Deploying Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac

Short Answer:

1. Deploy latest O365 package from https://macadmins.software (this is a Microsoft hosted site).
2. Deploy with a lower priority in the policy the latest Office Serializer from the Microsoft Volume License Service Center.

Long Answer:
Add a script to remove Office 2011, etc. There are many threads on this topic here and the MacAdmins Slack channel is a great resource for this as well.

A couple links for you @chrisw :

• For all things Office 2016 for Mac, see clburlison's blog post on demystifying Office : https://clburlison.com/demystify-office2016/. It covers everything. There's likely a few settings you'll want to manage via config profiles.

• If you're an Exchange environment, you'll want to check out talkingmoose's Outlook-Exchange-Setup tool on Github so you can automate the user's accounts: https://github.com/talkingmoose/Outlook-Exchange-Setup-5

• For completely uninstalling Office 2011, check out pbowden's Remove2011 script on Github: https://github.com/pbowden-msft/Remove2011

+1 on joining the MacAdmins Slack group and the Microsoft Office related channels.

I would also check out Paul Bowden's presentation from November on the subject of Office 2016. It specifically covers O365/Volume/Retail and how to do it, where the resources are and such. Paul also set up a training seminar on http://macadmins.software to cover everything in a way that's canonical from Microsoft. Even better, because Paul's a good guy, he hangs out on the slack channels mentioned above and is willing to bend over backwards essentially to help fellow Mac Admins.

His presentation is archived here: What's New in Managing Office 2016 for Mac

Thanks for all of your responses. Looks like there is a lot more to it than the old Office 2k11 Package building way with Casper.

There Is a lot more to it but the trade-off is it's actually much simpler to deploy. So I can deploy the office 365 version initially to someone. But then have fine-grained control who gets the corporate license version simply by deploying a package. The Packages are reasonably well built and work using standard choices.xml methodology. Recently they added some user experience controls as well that you can manage through profiles.

I won't say they are 100% perfect... for instance with the new version they imported parts of the Windows registry instead of using plists, but installation and management of Microsoft Office 2016 has improved dramatically from 2011 .

We downloaded the pkg files from the Microsoft website, created a policy to deploy them and sent them on their way, along with the serialiser that we packaged up.

Once we were satisfied that they were installed and working, we created a second policy to remove the Office 2011 folder from the Applications folder on all machines. It's really that simple if you want it to be.

We have a lot of users that move offices etc, so we don't use Outlook for the majority of our staff. Those that do use it have a laptop, so for most of them we set up Outlook for them at the same time as doing the 10.12 update. But I'm sure you could script that very easily. You can also manage dock items if you feel the need to go that far.

Might want to cache those packages if you're running HTTP distribution points. Resumable downloads are a lifesaver.

The Windows Registry sounds eerily like how Lync 14.x settings are mis/managed. Can't wait for Microsoft to finally purge their teams of the remaining in house developers who refuse to get up to speed on the macOS platform.

We havent moved all our Office 2016 settings to Config Profiles yet, but plan to when we ramp up to deploy 15.33.

Haven't looked at their internal update server offering, but something worth looking at I suppose.

I've tried for several days to use Composer to create a new install dmg of MS Office 2016 and a separate install dmg of the serializer for our volume user account. I have used the version of the suite found at macadmins.software site and our newest serializer in the creation of these dmgs. During the re imaging process I am having success with the suite, however, the serializer is failing every time. It fails in the re image process or when I attempt to use self service on both the admin/user accounts to download the serializer pkg/dmg.

But, if I go to our shared drive for the district, initialize the serializer pkg on either admin or user accounts...it works great!(This is after I have re imaged the unit/created a user account) Any ideas why I can't get Composer to create a pkg/dmg that works properly using this same process I used above? Thanks in advance for any help any of you could share with me...

You shouldn't need composer at all for Office 2016.

Just grab the pkgs from macadmins.software for each app, and deploy the serialization package after deploying the pkgs.

@davidacland Thank you for the suggestion. I tried your way and was not successful. While the install pkgs worked the serializer is still the hang up. I just can't get it to work properly...I'm stumped...have been for a solid 4 days now without success...about to go the old fashion way...bake the MS into the base image and then throw my other pkgs on top of that....will see if that works....not what I want to do...but I'm running out of time now...there just seems to be something about the serializer that will not work correctly... thank you again for the suggestion....I'll entertain any others that any ideas as to why a valid serializer pkg will not work....

Where does your serializer pkg come from? I normally take it from the Office 2016 for Mac DMG.

David,

Here is a screenshot of our dmg information. My IT director has our MS login credentials so he downloaded it a few days ago and I've been toying with it ever sense. I asked him about the fact that our date of contract renewal was in December of 2016 and that the VL serializer seems to be dated such...he thought that wasn't a big deal.

Thoughts on this idea....

I have a functioning dmg with the MS office 2016 I created today. Looks great on both side(admin/user) except for the VLSerialization. My next attempt will be to bake the VL Serializer into the base image in a location of my choosing and then use a postintall script from Rich Trouton to deploy after rebooting from re imaging....

I recommend using this method:
Creating an Office 2016 15.18.0 installer

Since we use O365 rather than volume licensing we use a choices.xml file to limit apps, and we leave out the serializer so that the user has to sign in to activate.

@bozemans, I suspect you may be trying to install the VL Serializer package using Casper Imaging. If so, enable the option for the package to install on boot drive after imaging in Casper Admin.

The VL Serializer package ties the licensing file to the serial number of the boot drive. That means it must install after imaging not during imaging (when your computer is booted to an external drive). It also means you should not try copying the licensing file from one Mac to another.

Therefore, add both the VL Serializer 2.0 package and the latest Office 2016 installer package to your configuration and deploy them natively.

@talkingmoose, First I want to thank you for your help as well as @davidacland. Your solutions was perfect. Next, I want to kick myself in the BUTT for not coming to all of the great resources found here at JAMF nation earlier. Would have saved myself a couple of days of grief. Especially, your note to install on boot drive after imaging. So, below I am including my workflow so other admins can save themselves some grief, too.

Casper Composer
Base OS 10.12.5 image
MS Office 2016 install dmg...https://macadmins.software and I used the Full suite install/This is the most up-to-date version on the web
Our VL Serializer from our MS VL account
Caper Admin
Casper Imaging

Using Casper Composer and a base OS I created an install dmg of the MS Office 2016. Make sure you are prompted to install on all user accounts during the process, if not I can't guarantee it will work for all users without having "keychain" errors. Reason for this process is because prior to taking the finial snapshot I delete One note and Outlook after the install is completed. We don't use those applications in our environment. Important note* Do not serialize at this time! I then tested this install dmg in our environment to ensure both admin/user accounts could access the applications without keychain errors.

Take the serializer pkg from our VL install dmg that we downloaded from our MS VL account. Place that pkg into the Casper Admin and set to "install on boot drive after imaging". I then tested this process and found that both admin/user accounts had access to the MS Office 2016 applications we use and they were able to "Skip the sign in".

I hope this helps!

Now for the Microsoft Automatic Update...

@bozemans, very glad to hear you got what you needed.

Now that I understand what you're wanting to accomplish (a VL-serialized custom installation of just three Office apps), I'll add some more options for you.

You can optionally download the three standalone app installers from https://macadmins.software. The trade-off will be that you're deploying a larger number files and more GB, but you won't have to repackage anything. If you put these individual apps into Self Service then users can download what they want and ignore what they don't want.

Another way to deploy parts of the suite installer without using a Composer snapshot is to use a choices XML file. Since Jamf installs PKGs using the "installer" command line tool, it supports appending this additional file to tell the installer "don't install these things". I also created a tool a while ago to help you do this: https://github.com/talkingmoose/Choices-Packager.

@davidacland mentioned in his JNUC 2016 presentation that one way he likes to deploy things like Office is to keep the installer separate from the customization. I love his method of deploying the full package but putting the choices XML file in a script in the JSS to control what actually gets installed. Start watching here: https://youtu.be/9IKUriWi_DM?t=20m7s.

If you're really married to using Composer to make a snapshot then note that you can click the Customize button in the Office suite installer and choose which items you want to install and which items you want to omit.

Lots of ways to skin a cat. The cat won't be happy, but you will.

@davidacland Can you share the xml file? I'm working on an Office 2016 deployment volume license now (and 08 uninstall!)

Hi Tom,

No problem, all the files associated with the presentation are here: https://github.com/amsysuk/jnuc2016

Enjoy :)

@davidacland Just what I needed, working like a charm now TYVM! Helped me figure out exactly when my coding error was. BTW I just watched your JNUC presentation, super helpful info :-)

Using the choices.xml worked great for Outlook and One Note - but what about One Drive? I tried adding <string>com.microsoft.onedrive</string>
to the array - but that did not work.

@bfrench the One Drive package id is com.microsoft.OneDrive