You need an active Excel subscription in the portal, or
the system must be included in your plan (the free edition
or the Consile Studio membership). You must log in with a
Microsoft work or school account that can open the workbooks in OneDrive and
SharePoint your AI should be able to read. Your AI
(Claude or ChatGPT)
can be added before or after.
The connection applies to your whole Consile account. All users with access to
Excel in Consile read through the Microsoft user that is connected, and so see the
same files, even if a colleague connected it. Anyone on the team can connect an
agreement that is not connected yet. Only an administrator can reconnect it or
disconnect it, because that changes the connection for everyone. If an
administrator reconnects with a different Microsoft account, it replaces the
existing connection.
Choose the right Microsoft user
The Microsoft user you log in with decides what your AI can see: the workbooks in OneDrive and SharePoint that the user can open. When your AI searches “your OneDrive” or lists the recently used files, it is the connected user’s OneDrive and files. So connect with the user whose files your AI should work with. Everyone with access to Excel in Consile sees the same files through that user.How to connect
1
Open the connector in the portal
Go to Excel in the portal. Click Connect now at the
top of the page, or Connect next to the agreement on the Connections
card. The portal calls each connection to the system an agreement. Right after
the purchase, the Connect Excel button on the Subscription activated page
takes you to that page. If you have not accepted Consile’s terms yet, you are
asked to do so first.
2
Authorise access
In the Connect Microsoft step, the portal shows the three permissions
Consile asks Microsoft for:
Files.Read.All, User.Read and offline_access.
Click Authorise access. You are sent to Microsoft’s login.3
Log in with your work account
Log in with the Microsoft work or school account that has access to the files.
Microsoft refuses a login with a personal Microsoft account.
4
Confirm with Microsoft
Microsoft shows that Consile is asking to read the files you have access to,
read your profile and keep that access. Confirm to continue. You are then sent
back to the portal. If Microsoft asks for an administrator’s approval instead,
see If Microsoft asks for an administrator.
The portal shows Excel is connected, and the agreement shows as
Connected. On the connector’s page, the agreement is named after the
Microsoft user, for example
<name> (<name>@example.com). Your AI can now
read your workbooks. If you have not already added the address
https://mcp.consile.ai/excel/mcp in your AI, do it now.If Microsoft asks for an administrator
In many organizations, ordinary users may not approve an app that wants to read files themselves. Then Microsoft stops at the login and asks for an administrator’s approval. This is a Microsoft setting in your organization, not an error at Consile. The easiest way is for a Microsoft administrator in your organization to connect first:- The administrator clicks Connect in the Consile portal and logs in with their own work account.
- On Microsoft’s consent screen, the administrator ticks the box for consent on behalf of the whole organization and approves.
- After that, the user who should be connected can complete the steps above without being stopped. If the administrator’s own user should not stay connected, disconnect and connect again with the right user.
What exactly am I approving?
Reading only
Files.Read.All gives read access to the files the user can open, and
User.Read to the user’s own profile. Both are pure read permissions at
Microsoft, so the access cannot change anything. offline_access gives the
renewable access that keeps the connection alive.Microsoft 365 files only
The approval applies to files and the profile in Microsoft 365, not to mail,
calendar or Teams messages. If Microsoft’s approval contains access to anything
other than Microsoft Graph, which is Microsoft’s API for Microsoft 365, the
connection is refused.
Encrypted per customer
Consile stores the access encrypted with a key that applies only to your
account, and never logs it. It is renewed automatically in the background. The
contents of your workbooks are not stored at Consile.
Your AI never sees it
Your AI is never given the access itself, only answers to your questions.
The access is renewed, but the connection can stop
Consile renews the access automatically, so you do not have to reconnect during normal use. How an administrator reconnects:- If the agreement says Access revoked, click Reconnect, and follow the steps above.
- Otherwise: click the menu (the three dots) next to the agreement on the Connections card, choose Disconnect, and confirm with Disconnect. Then click Connect, and follow the steps above.
- You can also ask your AI for a new connection link. Ask in the connector that
belongs to the agreement (for example
excel-2), so the link connects exactly that agreement.
If your AI is instead told that Excel answered 403, the connected user lacks
access to the file, or your administrator has not approved the permission the
tool needs. Reconnecting does not help. Ask a Microsoft 365 administrator for
help.
If the connection fails
If the approval does not succeed, the portal shows Connection was not completed and a technical reason. The most common ones:token_exchange_failed: Microsoft did not send back a valid approval, typically because you cancelled at Microsoft. Try again, and approve the access.unexpected_scope: the approval contained permissions outside Microsoft Graph. Try again.no_refresh_token: Microsoft did not return renewable access. Try again.state_expired,invalid_stateorstate_unknown_or_consumed: more than 10 minutes passed, or the same approval was used twice (for example with the browser’s back button). Start over in the portal.
Multiple Microsoft users
One agreement reads through one Microsoft user. If your AI should also read as another Microsoft user, for example in another Microsoft tenant (another organization at Microsoft), you add one more agreement.1
Add an agreement
Open Excel in the portal. On the Connections card, an administrator clicks
Add agreement (99.50 kr/mo.). The agreement is added to the existing
subscription and charged pro rata for the rest of the period.
2
Connect the agreement
When the new agreement is ready (typically after a few seconds), click
Connect next to it and complete the steps above with the other Microsoft
user.
3
Add the address in your AI
Each agreement has its own address, for example
https://mcp.consile.ai/excel-2/mcp. Copy it from the card, and add it as an
extra connector in your AI.https://mcp.consile.ai/excel-2/mcp instead of
https://mcp.consile.ai/excel-3/mcp). You must update the address in your AI. You
remove the last agreement by cancelling the subscription under Subscription.
Revoke access
You can remove the access again at any time:- In the portal: an administrator clicks the menu (the three dots) next to the agreement on the Connections card, chooses Disconnect and confirms with Disconnect. The stored access is deleted at Consile right away. The subscription continues until an administrator cancels it under Subscription. If you have several agreements, an administrator can also remove an agreement entirely with Remove the agreement. Its access is then deleted too.
- At Microsoft: the approval stays in your Microsoft organization until you remove it yourselves. If you also want to remove it, an administrator does so under Enterprise apps in the Microsoft Entra admin center. Shortly after, the connector stops working, but the portal can still show it as Connected until you disconnect it in the portal.
- When the subscription ends: if you cancel Excel under Subscription, Consile automatically deletes the stored access when the subscription ends. If a payment is only late, the tools do not work in the meantime, but the stored access is kept, so the connection works again without a new approval once the payment is in place.