑click publishing to Microsoft 365, the momentum creates one clear signal: 💡 AI assistants are becoming intelligent agents—and Foundry is the platform software companies will use to build them. Why Microsoft Ignite 2025 mattered for software companies Across every session, Microsoft doubled down on helping partners accelerate time‑to‑market with agentic AI solutions. Whether you’re building vertical apps, automation copilots, knowledge systems, or developer tools, the new capabilities in Foundry eliminate much of the heavy lifting associated with retrieval, orchestration, compliance, hosting, and model selection. Key themes this year from Azure AI: Unified agent platform across all Microsoft clouds Framework‑agnostic development (bring your own models, tools, or frameworks) Enterprise‑grade governance built into the lifecycle Open ecosystem and interoperability using MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Seamless distribution through Microsoft 365 and Teams Let’s break down what’s new—and what it means for your product strategy. Top announcements for software companies at Ignite 2025 Microsoft Foundry: A unified brand for AI agent development Azure AI Foundry is now Microsoft Foundry—a consolidated platform for building, deploying, and managing intelligent agents. For software companies, this means: One consistent developer experience Shared governance and compliance across products A more integrated ecosystem for publishing and distributing agentic solutions This rebrand isn’t cosmetic—it reflects Microsoft’s strategic shift to deliver a platform built explicitly for the next generation of AI agents. Introducing Foundry IQ: Your enterprise knowledge engine One of the most exciting announcements is Foundry IQ, a new engine that gives agents instant access to enterprise data from SharePoint, OneLake, ADLS, and the web, all governed by Purview. For software companies, this unlocks: Reliable, production‑grade knowledge retrieval without building RAG pipelines Consistent compliance and security models Faster customer onboarding with fewer integration gaps Foundry IQ is a game‑changer for teams who have spent months building retrieval layers or maintaining custom RAG components. Foundry Control Plane: Unified governance for all agents Now in public preview, the Foundry Control Plane enables teams to manage agents across frameworks, clouds, and environments. Highlights: Unified visibility and observability Built‑in security & compliance (Defender, Purview) Fleet‑wide monitoring for cost, health, and risk For software companies offering multi‑tenant solutions or operating in regulated industries, this dramatically simplifies the operational burden of managing AI agents. Agent Framework (public preview): SK + AutoGen, Unified The Microsoft Agent Framework, now in public preview, merges the strengths of Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into a single SDK for building durable, interoperable agents. Software companies gain: A consistent programming model Durable memory Strong interoperability with MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Framework‑agnostic design This is the developer foundation for future AI applications built on Microsoft clouds. Hosted Agents: Enterprise‑grade runtime, no infrastructure needed With Hosted Agents, teams can deploy custom‑code agents directly into a fully managed runtime—no containers, pipelines, or infra setup. What this enables for software companies: Faster deployment cycles Secure, autoscaling environments Simple onboarding for customer‑specific agents Observability and monitoring built in This drastically reduces the operational overhead many software companies face today. Multi‑agent workflows & connected intelligence Ignite 2025 introduced major advancements in multi‑agent orchestration: Built‑in memory across sessions A catalog of 1,000+ Microsoft & partner tools (with private catalogs for software companies) Visual and programmatic orchestration tools Enterprise‑ready coordination for long‑running workflows Foundry IQ for instant knowledge access This allows software companies to design more autonomous, intelligent, and interconnected systems—moving beyond assistants toward true digital workers. Model Router GA + Anthropic partnership expansion There are two major updates for model flexibility: Model Router GA Now supporting 11,000+ models, the router helps developers intelligently choose the best model for each task, optimizing both cost and performance. Anthropic Claude models in Foundry Claude Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5 are now integrated into Microsoft Foundry through an expanded partnership with Anthropic. This gives software companies more choice, capability, and model‑agnostic development paths. One‑click publishing to Microsoft 365 & Teams One of the biggest wins for software companies: Agents built in Foundry can now be published to Microsoft 365 and Teams Chat with one click. This means: Access to hundreds of millions of users Unified governance through Microsoft Admin Center Seamless integration with Copilot experiences For software companies, this is a massive new distribution channel. Why this matters for software development companies Ignite 2025 didn’t just introduce new products—it signaled a platform shift. software companies now have: A full-stack platform for agentic applications - From data access to orchestration, hosting, deployment, and compliance. A unified runtime and SDK - Reducing fragmentation and speeding up development cycles. Enterprise reach through Microsoft 365 - Making your agents as discoverable as apps. A rapidly expanding ecosystem - More models, more tools, more integration points. If you’re building AI-powered products, this is your moment. Get hands-on: Sessions & resources for software companies Here are links to top Ignite sessions to dive deeper. Build & Manage AI Apps with Your Agent Factory AI Agents in Azure AI Foundry: Ship Fast, Scale Fearlessly AI‑Powered Automation & Multi‑Agent Orchestration Agent Developer Guide for Foundry Agent Service The Future of RAG with Agentic Retrieval & AI Search What’s next: December Foundry Council Session Join us on Dec 18 for the Ignite Recap session through the Foundry Partner Council. It’s the best opportunity for software companies to: Get deeper into the new capabilities Share partner/DN feedback Join focus groups For more information about the December 18 session, contact foundrycouncil@microsoft.com or visit aka.ms/foundrycouncilNew in App Advisor: Guidance for resale enabled offers (REO)
The latest enhancement to App Advisor introduces guidance for resale enabled offers (REO), helping you understand where reseller-led distribution aligns with your offer strategy. Want to see if REO fits into your sales strategy for 2026? If you're just getting started with REO, you can learn how to: Assess REO as a new sales tool with other negotiated deals in App Advisor Prepare your offer and organization for reseller participation Follow improved, set-up REO steps in Partner Center Scale into new markets with less effort 👉 Go here to read our blog post on how to accelerate your sales growth with resale enabled offers (REO) through guidance in App Advisor.Accelerate your sales growth with resale enabled offers (REO) through guidance in App Advisor
Why start with App Advisor? If you’re looking to expand your sales reach quickly and efficiently, App Advisor helps clarify your options. It provides tailored guidance to help you understand resale enabled offers (REO) and determine whether this pathway to near global scale is right for your marketplace strategy. Microsoft Marketplace offers several ways to grow through partners, and choosing the right one can feel complex. App Advisor simplifies the decision, giving you clear, scenario‑based guidance on REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), multi‑party offers (MPO), and customer private offers, so you can confidently pick the model that aligns with your goals. Grow globally with resale enabled offers Resale enabled offers (REO) open the channel-led marketplace opportunity for near-global scale. Many software companies like you rely on channel partnerships for the sales and implementation of their solution. With this feature, you can enable your channel partner(s) to sell on your behalf, creating a simplified pathway for recurring revenue and growth. For the channel, this helps unlock pre-committed cloud budget in new markets while also helping cut down implementation times as solutions are pre-configured to deploy on Azure. If you’ve been looking for a clearer, faster path to a channel-led sales motion, REO provides the structure and automation to help you grow. ough channels only continues to grow. Why resale enabled offers matter REO changes the way you can sell. It gives you a repeatable resale model inside Microsoft Marketplace to help you break through to new markets without adding overhead while channel partners maintain their customer relationships while getting the added value of Marketplace. The result is a simplified path to recurring revenue: one that aligns offer owners, channel partners, and customers around a more efficient transaction flow. The benefits of REO Resale enabled offers can help grow your bottom line with ease: Authorization to resell is nearly instantaneous, Your reach grows to match your reseller’s markets, Channel partners take on more of the sales execution, You only enable resale once. No repeated setup or engineering work required, Both you and your channel partner earn full Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS) credit, enabling you to maximize Marketplace Rewards benefits. These advantages make REO a strategic lever for you to move toward a broader channel-led distribution model while helping you stay agile, expanding your reach, and avoiding adding extra overhead. How resale enabled offers work You can offer a REO on any SaaS or Azure Virtual Machine (VM) offer. The REO experience is designed to be simple, structured, and predictable for both the offer owner and the reseller. You, as the offer owner, come to an agreement with a channel partner to sell your offer. You authorize this sale in Partner Center (once) and then your channel partner is empowered to sell your offer, either as a customer private offer or as a multi-party offer (MPO). With this additional way to sell, you’ll be able to scale without worrying about hiring more salespeople. Other ways to sell at scale With many great ways to sell through negotiated deals or channel partners within Microsoft Marketplace, it can sometimes be challenging to choose. If you’re not sure which options are right for your marketplace offers, App Advisor can help you choose. To discover the benefits of REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), MPO, and customer private offers, and when to use which, see how to grow with negotiated deals and channel partners here. Ready to unlock channel-led scale? Resale enabled offers can create a faster, more predictable path for software companies that want to expand with ease through channel partners. With simplified resale authorization, broader reach, and shared sales credit, REO makes it easier to activate partners and grow your marketplace presence. Ready to explore your path to channel-led scale? Visit App Advisor to get started.
M365 Developer Program Provisioning
Hello Team, I’m unable to complete the setup of my Microsoft 365 E5 Developer subscription. After signing in, the process gets stuck at: “Please wait while we load your personal information…” and eventually shows: “You can’t use a personal account here. Please sign in with a work or school account.” Steps I’ve already tried: * Used a brand-new email ID * Logged out of all Microsoft accounts on all devices * Cleared cache/cookies * Tried Edge InPrivate, Chrome Incognito, and mobile incognito * Tried accessing the portal directly (admin.microsoft.com / developer.microsoft.com) Still facing the same issue. Is this a known provisioning problem with the Developer Program? Any help or guidance would be appreciated. Thank you!
