Office 2011 - Self Service (Cache Only then Install vs Install over Network vs Custom Script)

Hi. If I'm reading your post right it sounds like you've tried to have a single Self Service policy both cache and install the software. Is that the case? If so, you should consider splitting those parts up, you'll have much better results.
For example, have one policy that does the caching of the install pkg. This can be set to any trigger, but I would not use Self Service. Maybe the every15 trigger for example. Make sure it runs a recon after its done so inventory is updated.
Then create a Smart Group that uses the the Receipts category to detect Macs that have that package cached to them (use the 'cached packages' criteria)
Use that Smart Group as the scope for another policy set up for Self Service that installs either all cached packages or just the Office package, but change it to 'Install Cached', instead of 'Install'.

That should get you a much faster installation, since the pkg will be there already and the Self Service policy is just installing it, not doing the download too.

All that said, while we aren't doing full installs of Office out of Self Service here, we have created a custom solution for installing Office updates that does not use most of the built in Casper features . The basic workflow we're looking to use is installing or caching the update pkgs into a local folder on the client Macs and with a script, install the updates, providing feedback on the install progress with cocoaDialog (see more about that here: http://mstratman.github.com/cocoadialog/)

But I would try out the process I outlined above and see how that works for you. If you still want something a little more customized, I can fill you in on some details of how we're doing our Office updates.

I thought about doing something like that, having it Cache then having it show up in Self Service after. My problem is in the deployment methodology I am looking to do. We are in the middle of a 36,000 users migration from exchange to Google Mail, so not all users care to have Office for MAC. Other factors are I am trying to follow the same model I put in place with SCCM and windows deployment where you push Image and then let all applications be self service including Office.

I am just curious why Casper takes so long to cache the package but I can mount to the Casper distribution point and download the PKG to my desktop in less than 10minutes. That is why i thought of doing a script to download the compiled PKG to the local machine then kicking off install. Then in Casper just set that script in self service and call it MS Office Install.

@Craig, Do you have HTTP(s) downloads enabled on the distribution point?

I do not. I figured http wouldn't work well with our proxy.