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Guidelines for Autofill via the MS Add-in

This article covers the rules and known limitations when using the SiftHub Add-in for Autofill in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. Following these guidelines helps ensure Autofill completes reliably and no questions are skipped or overwritten.

Note on Microsoft APIs: Microsoft's APIs can be slow and sporadic in some cases, so occasionally outputs may take longer than expected to generate.

 

Microsoft Excel

  1. Don't lock or edit the target cells during Autofill.
    Keep the cells where answers are being populated unlocked and untouched while Autofill is in progress. Editing them will pause Autofill until you stop.
  2. Avoid simultaneous editing by others.
    Make sure no one on another system is editing the same document — specifically the tab or the answer cells — at the same time. Concurrent edits will pause Autofill until editing stops.
  3. Keep everything open until Autofill completes.
    While Autofill is running, keep the Add-in open along with the relevant tab and the Excel desktop app. Closing any of these interrupts the process.
  4. Allow for post-completion processing.
    Even after Autofill shows as complete, some cells may still display “Generating answer” due to intermittent issues with Microsoft's APIs. These can take a few minutes to fully populate. Keep the Add-in open during this time.
  5. Give large documents time to process.
    Large documents can take a few minutes to process. Don't close the tab or retry the Autofill while this is happening.
  6. Don't use merged cells.
    Ensure the cells where responses are filled are not merged. Merged cells can cause questions to be skipped or overwritten.
  7. Don't run overlapping Autofills.
    Don't run multiple Autofills on the same or overlapping selection of questions at once. Wait for the active Autofill to complete, or cancel it, before starting again.
    Note: You can run multiple Autofills simultaneously on the same tab or across different tabs of the workbook — as long as the selections don't overlap.
  8. Select the full question and/or answer when reviewing.
    When reviewing an autofilled answer, highlight the entire question and/or answer. Selecting only part of a question or answer can confuse the system about which generated answer you mean, and it may not return the correct answer details.

 

Microsoft Word

All of the Excel rules above apply in Word, plus:

  1. Select the entire table (and a bit before it) when filling a table.
    If you're filling a table, make sure the entire table is selected — along with a small portion of content before the table. SiftHub does not support partial table filling at this time.
  2. Nested tables are not supported.
    Autofill does not support nested tables (a table within a table).
  3. Merged cells within tables are not supported.
    Merged cells inside Word tables are not currently supported for Autofill.