Microsoft 365 Apps

Sharing Templates and Logos with an Organisation Asset Library

Richard Green on 30th July 2020

At Arcible, we love our brand and we want to make sure that it gets used correctly. We have standard document templates, high-quality versions of our corporate logo, and more. We want these to be used and used correctly. If there isn’t an organisation asset library that is easily accessible to users then they are more likely to go off-piste and make up their own. When you’ve worked hard to create and design a brand, you want to make sure that users stay on it.

With Microsoft 365, we have various ways that users can author content and access information so making sure that our asset library is accessible to them across all of these modalities is important. This is where the SharePoint Online organisation asset library feature comes in.

Using the Office Configuration Service

Richard Green on 12th June 2020

Hands up if you’ve just wanted to get Office deployed or updated on a bunch of machines but struggled with writing the configuration XML file for it? What about remembering to add all the required properties or what the attributes available for each one are? Difficult right? Sounds like the Office Configuration Service is just for you then.

At Arcible, we’ve talked about the Office Configuration Service in passing before and we really like it not only because it simplifies the creation of the XML files for us but also because it saves all the files generated through the service within the Tenant making them available to access again-and-again and acts as part of our documentation.

The Problem with using Documents as Templates

Richard Green on 5th June 2020

We could make this the shortest blog post ever and simply say that you should not be using documents as templates but that wouldn’t make for a very engaging post or explain what we’re talking about or why.

If you’ve worked in the business for any amount of time you will have come across templates that people share. They could have come from HR, from Marketing, or from someone in your team trying to help everyone standardise. The trouble is, these templates helpfully shared often aren’t templates and they lead to unforeseen problems down the line.

Update Channels Change to Microsoft 365 Apps

Richard Green on 13th May 2020

In the ever changing landscape of Microsoft 365, there’s more news and this time it’s a change regarding the names of the Microsoft 365 Apps Update Channels and cadence. Two weeks ago, we posted about the formal product name change from Office 365 ProPlus to Microsoft 365 Apps. Following this change, we now have another change and that is in the Update Channels mechanism for the products.

Previously there were three Update Channels: Monthly, Semi-annual Channel Targeted, and Semi-annual. Monthly meant you got the latest features every month. Semi-annual Channel (SAC) meant you got updates every six months. Semi-annual Channel Targeted (SAC-T) meant you got updates every six months but that you were in the first wave to get the SAC update slightly ahead of everyone else but that all changes now.