Excel shared document chat

Question

Excel spreadsheet is stored on SharePoint and opened in the Excel installed app, multiple users enter the spreadsheet at any one time, we click on chat and get an error message stating "DUE TO POLICIES SET BY YOUR ADMINISTRATOR THE DOCUMENT CHAT FEATURE IS DISABLED". I am the admin and cannot find where or how this is disabled, an anyone shed any light?

Answer 1

Hi Foxview,

The “active since 2016” is the active time for the new data center geo. It’s not related to the active time for Office in-app chat feature. Refer to the reference article, the United Kingdom is on that list, that means the Office in-app chat feature hasn’t been supported for this region yet.

Really sorry for the inconvenience, but more and more regions will be enabled this feature. We appreciate your understanding and patience for that.

As the workaround, you can choose to use comment function instead of the chat feature. Or you can choose to vote this UserVoice: Make the Chat feature built-in Office application available for all locationsand keep monitoring this updates.

Best Regards,

Rena

Answer 2

Hi Rena

My location is United Kingdom, it is on the list you sent  and states the data centre is active since 2016, still not sure what this means, could you help to clarify?

Thanks

Answer 3

Hi Foxview,

What's your SharePoint data center location? Are you in the supported region of the Office in-app chat feature? If you still have any questions, you can post back anytime and we'd be glad to help you.

Best Regards,

Rena

Answer 4

Hi Foxview,

Welcome to the Community Forum, and we’re glad to help you on this query.

Generally, such in-app chat feature will have this error message when the feature is not available to some specific unsupported regions. As per this article: How to disable the chat feature in Office Online, the chat features inside Office apps is not available for all tenants.

If the SharePoint datacenter is in one of the listed Office 365 geographical data residency regions, the chat feature is not available. To determine the SharePoint datacenter location, follow these steps: 

1. LocateMicrosoft 365 admin center > Settings > Organization Profile.
2. Scroll down to view Data location.

If you are in this scenario, we are sorry for the inconvenience and we would like to suggest you add your vote to this UserVoice: Make the Chat feature built-in Office application available for all locations. In fact, the product team has mentioned in the article that they will continue to open new regions for some features. We appreciate your understanding and patience for that. In this scenario, the workaround can be using comment instead of chat feature.

Best Regards,

Rena