FastTrack Content Not Current

[Frank Spina]

Anyone responsible for Office 365 implementation knows the challenges associated with driving the adoption of an ever-changing suite. Back in April when FastTrack was first introduced, I had raised the concern regarding Microsoft's inability to keep their communications, learning and support content current with their product development (via the YamJam) and I was assured that this was a priority.

Unfortunately my team recently discovered that although we had been touting the "any device" Office 365 vision that Microsoft continues to promote in their FastTrack collateral, Office content can now be edited ONLY on an iPad, it seems irrespective of what type of Enterprise license you may have. This is a fundamental change that was seemingly slipped in under the radar. And even if it were listed in the Office 365 roadmap, that would not have changed the fact that we failed to set our end users' expectations. As a result, many of my organization's 30k+ people are frustrated by the platform's unmet promises, having already been exasperated by the change fatigue that accompanies a different user experience day-to-day.

I fully understand how the breadth of Office 365 features makes it incredibly difficult to keep collateral current with the rapid pace of product change. But if the FastTrack program is to maintain any credibility and offer any value to those responsible for Office 365 adoption, Microsoft needs to establish a reliable mechanism for push notifications for fundamental changes and ensure some form of consistent change control on historical content. 

Please help us out!

[#2]

Hi Frank,

Office mobile apps across iOS, Android and Windows do include editting functionality for Office 365 users. You do have to sign in with your Office 365 credentials on the device to enable this functionality. If you just download the apps from the relevant app store and sign in, you will see the view only experience.  Here is a link to a detailed description of the specific features available:

https://products.office.com/en-us/office-resources#ios-features-section

I do agree that the "Any device" is a bit of puffery, and there are still system requirements - but for current iOS, Android and Windows devices, you should be seeing edit functionality.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Compare-how-different-mobile-devices-work-with-Office-365-b...

Per this Microsoft support document, you can see that you cannot edit on iPhone's or Android devices (view only) and that is our actual experience as well, which as my colleague has pointed out makes the Fast Track messaging out of date.  We would very much like to leverage the Fast Track collateral, but we are finding it challenging.

[#4]

Either this is not just FastTrack misinformation but either a general, or the functionality is just missing.

I'd like to point to this document https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-you-can-do-in-the-Office-apps-on-an-Android-iOS-or-Win...

where it is for example specified that a "non qualifying plan, like E1":

Basic editing is possible only on some documents (see the note below), and also depends on what type of device you're using the apps on.

IMPORTANT: You can't do any basic editing if you're using an iPad Pro or a Windows 10 device with a screen size larger than 10.1 inches. You must have a qualifying Office 365 plan if you want to edit documents on these devices using these mobile apps.

I'm not sure what Microsoft understands as "Basic Editing" but my iPhone SE (clearly below 10.1") users with E1 licenses basically can do nothing on Word, Excel Mobile, except viewing.