Hi All,
As I'm sure many of you will notice soon, MS changed their version numbering for Office 2016. Rather than 15.x, the latest patches are now 16.9.
This breaks all my Smart group logic... since now I have to look for two completely different versions. Licensed software also is a bit weird now.
How are people handling this? Just duplicating their licensed software profile, and smart groups, then setting policies to look at both, or...?
I hope the Patch curators are going to tread carefully...16.17 is not going to support Volume Licensing.
Where are you getting this info? I read https://macadmins.software/ (and slack archives) such that for 16.17 you need the 2019 volume installer... not that it isn't supported.
I agree Patch team needs to cleanup patch definitions are they are now. Right now my JSS patch definitions say Excel 2016 latest version is 16.17.18090901. According to the macadmins.software site, that isn't true (same with other titles).
I think this is accurate
Excel 2016 latest version is 16.16.18091001
Excel 365/2019 latest version is 16.17.18090901
There's this related FR where @talkingmoose replies the patch definitions are being worked on for anyone interested.
The Office Definitions have had their Software Title name changed to just "Microsoft Office Excel/Word/Outlook etc" without the year included. Unfortunately due to a technical limitation the change will not be reflected in name, however everything else will update.
Moving forward, the Office Suite will continue to be updated as normal with the 2019 perpetual licenses: 16.17, 16.18, 16.19 etc.
We will also include any updates for the 2016 perpetual licenses: 16.16.1, 16.16.2, 16.16.3 etc.
There is one other spot in the definitions that still show 2016 within the definition itself, that will be fixed in an upcoming release, this is purely cosmetic.
The latest "2019" version will always be listed as the Latest Version. If the latest 2019 version always being in the position as Latest Version is not the most ideal situation for some Admins, we'd recommend creating a feature request for a standalone 2016 suite of updates.
Thank you!
Jon
@CasperSally I misspoke, I meant to post that your 2016 volume license won't work with 2019 (@talkingmoose mentions in his post). I'll correct my post.
I agree Patch team needs to cleanup patch definitions are they are now. Right now my JSS patch definitions say Excel 2016 latest version is 16.17.18090901. According to the macadmins.software site, that isn't true (same with other titles).
I think this is accurate
Excel 2016 latest version is 16.16.18091001
Excel 365/2019 latest version is 16.17.18090901
I agree. Patch Management is getting sloppy and isn't kept up with very well, its not just Office.
Hello @JKingsnorth !
Thanks for reaching out and letting us know.
The Office definitions have have been renamed to reflect that they are no longer just 2016 definitions, i.e. "Microsoft Office Excel 2016" is now "Microsoft Office Excel" and contains both 2016 and 365/2019. Unfortunately there is no way for us to push this title change to the already added Software Titles. The only way to see it is to readd the Software Title once again after it's removed. We try to communicate this as best as possible through announcements on Jamf Nation as well as replying to threads like this. Sorry if there's any confusion.
What else are you seeing that could use improvement?
As always, thank you for your feedback!
Jon
It would be better if the Office versions were separated back to 2016 and 2019. Those who aren't licensed for 2019, will show 0% on the most current version if they chose to stay with 2016.
@robinsonjo What @JKingsnorth said - because of volume licensing considerations Office 2016 and Office 2019 apps should be considered separate Software Titles. As an org with a 2016 VL I really want Patch Management to tell me if I'm up to date on the 2016 track rather than insisting I'm not because I haven't yet upgraded to a 2019 VL or O365.
Honestly, I think this issue illustrates that JAMF is a bit out of touch with the importance of reporting. This is the kind of thing that can negatively affect people's job security. All I need is for my CIO to see a big red pie chart for him to schedule a meeting with my boss to ask why.
This, and reporting in general, are (in my view) the weakest links in JAMF's approach to the entire enterprise market... I'm constantly having to explain to management why they should ignore dashboards. That's time I could spend working productively.
I opened a case with JAMF support concerning the separation of the two products in patch reporting. Case # JAMF-0568126
@JKingsnorth @sdagley @sullrich check out this feature request would allow administrators to select "approved" version instead of letting jamf assume the biggest number is latest/what you want for reporting purposes. In this office case, it would be helpful as us on 2016 for a few more months could continue to just approve the latest 16.16 versions. Please consider voting it up and/or commenting there if you haven't already.
Honestly? That should be even easier to implement for JAMF than trying to figure out multiple streams, etc. I'm just a little burned out of trying to convince my new CIO that all the red dashboards are NOT an argument to get rid of the Macs in our environment and that I actually AM doing my job.
@CasperSally Thanks for the FR reference, UpVoted.
If the latest 2019 version always being in the position as Latest Version is not the most ideal situation for some Admins, we'd recommend creating a feature request for a standalone 2016 suite of updates.
Hard to believe jamf thought reporting fully patched versions of office as unpatched would actually be acceptable.
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