DVD Chat
License sign-in required
DVD Chat needs a valid DVDAddin account (Standard or PRO). Everything is available during the trial period.
DVD Chat is a group chat pane docked to the right edge of the Excel window, so the estimating team, the site engineers and the project manager can talk about the file they are working on without switching to Zalo or email. What sets it apart from a normal chat app: you can attach the Excel cell or range you have selected to a message, and the reader clicks it to jump straight to that cell.
Messages live in a Firebase Realtime Database (not inside the Excel file); your identity comes from the DVDAddin license account itself.
Related commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| DVD Chat | Show/hide the team chat pane on the right edge of the Excel window. |
| AI Chat | The AI question pane — same ribbon group, but you are talking to a model, not a colleague. |
| Capture and Annotate | Screenshot and mark up an image before posting it into chat (Ctrl+Alt+S). |
| Send Email | Reach people outside the group through Outlook when they do not use DVDAddin. |
Workflow: settling a disputed number in the sheet
- Sign in to your DVDAddin account (License command) — chat identifies you through that account.
- Open the workbook in question, go to the DVD Addin tab → AI group → click DVD Chat. The pane docks on the right; click again to hide it.
- Pick the workspace from the pane header (the ▾ button). A workspace is the team's chat room; there are also 1-on-1 DMs. The strip under the header shows "N members • N online".
- Select the range you want to discuss on the sheet and click 📋 in the composer. An attachment chip appears, e.g.
📋 Book1.xlsx · Sheet1!A1:B5, with a data preview. - Type your message, use
@plus a name to call somebody out by name, then click Send. - The reader clicks the attachment card to open the exact workbook/sheet/cell (if the workbook is open). They can right-click a message to Reply, add a reaction, or pin an important message — pins show in the 📌 strip above the message list.
- Need a quick vote (choose an option, fix the concrete pour date)? Click 📊 to create a poll with 2–5 choices; the author clicks Close poll once it is decided.
Example
A QS engineer finds the M1 footing concrete quantity does not match the drawing.
| Step | Action | Result in the chat pane |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Select B18:H24 on sheet KL_Mong, click 📋 | Card 📋 KL_Mong.xlsx · KL_Mong!$B$18:$H$24 |
| 2 | Type "@Hung M1 quantity is off by 12 m³, re-check the pile-cap height from level -1.8 m" | Message sent, Hung gets a mention notification |
| 3 | Hung clicks the card | Excel jumps to B18:H24 |
| 4 | Hung right-clicks the message → Reply, attaches the drawing (📎) | Reply bubble quotes the original + shows the image inline |
| 5 | The project manager reacts 👍 and pins the message | The 📌 1 pinned message strip appears at the top |
The team settles it without anybody screenshotting into another app.
Tips and caveats
- A range attachment stores a preview of at most 10 rows × 10 columns; larger ranges are truncated with an "(and N more rows…)" footnote. The click-to-jump still targets the full address.
- File attachments (📎) are capped at 10 MB per file and can also be dropped straight onto the pane; images render inline in the bubble, other types show a file card with an open button.
- Voice messages (🎤) run to a maximum of 60 seconds; the recording bar shows an elapsed counter and a level meter, with ✕ to cancel.
- Editing your own message tags it "(edited)"; deleting is a soft delete — the bubble keeps an italic "message deleted" placeholder so replies are not orphaned.
- Workspace roles are only admin and member: admins add/remove members, rename the workspace and delete messages.
- Mute notifications from the ▾ menu: there is a global sound switch plus a per-workspace mute (stored in the Windows account's registry, so people sharing a PC keep separate settings).
- The pane belongs to one Excel window; open another Excel window and you have to switch it on again there. The pane width is remembered for next time (380 px by default).
- An internet connection is required because all messages live on the server. Think before attaching unit-price tables or contract data — the preview values travel with the message.
See also
- AI Assistant — the AI command group in the same ribbon area.
- Connect Server — real-time cell and format sync between machines, different from chat.
- License activation — the sign-in step required before chat opens.
- Capture and Annotate — marked-up screenshots to illustrate a message.