Update: New upgrade readiness tools for Office 365 ProPlus
Update: The the https://support.office.com/article/9b0b48f2-1937-4b10-8274-1ccdb2f5d019 for Office add-ins and VBA is now available for download. Read more about it on our new post and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55983and 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 mailto: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 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee819096(v=office.16).aspx 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, https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/gg264421.aspx). 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 https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/upgradeanalytics/2017/03/02/announcing-general-availability-of-upgrade-readiness/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 mailto:ReadyForOffice@microsoft.com.
Searchable add-in list for Office 365 ProPlus
We are very pleased to let you know that the first searchable list of Office add-ins is now available. It contains over 950 popular COM add-ins, along with their Office 365 ProPlus readiness classification. You can use this list to search for your addin by name in your local language and find out whether it is already being used by enterprises who are on Office 365 ProPlus. What does the classification mean? This file provides a readiness classification for a set of popular Office add-ins. The classification is based on information from devices that share telemetry data with Microsoft and represents the usage patterns for these addins in Office 365 ProPlus environments. The classifications are: Insufficient Data - too few devices are sharing information for this add-in for Microsoft to categorize its adoption. Adopted - we see a positive usage pattern on Office 365 ProPlus. Contact Developer - there may be compatibility issues with this solution, and thus Microsoft recommends contacting the software provider to learn more. How can I use this file? You can access the classification list at http://aka.ms/addinreadiness. Simply select your required filters using the dropdowns, and search (Ctrl-F) for the name of the add-in you are interested in. You will find the classification to the right of the add-in name detail. If you don’t find the add-in you are looking for, please fill out this form: Office Add-in List Feedback Form. Please provide as much information as you can to help us identify the relevant add-in. What’s next? We will continue to improve our add-in classification list over time. Using your feedback, we will expand the set of add-ins that are included in the list, and provide a readiness classification for them. As our telemetry data grows, we will use it to improve the way we classify add-ins and the accuracy of our readiness information. We will also add new information such as the publisher of the add-in, to make it even easier to find the add-ins that you are interested in. Note: This list relates to Office COM add-ins and as such is separate from the Web add-ins which are found in the store. COM add-ins are usually obtained directly from the company that develops them, and may be installed by themselves or as part of a larger solution.
Org Explorer in Outlook
It's been a while since this feature was posted as going into the preview release / targeted release of Outlook, but haven't seen it hit the general availability ring. Today now I noticed all the documentation seems to be updated that the feature has been removed from Outlook effective August 2022. Has development on this ceased, or is it being moved to another product?New Deferred Channel
I thought a quick Office 365 ProPlus update might be worthwhile. Today sees the release of the new Deferred Channel version -1605 with new features and is the mainstream version as such. Version 1509 is no longer supported, while 1602 is supported until February 2017 with ongoing security updates. A new First Release for Deferred Channel has correspondingly been released- 1609, which is available for advanced testing before it's released as the mainstream Deferred Channel scheduled for February 14, 2017. Hopefully, I got all of that right! Your go-to places for keeping track of these versions and builds is https://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/mt592918.aspxand https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/mt465751.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
