SCCM latest version (SCCM 1902) introduced loads of new ways for managing Office 365 ProPlus updates in a better way. SCCM uses the existing Software Update workflow to update Office 365 ProPlus update management.
***Updated on 29th April 2019
IMP – Office 365 ProPlus Bandwidth Consideration Posts – Lean/Hybrid – Building dynamic, lean & universal packages for Office 365 ProPlus & Office 365 ProPlus Deployment and Proxy Server Guidance
Introduction
SCCM latest version has a special dashboard for Office 365 Client management. You can use this dashboard to manage your organization’s office 365 ProPlus apps.
In this post, we will see How to Deploy Install Office 365 Software Updates with SCCM Automatic Deployment Rule (ADR). More details are available in the video tutorial here.
Learn How to Create & Install Office 365 ProPlus Client Package
What is the High-level Workflow of O365 ProPlus Updates Deployment via SCCM?
SCCM Office 365 ProPlus Automatic Deployment rule can create an end-to-end workflow. This will help us to automate Office 365 app installation and management. I have another post on How to Deploy and Install Office 365 Applications via SCCM CB.
1. Office publishes Office 365 app updates metadata to Microsoft Update service
2. SCCM gets the notification about the updates from Microsoft update services via scheduled WSUS sync
3. SCCM refers to office CDN for file list and downloads required files to on-prem SCCM server share. This can be done using SCCM ADR (Automatic Deployment Rule) or a normal Software update process.
4. SCCM Clients get a new policy to deploy the latest updates for Office 365 apps as per the scheduled deployment
What are the prerequisites to Manage Office 365 ProPlus Updates via SCCM CB?
There are 3 prerequisites to manage Office 365 updates/patches via SCCM CB at a high level. I assume that all the devices are already managed via SCCM CB, and all the SCCM client prerequisites are already met.
#1 and #2 – Enable Classification and Product for Office 365 Updates
To manage Office 365 updates via SCCM CB, we need to enable the following classification and product. Navigate via SCCM console – \Administration\Overview\Site Configuration\Sites. Click on Settings – Configure Site Components – Software Update point component – Properties. Go to the Classification tab and enable Updates.
Once updates from the classification tab are enabled (to support Office 365 updates), you can go to the Products tab to enable “Office 365 Client”. More details are available in the video tutorial here.
#3 – Enable Client Settings for Office 365 updates
To manage Office 365 updates via SCCM CB, we need to enable the following settings. Navigate the SCCM console via \Administration\Overview\Client Settings. Go to Client Settings – Software Updates tab – Enable Management of Office 365 Clients = YES.
How to Create Automatic Deployment Rule for Office 365 ProPlus Updates?
Use Automatic Deployment Rule Wizard (from Office 365 Client Management node) to automate Office 365 application updates/patches through SCCM CB. Using ADR, you can eliminate the repetitive process of creating a Software Update Group, Packages, and Deployments.
You can automatically deploy software updates by adding new software updates to an update group associated with an active deployment. You can use an automatic deployment rule (ADR) to create a new deployment for complex scenarios.
Be very careful before creating and implementing SCCM ADR. I would recommend testing ADR in pre-prod environment before implementing this in production. The video tutorial here has end-to-end details about this process.
What should be the search criteria for Office 365 ProPlus Updates?
Search Criteria is the brain of SCCM ADR. You should be careful while selecting the criteria to add new updates to the existing Software Updates group. In this post, I said search criteria to include Monthly channel updates for the last month.
The software updates that meet the specified criteria are added to the associated software update group. Following are the details of the requirements which I selected.
Date Released or Revised ==> Last Month
Product ==> Office 365 Client
Title ==> Update – Monthly Channel
You can use other Office 365 update channels as well in the criteria.
- Monthly Channel (formerly Current Channel)
- Monthly Channel (Targeted)
- Semi-Annual Channel (Differed Channel)
- Semi-Annual Targeted (formerly First Release for Deferred Channel)
Don’t forget to hit the PREVIEW button to check whether you are getting expected results of the search. More details available in the video tutorial here.
Specify the settings for the Automatic Deployment Rule and automatically deploy all software updates found and approve any license agreement.
Specify the Recurring schedule for the Office 365 ProPlus Updates ADR
You can select either of the options “Run the rule after any software update point synchronization,” or you can select to run SCCM CB ADR as per your schedule.
Configure Schedule Details for the Deployment
In this ADR wizard, you need to confirm whether ADR rule for Office 365 App update is completed. The package is deployed to DPs, Scheduled the deployment, etc.. I selected all the default settings.
Specify the scheduled deployment time there are 2 options to set the deployment time. The time can be the client’s local time or Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). The default setting is Local client Time. More details available in the video tutorial here.
Configure Office 365 ProPlus update available Time
Specify when software updates should be available for users in Software Center. Once this ADR rule is run, software updates will be distributed to the DP servers.
Office 365 ProPlus Updates are available to install as soon as possible or as per the schedule. I normally set this as ASAP so that the user can go into SCCM CB software center and run.
Installation Deadline for SCCM CB Office 365 ProPlus Updates
You can specify a deadline for required Office 365 updates in this section of ADR wizard. The deadline is determined by adding the deadline time to the installation time.
When the deadline is reached, required office 365 software updates will get installed on the device. I have selected the Deadline 7 days from the deployment available time. Or you can have a deadline As Soon As Possible, which will help you deploy apps at the earliest time on the device.
You have another granular option while setting up installation deadline. According to user preferences, this deployment is delayed up to the grace period defined in client settings.
More details available in the video tutorial here.
User Experience – SCCM ADR for Office 365 ProPlus Updates
The default user experience behavior is Hide in Software Center and All notifications. There are loads of granularity options in setting up the deadline behavior, Device restart behavior, Write filter handling for Windows Embedded (IoT) devices, and Software updates deployment re-evaluation behavior upon restart.
If any Office 365 software update in this deployment requires a system restart, run the updates deployment evaluation cycle after the restart.
As you can see in the above picture, the office 365 updates are stuck at 50% downloading on Windows 10 machines. I couldn’t find a solution for it while writing this post. I will keep this post updated whenever I have an update on the resolution or fix for this issue.
References
- Ignite Video Deploy Microsoft Office 365 Client using SCCM – here
- Manage Office 365 ProPlus with SCCM – here
- Manage updates to Office 365 ProPlus with SCCM – here
- Troubleshooting Office 365 ProPlus patching through SCCM – here
Author
Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc……………
I just went through the pilot upgrading to semi 1705. Some clients reported back as update is not required.
I had to create manually HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\16.0\common\officeupdate
“officemgmtcom”=dword:00000001
Then delete client from the CM and force action for the client to go back in and after that was able to pick up update. What logs can i check why it reports back as not required? Did not see anything in windowsupdate.log, updatesdeployment.log and wuahandler.log .
Maybe i missed it.
Thank you
Hello Which version of CB are you running in this tutorial, i am on 1706 and i dont get a warning when i select to install the available application from the software center, i believe that office 365 client updates would be made more user friendly in 1706 but instead it is still force shutting down office applications before installing the update – by the way in Windows 10 it is stuck at 50% but you can see that it is downloading the files before install check the location here – C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Updates\Download – i have seen this on Windows 7 also so its not a Windows 10 issue
Hello Which version of CB are you running in this video, i am on 1706 and i dont get a warning when i select to install the available application from the software center, i believe that office 365 client updates would be made more user friendly in 1706 but instead it is still force shutting down office applications before installing the update
This is new CB 1708 and the software center is also the new one which is out with SCCM 1708.
The New Software Center is actually available in CB 1706 , i noticed this feature in client settings and it does improve when O365 update are deployed as Available but as Required the O365 applications are force closed. O365 updates were supposed to support “The client receives pop-up and in-app notifications, as well as a countdown dialog, prior to installing the update.” in CB 1706 but this doesnt happen.
Thanks
Have you ever resolved “stuck at 50% downloading ”
I have one Win7 client in test pilot with the same issue. I cant resolve.
same here, I was magically able to push 1 update to one client in my lab somehow, but then nothing. If it can help, I noticed in the BITS log file it’s trying to download a file from the DP in Office\VersionNumber\Experiment\ia640.cab, but there’s no folder called Experiment in the DP. seems like a bug to me, especially that I see others impacted but no resolution. Also, some older threads are talking about a missing DLL that’s causing the issue, in my case the DLL is present on all client computers. we’re looking at other alternatives to update our Office clients since sccm upgrade doesn’t seem to be reliable.
HI Anoop ,
We have a similar issue in our production environment where the download is stuck at 50% .The update that the infra currently is on 1706 .
Let us know if you have found the solution to the same
I have run into the same problem with one of my client. I have logged a call with MS. You need to download all languages of patches. According to MS, it is a bug.
Thank you Derek!
Same here, even if I have created no ADR, but downloading the Monthly Channel 1711 manually. Download on the Client is stuck at 50%. Strange thing is, that the error Message in DataTransferService.log says ” failed to download source file http:///SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/a766e32f-23dd-4dd9-8f0a-0fc4a447f563/Office/Data/16.0.8730.2175/i641031.cab to destination C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\OfficeC2RD357ADDF-E6C1-4459-8C58-12B01CB2EEDF\i641031.cab with error 0x80190194″.
If i look manually for this CAB File on the DP, it’s not there. Reproduced this issue with three different Monthly Channel Updates….result is same for all.
Found some Artikles which pointed to selected languages during the Download, but I also tried with fully loaded languages (8,7GB)…same issue.
Currently this is the first time I try do download any O365 Update, so I don’t know if this depends on my infrastructure or on any BUG?!
same situation here “i641031.cab with error 0x80190194”
1031 suggests german language, but german is selected in the download options.
no idea whats wrong… been using sccm for 7 years now, why does this product still not work correctly, this is really getting annoying.
try this solution:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/sum/deploy-use/manage-office-365-proplus-updates#add-languages-for-office-365-update-downloads
Hey guys.
Was reading something about this but I have not tried this myself.
Did you try using the wbemtest and modify the property ?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/sum/deploy-use/manage-office-365-proplus-updates#restart-behavior-and-client-notifications-for-office-365-updates