Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr: Post 1 – Intro & PreReqs

Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr

Post 1: Intro & PreReqs

Preface 

I wrote this blog series about a week before Microsoft decided to change the product name from Office 365 to Microsoft 365, then rebrand the office channels and add a new one. While I’m going to do my best to update these posts, I’m sure I’ll miss some references, so I apologize now for any inconsistencies. As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter to ask any questions. – Gary Blok (@gwblok)

Overview

This post will go over the Deployment and Maintenance of Office 365 using Microsoft’s Endpoint Manager, Configuration Manager (SCCM). In this series we will cover:

• Pre-Reqs: Client Settings, Enabling Updates
• Office Options (Configuration)
• Channel, Software Addons / Removals, Config Options
• Deployment Methods / Strategies
• Use CDN for content or pull content from ConfigMgr
• How Deployment Methods function
• Notes from the field

Configuration Manager has a node dedicated to Office 365. [MS Docs] We’re going to leverage it for this series, but I’ll also point to parts of the process that can be done outside of CM for additional flexibility. We’re also going to cover prerequisites for these features. [MS Docs]

Prerequisites

Client Settings

I’ve added these to the main Default Client Settings but show them in a new Client Setting for example. The first one is enabling CM to manage the Office Updates. [MS Docs]

Hardware Inventory for Office Information [MS Docs]

Make sure you have Office 365 Pro Plus enabled. You might as well add the rest, so you’ve got the data to make informed decisions.

Group Policy / Enable Data Collection [MS Docs]

Office 365 Collection [Used to deploy Updates]

Software Updates

Let’s add Office 365 updates to our software updates list. [MS Docs]

Note, in POST 5, I get much more in-depth and show more images about getting updates going, then monitoring systems, but for now, just the basics.

Now let’s create the ADR [MS Docs]

Under Software Updates, you can change it to fit your needs, but since I’m deploying Office x64, I’m limiting to x64 and setting the Released date to the last 1 month. Clicking Preview confirms the patches that will be made available to that collection.

Alright, there you have it.

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Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr

Now we’ve got everything in place to support Office 365.  In the next post, we’ll go over making the actual office deployment.

1. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Intro & PreReqs – You are Here
2. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Creating the Office Installer – Simple
3. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Creating the Office Installer – Advanced
4. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Deployment Methods
5. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Office Updates / ADR
6. Office 365 Deployment Series with ConfigMgr – Channel Info