Update: New upgrade readiness tools for Office 365 ProPlus

Update: The the Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA is now available for download. Read more about it on our new post and download the toolkit and start using it today.

 

We are excited to announce new tools to support the application compatibility readiness for Office 365 ProPlus. Over the next year, we will roll out tools to catalogue your organization’s add-ins, assess the status of VBA applications and deliver an improved support for 64-bit VBA. Customers tell us about the importance of application compatibility in their ProPlus upgrade plans and these tools make planning and execution easier. We are releasing them in limited preview now. Reach out to us at ReadyForOffice@microsoft.com to be part of the preview program.

The new tools we are creating for application compatibility include:

• Updates to the Office Telemetry Dashboard
• New tools for add-in readiness reporting
• 64-bit common control support
• Office add-in reporting in Windows Upgrade Analytics

In addition to supporting internal add-ins and VBA applications, we are adding more readiness information for Office add-ins from 3rd party ISVs. Later this year, we will publish a searchable list of ISVs who already support Office 365 ProPlus and we’ll start the validation of those popular 3rd party add-ins in the new Office builds, giving you the confidence that your solutions will continue to work with the latest versions of Office. 

Office Telemetry Dashboard

The Office Telemetry Dashboard is an existing solution that helps you to gather inventory and usage information about add-ins used within your organization.  We are now extending the Office Telemetry Dashboard to include readiness information.

There are three key pieces of readiness information that this tool provides:

• ProPlus Ready 32 Bit. The add-in is widely adopted and used by enterprise customers in ProPlus and there are no known problems with the add-in
• ProPlus Ready 64 Bit. A 64-bit version of the add-in is available and widely adopted by enterprise customers in ProPlus and there are no known problems with the add-in
• ISV Support. The ISV has committed to support the add-in on ProPlus.

This information helps you better plan an upgrade by knowing how many of the add-ins are expected to work seamlessly with ProPlus and how widely add-ins with potential issues are used within your organization and in which specific departments.
Example of readiness reports include the following:

 

Office 365 ProPlus readiness for add-ins

 

 

 Detailed view of Office 365 ProPlus readiness for add-ins

 

VBA Macro Readiness
For enterprises that rely on macro-enabled Office documents to perform business critical tasks, we are pleased to announce the new VBA Readiness Tool. This tool is designed to help your organization identify the most commonly used documents and determine if you are likely to encounter any compatibility issues.

Compatibility issues are rare for most enterprises. The VBA Readiness Tool provides a report to quantify these issues for your enterprise.

 

How it Works
The VBA Readiness Tool works by scanning each PC to gather an inventory of the most recently used documents that contain VBA code. Documents that include VBA code, will be analyzed against a list of all known compatibility issues to determine if you are likely to encounter issues with the file after upgrading to ProPlus.

The detailed report gives you all the information and confidence you need to plan your upgrade and to remedy any combability issues.

 

64-bit COM Controls

Many Office users rely on the power of macros and forms to get tasks done. Some of these macros use Common Controls to create user interfaces or other such functions for users. Today, these Common Controls only work with the 32-bit version of Office.

 

We're working to ensure a great experience on 64-bit Office and we will be releasing an update to our ProPlus client which brings 64-bit support to the Common Controls.

The following nine controls will be included in the update:

Once this update is rolled out later this year, taking advantage of 64-bit Common Controls will be seamless for users, with existing solutions continuing to work as they do today (though you may separately need to update your use of things like Declare statements, which you can read more about on MSDN).

 

We are excited to bring 64-bit support to the Common Controls for Office ProPlus. We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Office add-in report available in Windows Upgrade Analytics
We announced the general availability of Upgrade Analytics in February 2017. Upgrade Analytics is a free tool helping organizations move to Windows 10. Learn more at http://technet.microsoft.com/itpro/windows/deploy/upgrade-readiness-get-started

This tool also provides an inventory of Office add-in used within your organization.

 

 

If your organization is planning a combined Windows 10 and Office ProPlus rollout, this tool is a one-stop shop to access both Windows application and Office add-in readiness.

 

Pilot Program
While all the tools listed in this blog are releasing later in 2017, we are accepting a limited number of enterprises into a pilot program. If you’d like to participate in this pilot program and are willing to share feedback with Microsoft, please let us know at ReadyForOffice@microsoft.com.