NExS Wizard User Guide

The NExS Wizard is an Excel add-in that walks you through building the nexs.app worksheet NExS reads when you upload a workbook — so you don’t have to write it by hand. Describe your app in a panel of plain fields, click Generate, and the wizard writes the worksheet for you.

This guide covers using the add-in. For what NExS apps are and how to publish one, see the Introduction and Quick Start. For the worksheet format the wizard writes, see the NExS.app Worksheet reference.

Installing the add-in

The NExS Wizard is available free from Microsoft Marketplace (formerly AppSource), and works in Excel for Windows, Excel for Mac, Excel on the web, and Excel for iPad. See Support for the Excel versions it needs, troubleshooting, and how to contact us.

From inside Excel

1. Open any workbook in Excel.
2. On the Home tab, click Add-ins, then More Add-ins. (In some versions of Excel this is Insert › Get Add-ins instead.)
3. In the Store tab, search for NExS Wizard.
4. Click Add next to NExS Wizard, and accept the license terms and privacy policy when prompted.

The NExS Wizard button appears on the Home tab, and stays there for every workbook you open from then on.

From Microsoft Marketplace

1. Go to Microsoft Marketplace and search for NExS Wizard.
2. Click Get it now and sign in with your Microsoft account.
3. Open Excel. The NExS Wizard button appears on the Home tab — if it doesn’t, restart Excel, or find it under Home › Add-ins.

For your whole organization

Microsoft 365 administrators can deploy the add-in to everyone, or to selected users and groups, from the Microsoft 365 admin center under Settings › Integrated apps. Search for NExS Wizard and follow the deployment steps. Deployed add-ins appear for users automatically, with no installation on their part.

Removing the add-in

On the Home tab, click Add-ins, then More Add-ins › My Add-ins. Click the … menu on NExS Wizard and choose Remove. Removing the add-in doesn’t affect any nexs.app worksheets it has already written.

Opening the add-in

In Excel, open the Home tab and click NExS Wizard in the ribbon. A panel opens on the right side of the window. If you don’t see the button, the add-in isn’t installed yet — see Installing the add-in.

The wizard works on whatever workbook is currently open. If that workbook already has a nexs.app worksheet, the wizard reads it back into the panel automatically — see Editing an app you already built.

The three app types

Pick one from the App type dropdown at the top of the panel.

Every “?” button next to a section heading opens a short explanation of that section, with a Full docs link to the NExS documentation — click the “?” again to close it.

Choosing cells: range fields

Every field that holds a cell range (Visible cells, a slider’s cell, the submit button’s cell, and so on) works like the range boxes in Excel’s own dialogs, such as Data Validation:

• Click the field, then select cells in the workbook. While the field is active (underlined), whatever you select in Excel fills it in live. You can also just type or paste a range, e.g. Sheet1!A1:D12.
• Focusing or hovering a field shows you its cells. Excel switches to the right worksheet and selects the range, so you can see exactly what the field points at. If a view’s Visible cells span several worksheets, Excel can only show one at a time: it selects the blocks on the first sheet and the status line names the rest.
• References are tidied when you leave the field — a1:b4 becomes A1:B4.
• Some fields only accept a single block of cells, and some must sit inside the view they belong to. If your selection doesn’t fit, the field ignores it and the status line says why.

There are no separate “Use selection” or “locate” buttons.

Building an app

App type and name

Choose the app type, then give the app a name in App name. This is the name shown wherever NExS lists your apps.

The Views section

A view is a window of cells your users see — usually one whole screen of your app. Your app can have as many as you like: with more than one, NExS automatically adds a menu so people can switch between them, so you might use extra views for things like an “About” page or a details screen, not just a Smart Form’s confirmation page. See Views & Layouts for more on how views work.

Each view is its own collapsible section, showing its name in the heading (View 1 until you set one). Click one to expand it and edit that view; click Add view at the bottom to add another, and use the bin icon on a view’s heading to delete it (disabled while it’s your only one). If the view has any inputs, checkboxes, radio buttons, sliders or charts, you’re asked to confirm first.

Every view gets exactly the same fields:

• View name — a label for this view. It doesn’t need to match anything on the worksheet.

• Visible cells — the range your users see, e.g. Sheet1!A1:D12. Click into the box and select the cells in Excel — it fills in as you select — or type/paste it.

  A view can also show more than one separate block of cells, laid out together — useful if your layout needs to reflow on narrow screens, or pulls cells from more than one worksheet. To do this, select several ranges in Excel first: hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click each block while the box is active, or type/paste a comma-separated list directly into the field, e.g. Sheet1!A1:D12,Sheet1!F1:G12,Data!A1:B4. A range with no worksheet name is assumed to be on the same sheet as the first block.

Inside each view you can then add:

• Inputs — cells your users can type into. Every other cell in the view is read-only and recalculates whenever an input changes. Select one or more cells (hold Cmd/Ctrl to pick several at once) and click Add from selection — the same button Checkboxes and Radio buttons use. On a Smart Form, each input also gets required / email / phone checkboxes — required keeps the submit button disabled until that cell is filled in; email/phone check that what was typed looks like an address or number.
• Checkboxes — shows the selected cells as checkboxes instead of text boxes. They become input cells, so your formulas can read whatever a ticked box sets.
• Radio buttons — shows the selected cells as radio buttons, where only one choice at a time can be picked. Each selection you add becomes its own independent group — add them separately if you want more than one set of choices.
• Sliders — lets users drag a value instead of typing it. Click Add slider, pick the Slider cell (where the control is drawn) and Writes to cell (the input cell your formulas read), then set Minimum, Maximum, and Step (how far one nudge moves the value — it can’t be larger than maximum minus minimum). Sliders are numbered (Slider 1, Slider 2, …) and each collapses when you’re done with it.
• Charts — click Add chart, pick an empty block to draw the chart over, then the Data source the numbers come from (it can be on a sheet your users never see), a Chart type, and a Legend position. Charts are numbered and collapsible, like sliders. See Charts for chart types and data formatting.

Any of these can be placed in any block of a multi-block view — not just the first — and on any worksheet that view has a block on.

Remove any input, checkbox, radio group, chart, or slider with the × at the end of its row.

Smart Form: the submit button and confirmation

Once you pick Smart Form as the app type, a Submit button section appears with:

• Button label and Button cell — where the button is drawn. Click the Button cell field and select a cell in any of your views; the wizard writes the button’s label and behavior into that cell.
• Switch to view — the view shown once a submission succeeds. Build it like any other view (a thank-you message, usually formulas echoing what was entered — see The Views section), then pick it here. Switching to Smart Form adds one for you automatically the first time. Users can’t navigate back to the form once it’s shown.
• Cells to submit — the block of cells emailed to you, as both a table and a CSV attachment. It has to sit inside one of your views. Pointing it at the echoed values on your confirmation view is the usual approach, so what you receive matches exactly what the user was shown.
• Send submissions to — one email address per line.

For more on forms, see Inputs & Forms and the Contact Form example.

NExS Sheets: connecting to Salesforce

Once you pick NExS Sheets, a Salesforce bindings section appears. This is optional — leave it blank if this app doesn’t need Salesforce data.

If you do use it, you first build a small table yourself, somewhere in the workbook (the wizard doesn’t build or edit this table for you — only checks it): exactly 3 columns wide, one row per Salesforce field, with:

1. the field name,
2. input (filled in by Salesforce when the app opens) or output (sent back to Salesforce),
3. the cell’s value — a formula (starting with =) for an output row, or a plain placeholder constant for an input row.

Then click into Bindings table and select the whole table (header-to-footer, all 3 columns) in Excel. The wizard checks the table’s shape and content each time you generate, and won’t write the worksheet until any problems shown are fixed.

Generating the worksheet

Once every required field is filled in, the Write nexs.app worksheet button becomes active (errors, if any, are listed just above it). Click it to write (or rewrite) a worksheet named nexs.app into the workbook holding everything you entered.

• If a nexs.app worksheet already exists but wasn’t created by this add-in, or if a cell the wizard is about to write (the submit button’s cell, for instance) already has unrelated content, you’ll be asked to confirm before it’s replaced.
• Click Preview at the bottom of the panel to see the exact worksheet contents before — or after — generating.
• Save the workbook, then upload it through the NExS console to publish (or update) your app.

You can re-run Generate as many times as you like. Each time, the nexs.app worksheet is fully rewritten from what’s currently in the panel — so make your edits here, not directly on the generated sheet.

Editing an app you already built

Open the wizard on a workbook that already has a nexs.app worksheet, and it loads that configuration back into the panel automatically, ready to edit. A banner at the top of the panel confirms this and lists anything worth knowing:

• Settings the wizard doesn’t have controls for (some advanced or less-common NExS options) are kept exactly as they are and written back unchanged every time you generate — you just can’t edit them from this panel.
• A very small number of settings can’t be carried through a regenerate at all (the banner names them if this applies) — generating will remove or change them.

Tips

• Every “?” button opens a short explanation of the section next to it, with a Full docs link to the NExS documentation.
• Hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) while clicking in Excel to select several separate blocks of cells at once, for a multi-block view or for adding several inputs/checkboxes/radio buttons in one go.
• Each view, slider, and chart collapses once you’re done with it — click its heading to open or close it again. Collapsing one doesn’t affect any others.
• Range fields keep listening while you click around the grid, until you click into something else in the panel — see Choosing cells.
• The panel follows Excel’s light or dark theme.

Getting help

For troubleshooting, or to contact us, see NExS Wizard Support.