Mitsu MX Sheet, comms status monitor from Excel

Hello to Mitsubishi Electric experts.
I have been tasked with developing an application that gets data from a MELSEC application, using MX Sheet software. I was able to configure the MX Sheet with the communication component and I am able to get the data from the PLC, up to here relatively painlessly. Since the application I am developing will run 24/7, the MS Excel macro that will log data needs to be aware when there is no good communication between the communication component and the PLC, lest it would stay collecting garbage for some days until somebody realizes there is a problem. I studied the documentation and did not find references to status of communication accessible to the Excel add-on. Then called Mitsubishi tech support and the person immediately responded apologetically that MX Sheet does not have such a function.
So OK, Mitsubishi sells a software that cannot tell if the comms are bad. What do I do now? Your advice will be most welcome. I am trying to figure out how to periodically write data to the PLC so I can check this from MS Excel. Worst case will need to ask the customer to program a counter in the PLC on some unused register, but would like to be able to do everything here without asking the customer to modify the PLC application, albeit a very simple modification which is for now my plan B. Thanks for reading and for your always very helpful advice.

O, I should have taken pause before doing this post. I solved my problem.
Using the function =SECOND(NOW()) and writing this to an unused register in the PLC I can write it and read it back. The worksseet has to be recalculated even in automatic recalculation because if the PLC is not communicating, the MX Component does not update the value of the =SECOND(NOW()). I hope this solves my problem.

If I had read the first post before you re-posted a solution, that is what I would have done so I think you are on the right track.