Forum Discussion
New app launcher / home mixed experience
I've learned that the flighting for Office.com has some cookie context, so an individual user experience could vary based on machine/browser. We are working to change this mechanism to a true user - based flight moving forward, so the experience for an individual user does not vary.
From the O365 app launcher perspective, a user outside of First Release should NOT be seeing the new experience. If you could message me directly with tenant information I am happy to investigate. This is unexpected behavior as the new launcher is only exposed to First Release.
MicrosoftSo sorry for the delay in responding to this thread.
While the new Office 365 launcher, Office 365 gallery and the new Office.com are complementary experiences, the gallery and Office.com roll out changes faster than the launcher due to fact that they are stand-alone experiences vs. being integrated across Office 365.
The new Office 365 app launcher is in First Release, which began on 11/7 (see MC 124492). Users in First Release tenants will see the new launcher, regardless of browser and/or OS. We plan to progress exposure to a small % of production before the end of this calendar year. We will notify on the Message Center accordingly when we do. There is an FAQ for the new launcher that we update according to feedback and questions available at this location (an update will be published with additional FAQs early next week).
The new Office 365 gallery is currently available to all users in production. The new Office.com is currently rolling out to a % of the overall user base and is expected to be exposed to 100% of users within a few weeks. For Office.com, all users will have the same new experience by mid-December.
This is not what we experience.
SAME user will see different Office Home depending on browser (IE vs Chrome).
SOME users no mater if they are first release or not will see the new launcher. Others won't.
All that started a few days / weeks ago. We are rolling out Office 365 and try to prepare introduction / training content and we cannot.
We will tell users that it is a dynamic application and that it will constantly change but some stability or predictability would help.
Thanks
- Katie Kivett
I've learned that the flighting for Office.com has some cookie context, so an individual user experience could vary based on machine/browser. We are working to change this mechanism to a true user - based flight moving forward, so the experience for an individual user does not vary.
From the O365 app launcher perspective, a user outside of First Release should NOT be seeing the new experience. If you could message me directly with tenant information I am happy to investigate. This is unexpected behavior as the new launcher is only exposed to First Release.
- Katie Kivett
As an update, the new www.office.com is now rolled out 100%. This means that your users should no longer be seeing any variation in the experience--regardless of browser cookies. We apologize again for the inconvenience this caused and are evaluating different approaches for major UX revisions in the future.
The Office 365 app launcher is still in First Release. We expect to go to a very small % of WW PROD next week, so keep your eye on the Office 365 Message Center for notification of that.
I can confirm that something is not well at all with the home page in Office 365. I have identified at least a customer tenant where they see the old App Launcher, but they see a home page that has nothing to see with expected experience
And customer is not in First Release....
- Katie Kivett
First Release is only applicable to the O365 App Launcher exposure. So the above picture with the old / current launcher is expected as this user is not in First Release.
As far as the Office.com version in the picture, this user is part of the % of users that have been flighted to receive the new experience. All users will have the new Office.com by the end of this year, whereas the new launcher will roll out slower, and only enter a small % of production by the end of this year and finish to 100% exposure early next year.
