Microsoft 365 Apps - Operate

Overview

The 'Microsoft 365 Apps - Operate' pack tracks the versions of Microsoft 365 Apps installed on devices in your organization, the progress of channel updates to these devices, and the evolution of employees’ Digital Experience and their adoption of applications over time.

When managing the production landscape, it is possible to separate machines according to multiple criteria to accurately reflect your testing environments, ensuring that proper testing of all required profiles takes place before an update arrives in production.

The pack is capable of tracking any update type, be it a new upgrade from an older version of Office to a regular channel update from Microsoft. Using category configuration, it is entirely up to the operator to decide which version(s) of Microsoft 365 Apps will be tracked by the pack.

As well as tracking updates, this pack can also provide insight into the use and adoption of Microsoft 365 Apps. A dashboard dedicated to Employee Experience shows the relative Digital Experience scores for employees using different versions of Microsoft 365 Apps, as well as a breakdown of Digital Experience by individual Office applications. Similarly, an Employee Adoption dashboard uses the new Focus Time measurement to show you which individual applications are being used the most in your organization.

Note: Due to Microsoft renaming ‘Office 365 ProPlus’ to ‘Microsoft 365 Apps’, we have changed the name of this pack from ‘Office 365 ProPlus’ to ‘Microsoft 365 Apps’. All dashboards and relevant metrics have now been updated from ‘Office 365 ProPlus' to 'Microsoft 365 Apps’.

"ProPlus Version" can still be seen displayed as a column title in some widgets, however. This is due to the fact that certain categories (ProPlus Version, ProPlus Required Version) are shared with the Remote Worker Experience pack. These categories have not been renamed to avoid conflicts or corruption in systems where either one or both packs are already installed.

Pre-Requisites

The latest version of the Microsoft 365 Apps – Operate pack (V2.1.0.0) is optimized for Nexthink v6.29 and later due to the use of Focus Time measurements to show Employee Adoption

The Microsoft 365 Apps – Operate pack refers to Digital Experience scores in some of its dashboards therefore the Digital Experience Score pack should be installed before installing the Pack.

This pack also integrates with the Win10:Configuration pack, should you wish to classify Business-critical users or devices. Any configuration made in that pack is read by this ProPlus pack.

Changelog

V2.1.0.0

Updated pack with v6.29 features, including Focus Time to measure Employee Adoption.

V2.0.0.1

Metrics have been modified to reflect Microsoft name change from ProPlus to Microsoft 365 Apps

V2.0.0.0

Updated to use DEX v2

V1.0.0.1

Update ProPlus Version category

V1.0.0.0

Initial release.

Configuration

As part of the initial configuration of the pack, devices can optionally be configured according to their importance to the business, which is done as part of the Win10:Configuration pack, therefore this must be imported before the Microsoft 365 Apps pack and the categories for the Business and User Criticality should be configured. The remaining steps after this are for the Microsoft 365 Apps pack:

1. Pre-requisite: Win10:Configuration (optional Step)

   1. Prioritizing your packages

   2. Prioritizing your device models

2. Configure Category “ProPlus Device Ring” (optional but recommended step)

   • Assign devices to the desired Rings to match your Organization's release structure. For example, if you wish to deploy to two testing rings before Production the pack comes preconfigured with Ring 0, Ring 1, and Production. If you have more (or fewer) testing Environments before Production you can add, remove or rename these accordingly.

   • The dashboards "Create Representative Rings" and "Prioritized Devices Distribution" help you understand what your current Ring contents are, to make sure that:

     • No device is wrongly assigned to a ring (E.g., MacOS, ProPlus not installed, etc)

     • No device is missing a ring (E.g., a device running Microsoft 365 Apps that is not in Ring 0, Ring 1, or Production)

3. Now configure the Categories "ProPlus Required Version", "ProPlus Version" and "ProPlus Unsupported Version" to reflect your desired configuration (These categories have not been renamed as they are shared with the Remote Worker Experience pack):

   • The Solution Pack is entirely flexible in terms of what versions of Microsoft 365 Apps you wish to monitor. By configuring these Categories you are describing which versions of Microsoft 365 Apps you wish to monitor:

     • ProPlus Required Version - this should contain the version number(s) you will be upgrading to. Note that any version number can be added and multiple versions can be used (for different branches). Details on Microsoft 365 Apps version history is published by Microsoft.

     • ProPlus Version - this should contain all the versions of Microsoft 365 Apps that you currently support within your Organization, configured in the same way as the above-Required Version Category.

     • ProPlus Unsupported Version - This should contain versions of Microsoft 365 Apps that your Organization does not support.

As your Microsoft 365 Apps landscape evolves you should amend these categories on a continual basis so that they accurately reflect the supported, unsupported, and required versions for your Organization.