Microsoft AutoUpdate notifications

[fspa9686]

Hey Nation!

I created a config profile for Microsoft AutoUpdate to automatically update apps in the current update channel with notifications disabled. For the most part, it seems to work just fine. However I had reports from a couple of users that they were seeing this popup

I even tried creating my own plist as shown in this Nation post https://community.jamf.com/t5/jamf-pro/microsoft-autoupdate-app-notifications-settings/m-p/234536#M2...

Has anyone ever had this happen even when disabling the notifications? Any help would be appreciated

Thanks!

-Frank S.

[howie_isaacks]

You can create a configuration profile to silence these notifications. Use the Notifications payload. You will need the bundle ID for the Microsoft AutoUpdate app which is com.microsoft.autoupdate2. For App Name you can just enter "Microsoft AutoUpdate". You can then set how you want the alerts to appear or not appear.

[fspa9686]

Thanks for the reply @howie_isaacks ! I tried that already and they still got a popup. I guess I am just not sure if I am missing anything that would still cause that popup to appear.

[howie_isaacks]

Test this on a test Mac instead of deploying it to everyone first. Would you please post screenshots of your profile that you setup? Is the profile showing up on your Macs?

[fspa9686]

Thanks for the reply! Funny enough, I actually did test it on another Mac before deploying to everyone. So far I know that one Mac in our environment is seeing the notification that I shared in the first post. The profile has two payloads on it; one for the settings we want for automatic updates, and one for the notifications. I'll post how that all looks below.

Here's the notification payload

Here's the plist payload to allow automatic updates

Now this last one I made yesterday when trying to see if maybe I needed another plist in the payload. adding this did not solve the problem.

Appreciate any help or pointers you could give me

[howie_isaacks]

I noticed in the plist for AutoUpdate that you have settings for notifications. The notification settings in the plist and the payloads you setup for notifications may be conflicting. Try using this as your plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>ChannelName</key>
	<string>Production</string>
	<key>AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy</key>
	<string>RequiredDataOnly</string>
	<key>UpdateCheckFrequency</key>
	<integer>720</integer>
	<key>StartDaemonOnAppLaunch</key>
	<true/>
	<key>HowToCheck</key>
	<string>AutomaticDownload</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Obviously modify anything you need to before using this. We want Office apps updates to be installed automatically. We have notifications settings set for each app.

[fspa9686]

Hey Howie!

I gave this a try and that notification still showed up for one of my users. One thing we noticed is that it seems to only happen when an app that Microsoft AutoUpdate deals with is open. As shown below, upon them clicking the notification and opening MAU, it looks like it does it only when an app that it is trying to update is open.

Now from what I researched when first looking into this, MAU replaces the application when it is closed. So I guess it would make sense why it only does this when the corresponding app is open. I guess I am still a bit lost.

Any thoughts? Also I appreciate your time in helping

[howie_isaacks]

This has not been our user experience. I frequently see notices in Outlook that an update will install when I close it but I have not see a notification about the updates pending. There has to be a conflict somewhere. Look in /Library/Managed Preferences for com.microsoft.autoupdate2.plist. Here's what it looks like on my Mac:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>AcknowledgedDataCollectionPolicy</key>
	<string>RequiredDataOnly</string>
	<key>ChannelName</key>
	<string>Production</string>
	<key>HowToCheck</key>
	<string>AutomaticDownload</string>
	<key>StartDaemonOnAppLaunch</key>
	<true/>
	<key>UpdateCheckFrequency</key>
	<integer>720</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

I have no notifications set in my profile that contains the settings we want to push down to every Mac for MAU. Notification settings are handled by a different profile. If you add notifications settings for the same app in two or more different profiles it will cause a conflict.

[scottb]

Here's one I'm using and it works well.  Not sure why you're getting different results, but see if this works.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>ChannelName</key>
    <string>Current</string>
    <key>DisableInsiderCheckbox</key>
    <false/>
    <key>EnableCheckForUpdatesButton</key>
    <true/>
    <key>HowToCheck</key>
    <string>AutomaticDownload</string>
    <key>SendAllTelemetryEnabled</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

[fspa9686]

Thanks everyone! I guess I'll need to give this a try and see if the notifications go away.

One other question I had about Microsoft AutoUpdate is about the logs. I know that logging has to be enabled, but is there any way I can see logs from AutoUpdate on a machine from Jamf? My understanding is that the logs are stored locally on the machine but I was wondering if there is a way I could see them in Jamf Pro without having to bother a user to check logs in case I need to check them?

Thanks!