Outlook 365, Question about new pop-up

[mikeroq]

This is another acronym that, even after time to tumble about in the ol' cranium, is just not coming up with anything.

Explanation, please?

LOB = Line Of Business

LOB apps = Quickbooks, Sage, AutoCAD, etc. Applications that are essential to the running the business. Like a dental practice management software like Eaglesoft, or a law practice suite like Tabs3.

 

[Sky-Knight]

This is another acronym that, even after time to tumble about in the ol' cranium, is just not coming up with anything.

Explanation, please?

LOB = Line of Business

Quickbooks is a popular example, but there are countless others... Calyx Point, Viewpoint Estimation, goodness my brain is going blank with them all. These are highly specialized applications that fill niche roles and typically aren't seen outside of their specific industry. They are all universally expensive to own because they're fragile, slow to adapt, and frankly supported poorly. But yet they are also essential.

Much of these workloads are moving to cloud services because it's "Easier" to support there, but that move comes with a massive increase in cost to the company that's using... so the resistance to the move is real. There are also a few entities that are refusing to make that swap aiming to service those that don't want to move and maintain the status quo.

My point is, if the company has such an app... and most do... the changes I suggest are critical to the efforts of maintaining that app. The fact that those with disabilities of various kinds benefit too is just icing.

And yes you can link me if you want, I'm always up for assisting those that need... shall we say, alternative access to technology.

My MSP exists precisely to solve these sorts of problems. And it drives me nuts that our industry ignores that avenue so frequently. It's not logical to me either since making a machine easier to use for a blind person ALSO makes it easier to use for a sighted person. These things are universal... so I don't get why we ignore such a ready source of necessity, to drive the inventions in question. But we do... all too often we do.

 

[britechguy]

making a machine easier to use for a blind person ALSO makes it easier to use for a sighted person. These things are universal... so I don't get why we ignore such a ready source of necessity, to drive the inventions in question. But we do... all too often we do.

And, being in the Assistive Technology (AT) field, I can say it often goes beyond simple ignoring and into outright hostility and resistance. And that's almost always secondary to rank stupidity on the part of the IT "professionals" who have wholly false beliefs about what tweaking for accessibility, whether as an exception process for a small subset of their users, or doing these tweaks as a universal convention really entails and really means from a practical standpoint.

I have had to get very ugly on a couple of occasions, with educational institutions in particular, about there being exceptions permitted for AT users. Some were adamant that they would not customize entity-owned equipment for accessibility while, at the same time, adamantly stating that they would not create an exception to allow personally owned equipment with the necessary AT to access the organization's network. You cannot, legally, have it both ways under the ADA. You are required to provide reasonable accommodations. How you provide them can vary, but you cannot out and out refuse to provide access. It's disheartening how often this still goes on, but it's particularly infuriating at colleges and universities that have Disability Services organizations who, apparently, have either never fought this battle and made sure that the territory taken is permanently "won," or who are unwilling to fight it. That's actually their job, not mine, but as an external consultant who's beholden to no one "inside," if I meet asinine resistance they will get way more back, including a lecture on the ADA and that what they're doing (or refusing to do) makes them very legally exposed.

 

[britechguy]

Thanks to both for the LOB explanation.

 

[britechguy]

I did post the pertinent content from this topic and already have an excellent question from someone that I don't have the answer to:

Is there a way for individual account holders of Office 365 to also change to the semi-annual update scheme?

Since I don't have a personal copy of Microsoft 365/Office 365 I have no way to explore this. My gut tells me the answer is likely, "No," because Microsoft most likely treats all the individual account holders under one "Great Tenancy" that they set as they see fit, but who knows?

Someone, or multiple someones, here likely does, so I'm relaying the above question.

 

[glricht]

This is another acronym that, even after time to tumble about in the ol' cranium, is just not coming up with anything.

Explanation, please?

Usually LOB = Line-of-Business

 

[Sky-Knight]

Is there a way for individual account holders of Office 365 to also change to the semi-annual update scheme?

Maybe...

M365 Personal users are no different than professional ones aside from a few entitlement differences. The problem is, the login you use to get at your personal M365 subscriptions is a part of Microsoft's tenant... and that tenant is where the update controls are located. For obvious reasons no one outside of Microsoft can get at those settings... so the "easy" path is out.

There is however this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/change-update-channels

Group Policy isn't available outside of the Professional level OS...

Which brings us to the Office Deployment Tool... This used to be the only way to make this change in Office... assuming it still works you can try that. I question this however because the Organization Wide setting exists, and is known to override what the ODT configures.

The configuration XML can be generated by visiting https://config.office.com, Once there click the create configuration button that's all but buried at the bottom. You don't have to login or anything, just click the button. The Office Suite is Microsoft 365 Apps for Business. The Update Channel selector gets put to what you want that to be.

Once that's done and you have your XML file, you'll need to go here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117 To get the ODT tool itself. Stick the exe file in the same folder as the xml file, and run this:

setup.exe /configure config.xml

Assuming you named your xml file config.xml anyway... change that accordingly.

This will reinstall office with the above settings, and I think you can use the home / personal logins with it. But I haven't tried it personally... so I don't know if it'll work. And MS has a huge track record of making Home users the test bed for their commercial clients. So it wouldn't shock me if this solution flat doesn't work, or stops working periodically.

Another path that's less ideal... is to disable Office Updates. You can do this in any Office app, File -> Account -> Office Updates tile. Do not do this if Outlook is in play unless you want a bad time... Disabled updates will need to be enabled again at least twice a year to keep the platform functional.

 

[Porthos]

 

[britechguy]

@Porthos

It appears that this is an absolute toggle if I'm reading it right. You can Disable Updates, later do an Update Now, but unless you then go back and do another Disable Updates you're back to automatic. That is, unless there's something hidden that isn't visible on that screen shot, and that does not appear to be.

Can you confirm? This would be an easy option for individuals to control when and whether they receive updates or not.

 

[Porthos]

 

[Porthos]

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Porthos

It appears that this is an absolute toggle if I'm reading it right. You can Disable Updates, later do an Update Now, but unless you then go back and do another Disable Updates you're back to automatic. That is, unless there's something hidden that isn't visible on that screen shot, and that does not appear to be.

Can you confirm? This would be an easy option for individuals to control when and whether they receive updates or not.

Yes, it's the final option I wrote about, just in screen grab form.

And I once again reiterate... it's a terrible option. If you use Outlook in particular, failing to update your Office at least twice a year is a hugely bad idea. And this only applies if you manually update when the current update channel, happens to be on the same version as the semi-annual channel.

This is difficult to maintain... If you stop updating on the Current channel, that channel by design is more volatile and more prone to have security problems. So you're even more dependent on updates to keep your usage safe.

So beware, there be dragons here.

 

[britechguy]

So beware, there be dragons here.

Notes with regard to updates and those using accessibility software:

1. Very often the dragons that are there when automatic updating is on grossly outweigh the dragons from doing them manually.

2. Unlike your average user, most folks using accessibility software long ago became accustomed to more "care and tending" when it comes to updates. They really don't turn 'em off, and never think about it again. Very often the topics of discussion on the tech forums dedicated to accessibility are along the lines of, "Should I apply {insert update here}? Are any issues worked out?," which I virtually never see elsewhere.

3. What's easiest for an individual to manage is, well, individual. So long as they're aware of the trade-offs of turning off automatic updating then I'm fine with them doing so.

There is no perfect system.

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight

If you're interested in the back and forth, see this topic on the Microsoft Office Accessibility Discussion Group on Groups.io:

Microsoft 365 Administration, Accessibility, and Educating Your IT Folks (or at least some of them)

The user asking specific "heavy duty" questions intends to give the XML method a try.

And a great big thanks from me (as well as him and the readership) for the depth and detail you've given here, and I've posted verbatim (or really close to it, I've trimmed a sentence or two) there.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I hope it works, but again beware dragons...

Doesn't help that this junk is also heavily integrated with Windows... so Office patch levels relative to Windows patch levels are a whole other level of complexity.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Creepy how the algorithms work... this showed up in my Amazon feed this evening:

Amazon.com: OrCam Read - First-of-its-Kind Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistive Reader for Anyone Who is Exposed to Large Amounts of Text at School, Work, or on The Go : Office Products

Amazon.com: OrCam Read - First-of-its-Kind Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistive Reader for Anyone Who is Exposed to Large Amounts of Text at School, Work, or on The Go : Office Products

www.amazon.com

Not a cheap toy, but certainly useful.