March was an exciting month for the Microsoft 365 Apps community. We know that IT admins like you are continuing to play a critical role in keeping your organizations focused and productive, which is why we’re always innovating new features and services for Microsoft 365 Apps. Read on to discover more about the latest capabilities, including Microsoft 365 Apps health, extended offline access, and device-based subscription. And if you missed any of our Microsoft Ignite sessions, watch the on-demand videos to learn more about what we’re developing to help make your role easier.
General availability of Microsoft 365 Apps health
Earlier this month we announced the general availability of Microsoft 365 Apps health, a dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin center that provides visibility and actionable guidance about the ongoing health of Microsoft 365 Apps. You can quickly spot anomalies that might need investigation, identify the number of devices running unsupported Office builds, view a list of advisories for your organization, and keep track of the number of devices covered by Apps health. You can also see trends over the last 60 days and discover correlations between current advisories and those that have occurred in the past. Microsoft processes diagnostic data from your environment to produce these valuable insights and gives you confidence that the Microsoft 365 Apps in your organization are secure, up to date and behave properly.
Microsoft 365 Apps Ignite sessions recap
We were excited to share the latest developments for Microsoft 365 Apps at Microsoft Ignite 2021 earlier this month. If you weren’t able to join us live, check out our on-demand sessions to learn about all the ways we are making it easier for you to manage your Microsoft 365 Apps environment:
Manage Office apps deployments with new tools and services
In this session, Amesh Mansukhani, Principal Program Manager for Office Engineering, and Javier Carrillo, Senior Program Manager for Office Engineering, share how our latest cloud tools and services for Microsoft Office apps provide improved insights into your inventory and app health, along with tools for automated deployments and control to increase your workload efficiency and lower your total cost of ownership.
Insights and controls for Microsoft 365 Apps in admin center (Click to watch the session)
Rebecca Keys, Program Manager for Release and Delivery Experience, and Reshma Kapoor, Senior Program Manager for Release and Delivery Experience, explain how we’re empowering admins like you with actionable insights and effective controls in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This session focuses on how we’re helping you use feedback from end users to understand and improve your organization’s health, and how delivering Microsoft 365 Apps updates in a monthly cadence can improve end-user satisfaction and productivity.
How to onboard devices to the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center (Click to watch the session)
To help you better manage the lifecycle of your Office applications, Microsoft 365 Apps Rangers Bob Clements and Martin Nothnagel walk you through installing Office on end-user devices, onboarding devices to the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center, registering devices with inventory, and how to use servicing profiles.
Office hours: Q&A with Office experts on deploying and managing Microsoft 365 Apps
We held four Office Hours Q&A sessions to discuss topics such as moving from legacy Office to Microsoft 365 Apps, migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit versions of Microsoft 365 Apps, benefits of moving to the Monthly Enterprise Channel, and the new cloud-based management features available in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.
Microsoft 365 Apps for offline and shared devices
At the end of February, we introduced two new features for Microsoft 365 Apps—extended offline access, and device-based subscription. These capabilities help to ensure that employees who are offline for months at a time or rely on shared devices benefit from the same user experience and stay productive and secure no matter where they’re working. With extended offline access, devices can stay activated without connecting to the internet for up to 180 days, so workers continue to have access to Microsoft 365 Apps. With device-based subscription, we’ve extended coverage to employee-shared devices, which are common in industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, retail, and hospitality, ensuring they have access to the latest and most secure productivity tools that are available on desktop. Because the license is assigned to the device, workers aren’t required to have their own Azure Active Directory identity.
Catching up: New Microsoft Docs articles for March
You can catch up on some of the latest Microsoft 365 Apps news in these articles on Microsoft Documents:
- Overview of inventory in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center
- Overview of extended offline access for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
- Overview of security update status report in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center
- Microsoft 365 Apps health
- Device-based licensing for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 Tech Community! Whether you have product questions or just want to stay informed with the latest updates on new releases, tools, and blogs, Microsoft 365 Tech Community is your go-to resource to stay connected!