Forum Discussion
Eric_Wayne
Microsoft
MicrosoftNew Microsoft 365 apps update channel names, new IT Pro guidance and a new channel!
Here are the latest news from Microsoft on the Microsoft 365 Apps (formerly known as Office 365 ProPlus):
A new channel is born
Monthly Enterprise Channel has arrived.
It combines the pow...
Eric_WayneMicrosoft
MicrosoftFiroz1723 that's a great question. many enterprise customers are finding that the Semi-Annual channel is a too slow with product features, code improvements and bug fixes. They also found the current channel to be to fast with its potential for multiple updates in a calendar month. Therefor, we created and HIGHLY recommend that customers in your situation use the Monthly Enterprise Channel. This channel is specifically designed to give our customers those bug fixes and new features faster, while staying predictable in its update cadence - one update a month, on patch Tuesday.
Hopefully that answers your question. Let me know if you have any follow ups or would like to discuss channel changing further. Happy to help!
Eric
Hi Eric, I tend to disagree here. Non-security updates (every month for all channels) provide fixes for known issues to provide stability/performance. You change the channel for users if you want the newest features as soon as they are ready.
- Eric_WayneHey bec064! One thing to keep in mind though, and one of the main reasons we created the Monthly Enterprise channel is while you are correct - some Non-security updates can go into every channel each month, we really don't make changes out of band if we can help it. For example, when we are made aware of a bug we will fix it, then release it into our faster channels first. It will then take the normal cycle to get to the Semi-Annual channel, which, depending on when the fix is released, could take that full 6 months. The same is true of things like performance boosts in Outlook for example. I always caution customers to think about those scenarios as well when planning their channel strategy as most customers tend to think of new feature cadence as the only decision when choosing their channels.
- Hi! Thanks for the super fast reply. That certainly is handy to know and something that - really - should be made more clear at the docs.
For both monthly and semi-annual for example.
”Non-security updates”
Once a month, on the second Tuesday of the month.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/overview-update-channels- Eric_Wayne
ChristianBergstrom - yeah, we should potentially word some of that differently in the article. We have in the past, although it is extremely rare, made a bug fix across all channels in a given month (out of band). We are very cautious about making changes to Semi-Annual Enterprise after it is published as we want to make as few changes to that release as possible. We will make security changes monthly, as that is a necessary code change risk for the greater good. Otherwise, we try to leave that build alone and recommend that channel for the mission critical devices in an organization that are running complex macros and home grown add-ins that need full pass testing. For the rest of the organization, we recommend the Monthly Enterprise Channel so they can get both fixes, and as you correctly called out, features sooner.
Eric_Wayne How we consider the bugs found in the semi-annual channel but no problem in the preview? Even the consecutive month's release(SM 2002) did not fix any of the issues.
how this works in above scenario?
- Eric_Wayne
Firoz1723 Unfortunately, that can happen. If we are made aware of a bug after a certain cut off period, we don't have time to fix it and release it before we publish the next version of the Semi-Annual channel. So entire builds of Semi-Annual channel can have a bug in it. However, one thing to consider is that some of the issues aren't from Office itself. We have seen both Windows and Configuration Manager updates create issues for the Office client. It really comes down to when we are made aware of an issue and sometimes a bug is not discovered by us or our customers before the cut off for the next release of Semi-Annual and therefor we can't fix it in time. This is one of the biggest reasons I tell customers for the majority of your devices that are not running macros or doing key line of work processes, that they should use the Monthly Enterprise Channel. That way, when things are discovered, they get fixed and published to this channel much sooner then the Semi-Annual channel.
