How to Retrieve Logs from %temp%\OfficeAddins.log.txt and Display Them in the Side Panel of an Excel Add-In

[KishanVaishnani]

I have developed an Excel add-in that provides product live pricing using custom streaming functions. The office add-in javascript-only function is designed to log errors in a file located at %temp%\OfficeAddins.log.txt. To help troubleshoot customer issues more effectively, I want to retrieve the logs from this file and display them in the side panel of the add-in.

Key Requirements:

Access the %temp%\OfficeAddins.log.txt file programmatically
Read the log file contents
Display the logs in the side panel UI of the add-in, allowing users to view error details for troubleshooting purposes

Questions:

1. Is there a way to programmatically access the %temp% directory and read the OfficeAddins.log.txt file from within the add-in side panel?
2. If direct file access is not possible, what alternative solutions could be used to fetch and display the logs from that file in the side panel?
3. Can the Office.js API facilitate secure access to that file?

[AlexJerabek]

Hi @KishanVaishnani,

Would you be able to use local or session storage for the logs? That should work across platforms.

[KishanVaishnani]

Hi @AlexJerabek

No, we can't do that because this is a JavaScript-only runtime. I can't use window or OfficeRuntime storage as my add-in does not use the shared runtime

[AlexJerabek]

I'll tag @grangeryy to take a look. You should also consider posting this on Stack Overflow (with the office-js tag) where other members of the community can weigh in.

[grangeryy]

Hey @KishanVaishnani , could you move the issue to the repo under "https://github.com/officedev/office-js/issues" as we are actively tracking issues there?

[KishanVaishnani]

Hey @grangeryy

I’ve created it, but it is closed #5238