Here’s a handy little feature that has just been added to Office 365.

Let’s say that someone send you an attachment as shown above. if you now click on that attachment Office 365 will automatically show you that document side by side (provided of course it can be viewed in Office Online).

You’ll see the document on the left in Office Online and the email on the right. You can still download it to your desktop if you want.

At the top of the page you’ll also see the option to Edit a copy.

When you do it will create a new reply email on the right, take a copy of the attached document on the left and then place that copy into edit mode with Office online.

Once you have finished editing and adding anything you want to reply email, just press Send away it will go to the recipient.

One of the big benefits of using an Office 365 subscription that includes Office Pro Plus is that you can install the Microsoft Office Desktop software on up to 5 devices, Macs or PCs.

This means you get the latest version of Office on your desktop, delivered typically via ‘click-to-run’ so it is always up to date.

So here we are using Outlook from Office Pro Plus via Office 365 on a desktop, with everything operating as expected.

One of the other great features that you may not know about is that if you return to the location in your web console where you actually installed the Office Pro Plus software from you can see all the machines that it is currently active on. This makes it easy to track how many installations you have implemented.

You may also notice in the list on the right you have the ability to Deactivate any instance. So what happens when you do this?

When you select the deactivate link you’ll be prompted to confirm that you do indeed want to deactivate this instance. You’ll be warned that the product on that desktop will go into ‘reduced functionality mode’. It won’t be uninstalled but you won’t be able to do things like save documents.

Select Yes to proceed.

You should then see a message indicating that the instance has been deactivated and it should no longer appear on the list of activated instances in the Office 365 console.

But what happens on the actual machine you have deactivated? Well, a certain amount of time later (not immediately) but within 12-24 hours, then time you go to use an Office application on that desktop you will receive the above message indicating that the product is deactivated.

If you wish to use the product again will all the features enabled you will need to sign to your Office 365 account or enter a product key.

if you instead cancel the dialog and proceed to use the Office application you will see a red activation banner across the top.

In any Office application you attempt to use. You will notice that all the Office applications now operate in ‘reduced functionality mode’ but they still operate and you can regain the full functionality by simply licensing them again.

The same thing will occur if the user account is deleted in Office 365 or the license from Office Pro Plus is removed for that user. This allows an Office 365 administrator to control exactly who is licensed for Office on the desktop from their tenant.

*** Please see this update – https://blog.ciaops.com/2014/09/installing-office-365-pro-plus-on-rds.html ***

A while back I wrote an updated post on using Office 365 Pro Plus on an RDS server. You can find that post at:

Installing Office 365 Pro Plus on an RDS server

One of the issues I highlighted is that currently the Office 365 Pro Plus with its click to run functionality doesn’t allow the ability to install on an RDS server. This means you need to purchase an addition Office Pro Plus VL media and key set to actually do the install of the software into that environment.

That is all about to change as Microsoft announced in this blog post:

Updates to Office 365 ProPlus for admins and first look at upcoming shared computer support

Now you will be able to use the click to run Office Pro Plus to install on a RDS server. This means you’ll no longer to purchase that one additional license.

The blog post also highlights a number of significant improvements in the ability for IT Professionals to deploy Office 365 Pro Plus, including the ability to de-select certain applications from the package during installation.

If you are an IT Professional working with Office 365 Pro Plus I’d suggest you have a read of the blog post and watch the new Garage Series video that demonstrates all this new stuff.

It is clear that Microsoft is listening to people’s needs and acting quickly to bring these to market. This simply makes Office 365 an even better option for customers.

*** Please see this update – https://blog.ciaops.com/2014/09/installing-office-365-pro-plus-on-rds.html ***

Office 365 Pro Plus on a RDS (Terminal Server) is a very common question I see all the time. A while ago I wrote an detailed article around the licencing of Office 365 Pro Plus in an RDS environment. You can read the full blog post if you want to as it is still valid, but in summary what it says is that if you purchase Office 365 via a web console, that is either via the Microsoft console or via the Telstra portal here in Australia that product is NOT licensed to run on any type of RDS environment. The only way that you can run Office 365 Pro Plus in an RDS environment is if Office 365 was purchased via an Open agreement (basically volume licensing). That is basically the same as it is with other versions of Office, RDS is only supported with volume licensing.

With that answered, next question is normally about actually installing Office 365 Pro Plus in a RDS environment. The challenge is the software you get from Office 365 is ‘click to run’ which won’t install on a RDS machine. So how do you actually go about getting Office Pro Plus onto a RDS machine when you have Office 365 via Open?

Strangely enough, it is exactly the same as when you have normal Office, you need to purchase Office Pro Plus software and Volume License key that allows the installation. For reference see the following document;

Licensing Microsoft Office Pro Plus Subscription Service in Volume Licensing

which says:

How do customers get access to Office Professional Plus 2013 media for use with RDS deployments?
Customer must have access to Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) and Volume Licensing keys to install and activate Office Professional Plus 2013 media on network servers for RDS scenarios with Office 365 ProPlus licenses. Access to media and keys in VLSC vary among different Volume License agreements, such as Enterprise Agreement and Open. Depending on your agreement type and previous Office license purchases, you may have access to Office Professional Plus 2013. If Office Professional Plus 2013 media and key are not available to you, a Volume Licensing partner may assist you with the purchase of an Office Professional Plus 2013 license to support your rights to deploy Office software on a network server with RDS role enabled.

Thus, if you have only purchase Office 365 via Open you will also need to purchase one Office Pro Plus media and key via Volume Licensing to actually support the installation.

This of course is an additional cost on top of any Office 365 licenses purchase which many resellers fail to factor in. They then get a nasty surprise when they attempt an install using ‘click-to-run’ and it doesn’t work. They get an even nastier shock when they discover they have to purchase one additional Office Pro Plus license to do the RDS installation. But by far the worst is when they have to go back to the customer and ask them for more money to cover this or swallow the increase themselves.

I hear lots of bitching an moaning about this from resellers but in all honesty it is the same as it for most other versions of Office. You can’t install Office Pro Plus in an RDS environment with a retail version of Office Pro Plus, you again need to purchase the media and key via volume licensing.

Now, I appreciate that there is an extra cost and it would be nice to get the media an key as part of Office 365 Open, and that may well come down the track, but you do have the additional benefit of being able to install Office 365 on in an RDS environment that you once couldn’t. Time to look at the cup half full guys I think.   

The secret is knowing what you can and can’t do and hopefully after reading this post it will have answered these questions which without doubt are the most common I see.

If you purchase Office 2013 Professional Plus on a PC (OEM) or off a retail shelf there is no downgrade rights. This means you do not have the right to install Office 2010 instead. However, under certain volume licensing programs if you purchase Office 2013 Professional Plus you do have that right. This is one advantage of using volume licensing.
Now in the Office 365 world, if you purchase a plan that includes Office Professional Plus for the desktop what happens? If you purchase that plan via a console (either the Microsoft console or the Telstra console here in Australia) you do not receive any downgrade rights because it is effectively like a retail purchase. However, what happens if you purchase Office 365 via Open licensing?
The answer can be found here:
Licensing Microsoft Office Pro Plus Subscription Service in Volume Licensing
Inside the PDF you will find:
Online Services Downgrade Rights In Online Services customers have access to the latest technology with the newest features and releases. As with all
Subscription Services, Microsoft generally offers only the latest version of the service at a time. Therefore, downgrade
rights are not available with Office 365 ProPlus licenses.
So, in summary, no matter where you purchase Office 365 Pro Plus from, it does not come with downgrade rights.