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.
New add-in inventory report for Configuration Manager
Today a new report was released to the GitHub community site that allows you to collect and view an inventory of the Office Add-ins that are in use by the clients that you manage with System Center Configuration Manager (2012 R2 or later). This report gathers the inventory of each Office add-in that is installed as well as the device that has it installed and the status (enabled, disabled) allowing you to determine which add-ins are in use as well as the impact based on the number of installations. This report also provides a link to Microsoft's Office ProPlus Add-in Readiness report which you can view from http://aka.ms/addinreadiness. To get this new report, download it directly from GitHub at https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-IT-Pro-Deployment-Scripts/tree/master/Office-ProPlus-Management/Get-OfficeAddins
SSO issues in Word and Excel, but not Outlook
Hi, Strange issue started a month ago at a customer site. They use RDS with Office 365 installed. Historically this has been working fine, then it randomly stopped signing in properly for all users. We can't point it down to anything specific however. Network / User / Settings all look good. What is strange is on first login to Outlook, it says it's done SSO but says unlicensed. A simple restart then would show it licensed. We have managed to work round that issue by saving the license folder \appdata\local\microsoft\office\ to the UPD. So for this, a month ago, new and existing users would just sign in and it worked. Then something changed and users were being asked to sign in every time. So we have made this change to include \appdata\local to the UPD - now users only see this problem once (a month). While not as good as it was a month ago, it is acceptable. However, and this is what I need help with. SSO is NOT working at all from Word / Excel. Open Word Blank Micrsoft Sign In box pops up. You have to type username and hit enter You then have to type your password and hit Sign In That popup then goes away, but at the tope right of Word, it still shows "Sign In". When you go to Account, it still has a Sign in box. BUT... if you now close and reopen word, both of those show the signed in user. The problem here is that this doesn't persist over the UPD, so happens every time the users open Word or Excel. As this is used by a business app to open docs, it's actually breaking the process and we need to fix this. I have been having a look at SSO info, because it feels like something fairly low level has changed with how this works, but can't find anything helpful, hence posting here after about a month of searching and trying things. It's not very helpful when you have MS links like: How to use Remote Connectivity Analyzer to troubleshoot single sign-on issues for Microsoft 365, Azure, or Intune https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/troubleshoot/active-directory/single-sign-on-issues How to run Remote Connectivity Analyzer to test SSO authentication To run Remote Connectivity Analyzer to test SSO authentication, follow these steps: Open a web browser, and then browse to https://www.testconnectivity.microsoft.com/tests/SingleSignOn/input. However, that page just hangs with LOADING written on it. Then on the change notes for this page we see that it was removed in 2022! Version 4.0.15 (October 2022) Removed the Single Sign-on Test now that basic authentication in Exchange Online is being disabled. Quick note on the setup. AD is synced to Entra using Entra Connect (Password Hash Sync + SSO enabled), latest version. SSO URLs are added to Internet trusted sites as per setup instructions. Network has been tested and all URLS accessible and working for the user. User is on RDS on fully updated Server 2016 and is on the latest Office 365 app updates. So I guess my first question is: 1) Does SSO still work for Word and Excel? Is it a realistic expectation that the user will sign in to the PC and then Word and Excel will automatically sign in for the user (proper seamless single sign on) like it was doing only a month or so ago? 2) What can I do to test and troubleshoot this if it should be working? I have been trying for a month, so I have already tried a lot of things. But maybe I am missing some tests? Any info to help get this working again (or that it's no longer possible and we missed that instruction from MS) would be ideal. Thanks in advanceUser Report on which version of Office 365 Pro is installed on machine
If this has been posted before, forgive me as I couldn't find any info, but is there a report that can be run in the admin console or in PowerShell that will determine which version of Office 2016 Pro a user has installed on their machine, e.g. I currently have Version 1801 (Build 8828.2010)? I'd use this report to see if users are updating their version regularly. Thanks!
What is the recommended solution for a shared repository of onenote files? We were using docs.com :(
Scenario: Office 365 customer with no on-premise storage who has a bunch (150-200) OneNote files that are shared within the organization (and some shared to be shared externally). Requirements: Centralized storage Files to be organized - was using Docs' "Collections" to group and control access Mostly shared within the Org, but some external sharing may be needed Would you: Create an Azure File Share or buy a NAS? How do you structure access when OneNote doesn't really store the files where you think it does on a file system? Is there a good sharepoint site template for this? Again how would you organize and provide a easy to use interface for users from Desktop and Mobile? OneDrive for business? Just like file share - how to manage/structure the storage/sharing I am really hoping there is a good solution out there somewhere. Its funny how Docs really worked well for OneNote. Too bad its dead in 4 days. -NeilSecurity baseline for Office 365 ProPlus and Office 2016 apps
Microsoft has released their recommended security settings for Office 365 ProPlus and Office 2016 apps to balance both security and usability: "Microsoft is pleased to announce the final release of the recommended security configuration baseline settings for Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 and Office 365 ProPlus 2016 apps." https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/secguide/2018/02/13/security-baseline-for-office-2016-and-office-365-proplus-apps-final/ This includes "importable GPOs, scripts for applying the GPOs to local policy, a custom administrative template (ADMX) file for Group Policy settings, all the recommended settings in spreadsheet form and as Policy Analyzer rules". This baseline features stronger macro security, helps defend against malware by blocking Flash ActiveX activation within Office documents and is a more streamlined, purposeful baseline that is easier to configure, deploy, and validate. Like any significant change to a configuration, this baseline should be thoroughly tested and validated before implementing but I highly recommend admins take up the gauntlet!
Lost Notes on OneNote for Windows 10
Hi everyone, I got an urgent problem on OneNote for Windows 10. Some of my notes disapeared. I can't find these notes on OneDrive, because my stockage is full and the notes were only saved on my computer. Around 1 month ago i got to the point that my OneDrive stockage was full. However, i could still write notes and make new documents that were saved somewhere on my computer, I still don't know where. I know that because each morning I opened OneNote and the modifications from the day before where all there, even when my OneDrive stockage was full. But yesterday i got a problem. I couldn't start OneNote. When i clicked on the program, it didn't start. With no error message of any kind, it just started for 2 or 3 seconds, then it shut down by itself. I uninstalled and installed OneNote for Windows 10 back, and then it worked. But some of my notes are now unfindable, and i got these weirds sections with Nothing inside on my notebook (see Screenshot). I contacted the Windows support, but they told me since they were no files on C:\Users\UserName\Documents\OneNote Notebooks (empty folder) and the OneDrive stockage was full, they couldn't do anything. The number of incident is 1007768015. I'm now looking actively for help, because these notes were my lectures and i got exams in 3 weeks 😄 thank you in advance for yours responses
