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Hello and welcome to Microsoft Mechanics Live! and we're gonna today we're gonna
look at a new set of updates across Office 365 ProPlus and Windows 10
really make it simpler to deploy from new tools to help you with adding app
compat and advanced configuration options that install time optimizing
network traffic updates for updates and new ways to understand and plan the best
path forward with tailored recommendations using the IT Roadmap
that we just saw so today I'm joined by Amesh Mansukhani from the Office 365
engineering team welcome thanks Jeremy great to be here as always
alright so we're constantly updating our Office clients and we're finding new
ways to plan and deploy client deployments and upgrades so what's the
team been working on to make Office deployment even better well we focused
really on three things based off our customer feedback right we're looking at
install time configuration application compatibility and network efficiencies
for updates so what are we doing in terms of let's let's have a look at some
of the things that we're doing actually so in terms of the three things that we
are actually focusing the most on let's start with install time configuration
because I know that we've done a lot in the past in terms of maybe granularity
of control and other other package types for Click-to-Run now we're doing a lot
more in terms of giving you more granularity so let's start with install
time config then we'll move on to app compat and network efficiency that
sounds great yeah so for configuration we've really had controls in place to
configure Office suites v Pro Plus right we've had that for a good amount of time
now then we focused on doing the installation configuration change and
update management through System Center Configuration Manager but today we're
now going to be introducing the Office Customization Tool for Click-to-Run this
is the one that you've known and loved for a long time around MSI so we're
introducing that now for our subscription product did you just say
the Office Customization Tool for clicked or I did you know come on this
has been something that we've been asking for people have been asking for a
while now but I know where this is this is awesome can you give us a quick look
about what it does yeah I could definitely can so as you can see here we
have a nice rich UI that allows you to start customizing exactly you know what
kind of configurations you want during stall time on your left-hand side you're
gonna see a nice little navigation around software application settings
these are your preferences that you've set in the previous OCT and then you
have installation updates and licensing and in your middle area is kind of where
you start your configuration but the thing that we're really introducing here
that's new for folks is on the right-hand pane you can start seeing
that customization you know really be generated in layman's terms right so if
I start saying okay what's the organization name I'm gonna go with
Contoso I'm gonna add that I'm gonna say I'm gonna want 64-bit and you could see
on the right hand side we start updating that directly in the pane itself and now
I have the ability to look at the actual Suites that I want we're supporting
exactly what you're seeing in the office deployment tool in Microsoft Intune as
well as System Center Configuration Manager so consistent with the things
like the CSP for example that you might use with a mobile device management
suite that's correct so very cool but you've also done some
other work in terms of and one of the most requested features sorry I've got a
lot of background here because I actually managed kind of the
implementation Wallis initially match OS is another capability that we're
bringing back right match OS we are bringing that back now that gives you
the ability to actually look at what OS is you have or what sorry what language
packs you have on the operating system and then start matching it directly on
there and taking it from your source file the other thing we're also going to
be introducing is this ability to fall back to the CDN so we keep getting asked
for smaller package size being delivered to multiple locations where we now can
say hey I want to be able to take one core language file one language
file distribute that across my organization and then fall back for the
all the other languages directly from the CDN that's awesome so and you've
also done some work in terms of making sure that you can initiate the
deployment through Microsoft Intune as well right that's correct so let me
switch over to that and I'll show you exactly what that looks like so this is
the intern portal today and so we've started because we know a lot of folks
are now moving over to the modern management right how can you actually
take things like AutoPilot and then peel the provision of Windows and then
shortly after that install Office so that's what we could started with where
we now can go into the into console we can go into the mobile apps and start
creating my first applications and we introduced a new
software type here where we're calling office three spot Pro Plus right so you
can add that in here and similar to the Office Customization Tool or the ODT I
can select things like what applications I want to exclude who what languages do
I want and as well as the business so once I have that configured I could
start targeting those devices that are being managed by directly by Intune
very cool so beyond all of that I think that a lot of people think about
application compatibility and how I kind of go from one version maybe I'm on
Office 2010 or some of the other build or maybe I want to go from one
semiannual update to another are we doing anything there to help you know we
certainly are we're doing quite a few things around that so the first thing
that we did is we introduced the ability to get a full inventory of add-ins
within your organization we've gotten so much feedback that you know admins are
certainly aware of what they've purchased and what they've initially
installed but since it's been multiple years we know organizations and business
units have gone out and created new sets of macros or purchase new add-ins
so how do you know what your entire organization looks like so the first
thing we did is with the upgrade readiness in in the Windows analytics we
actually provide you that full list of add-ins in addition to all of the
hardware and software that you have an upgrade readiness and this is great so
if you detect something that maybe might not be working from a deployment
perspective that we're showing that report of it gives you nice nice reports
about how many people have have that added installed you can then basically
prioritize if there's only two or three people with that add-in it's not gonna
block the deployment but if ik half of the organization has it you're gonna
look at it see maybe if it's a if it's an in-house one, recode or make any
changes there if it's third-party see if there's an updated version etc and that
gives you all of that information at your fingertips and it's easier than
some of the older constructs where you deploy say an agent have that log back
to telemetry and this does all of that using the same telemetry infrastructure
that the rest of Windows uses for device that's correct yeah so but not for those
of you who are not delivering your telemetry and you going through upgrade
readiness we actually just introduced the Windows readiness toolkit we just
announced that several days ago here at ignite and basically what this does for
you is it allows you to quickly scan your environment and go okay what
kind of add-ins do I actually have within that and in this example we see
we have 16 unique add-ins but four of them we actually need to go and assess
now we have some additional smarts that were actually telling us the insights
that hey we know the rest of them are going to be pretty good but we have some
some stuff in here and we go into the granular details as to which apps do we
have what versions and how highly adopted they are but we just didn't stop
there right we want it we started working with the ready for Windows comm
website and starting the added the add-in functionality into that into the
website as well now let me look at one that's fairly popular I'm just gonna
actually go fairly generic to and say PDF right what this tells you here is
it's gonna go in search and I clicked on the office add-in section it tells me
PDF architect for word if I had this particular one what version is actually
highly uh adopted across the 64 bit so I can look at 64 or 32 bit against a
target version of Windows very cool so let's go back though you mentioned also
this is the appcompat we've covered kind of the install time config that we
can do now and by the way we've had System Center Configuration Manager
integration for about a year so we didn't cover that or show that at this
point but hopefully you guys are using that today why don't we talk about
network efficiency because we've changed the update model quite a bit in terms of
how Office updates are delivered it's consistent with what we're doing in
terms of Windows updating as well right so we've got the semi-annual channel and
we've also got the quality updates that we do monthly so how would I prepare
then for say a semi-annual channel update one of the sizes look like what
are we doing there in terms of network efficiency yeah so network efficiencies
certainly been a big thing that customers have been asking us about so
we did a couple of different things one we looked at the overall package size we
just crack those open and we said how can we minimize those four better to be
much more network friendly and so what we did is we found a lot of areas that
we really could be efficient at and we took advantage of that right so if
you're going from a features standpoint for in the semi-annual channel we've
reduced that from approximately 600 MBs down to about 350 so you can expect that
as you were starting to plan your overall rollout
for those who are adopting semi-annual channel but as you go from a
month-to-month basis in the seminary channel you'll have about about a
hundred MB's that you would have to be taking from there so those are your
security updates that that were actually delivering there but if you're for those
of you who are on the monthly channel you can expect anywhere going from about
three hundred MB's down to about a hundred 150 MB's it's kind of what
we're informing these days and we're starting to continue we're continuing to
improve that over time and are we doing anything in terms of like Branch Cache or
peer cashing to support the update delivery yeah we actually are so the
first thing that we've done is we've worked with System Center Configuration
Manager to actually integrate into their peer-to-peer and the really nice thing
about that it's really easy to set up and if I have a management point nearby
I can set up and devices that I can designate as a peer device right now if
I want an update it will go to that particular peer device and be able to
get the update directly from that and if it's from two computers it'll actually
go to both computers all right can we see where that's configured
yeah I'll certainly show you that so essentially if we go into System Center
Configuration Manager this is available from 1706 onwards in technical preview
and will be out shortly but it's really simple I go into administration I have
my client settings and I can open up or create a new customization customization
pane and the setting itself if I can get this open my VM is not not being too
cooperative but if you could imagine with me I have a little configuration
right here and I all have to do is just turn it on and say yes I want to be able
to use my OS as a distribution point and then be able to target those clients to
be able to support that capability very cool so a lot of people watching they
might it might have been a while since they've done their last major upgrade
and say to to Windows 7 or you know coming from an older platform of the
operating system in office are we doing anything to really help with that
planning process then to make it easier for folks to plan their upgrades and
kind of the capabilities they want to do well Jeremy there's a great new tool for
you that you might have heard of right it's the IT Roadmap right yes it
basically lets you look at what you have running now and determine what you want
in place and then it gives you a plan of what you
need to implement to get there right so we can see here if we look at on the IT
Roadmap and this basically has that four level continuum where I can say what
level of my hat now I can pick the things that apply to me in terms of how
I'm doing device imaging if I'm gonna take my standard apps or my productivity
applications and maybe users have permissions to install them and a very
basic level because Office 365 ProPlus has that capability but a lot of cases
they're gonna be standard users and not have the priviledge requirements they're
up to our devices our reimage and they've got their productivity
applications on them as part of maybe a task sequence deployment then as I move
to level 3 or level four then automation starts to get a bit cooler where we can
do things like auto enrolment like you just talked about with MDM along with if
we get maybe a new device using autopilot for that kind of initial out
of oxic spirit setup so we can actually see on the continuum where we might want
to go let's say we want to get auto pilot running it's gonna then push out a
bunch of recommendations that I can look at in terms of some of the tools I'm
going to need so you can see here a user state migration tool config manager
options etc that I'm gonna use along that continuum of getting better and
better in terms of the sophistication and the type of deployment tools and
processes I can use so we've got a nice we've got a nice model there in terms of
the four different stages if you will just around the provisioning side and on
management this is where it gets also interesting from a app and OS
perspective here we can say like how do I get to the point where I can take
monthly updates so I can take semiannual updates because I might be just used to
doing only security and then service packs and I need to get into more of the
semiannual flow then we have all the different capabilities they're also
mapped out along that four level continuum so another great resource
hopefully that that you can use in terms of being able to set up these plans and
make sure that you have the right capabilities in place let me just give
you the link for that because I actually just corrected the destination of that
link which is aka.ms/ITRoadmaptool or you can use
transform.Microsoft.com/ITRoadmap to get to it which was the direct link I should
have used in the last session so just a couple of tools this is pretty pretty
big set of updates in terms of ProPlus deployment where can people go in terms
of they've got questions or or deployment help yes certainly I mean
we're constantly delivering a lot of information out of the blogs the office
blogs as well as the tech community forms right and also get a FastTrack
FastTrack is a great resource we had a great show on this a little bit earlier
in the week where you can actually use free deployment help for a lot of
organizations that qualify to get Office 365 ProPlus deployed they'll use tools
like the IT Roadmap the updated Office Customization Tool once it's ready to
help get all the deployments in place if you've got config manager if you use it
in tune all those things are things that they've seen and can help you with on
the deployment of Office so thanks so much for joining us today and keep
watching Microsoft Mechanics for all the updates to Office 365 ProPlus and more
and we'll see you next time
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