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Recommendations for managing Office 365 updates?

bfrey
October 16, 2019 at 12:35 pm UTC

I am wondering how other admins have configured Office 365 update policies. The issue I am working to resolve is having Office 365 applications all of a sudden close without warning.

  • I have a “Patch All Except” policy that excludes Office 365 updates that is scheduled at 12:35 PM
  • I have a “Advanced Policy” that patches Office 365 updates that is scheduled at 3:30 PM with end user notifications enabled
    Officer365%20Patches
    Officer365%20Patches1209×703 35 KB

    Office365UpdatePolicy
    Office365UpdatePolicy2235×1947 245 KB
  • I have the “Reboot Notification” Worklet enabled and scheduled for 3:50 PM (shoutout to @awhitman for this super dope worklet!)

Any recommendations to improve this?

The last thing I want is an end user freaking out and smashing their 💻 because they didn’t save their Word or Excel document when Office 365 decides to update.

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Replies (4)

rlebOctober 16, 2019
#1

Perhaps push the update at night? Hopefully over a few weeks you will catch them all.

Nic-AutomoxOctober 16, 2019
#2

I was talking with @awhitman about your post and he suggested a possible approach to this would be the autosave or autorecover features. Autosave is only for OneDrive saving, but autorecover is a feature that works with local saves. Would that be an approach worth exploring, possibly with a worklet to turn on the features and set the autosave/recover location?

bfreyOctober 16, 2019
#3

@rleb - Thank you for the feedback! One question…

  • Do you have any issues with pushing updates to clients overnight that are off-site laptop users?
bfreyOctober 16, 2019
#4

@Nic Thanks for taking some time to think about this and replying.

AutoRecovery is already set for most users and AutoSave is useful to an extent for my users that are utilizing OneDrive. I am mostly aiming to avoid any frustration surrounding updates which stem from the Office applications closing randomly.

As for the OneDrive Worklet’s idea, that is a great suggestion and I’ll add my ideas to one of the Worklet’s post.

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