Managing User Software Through Office 365

Details

Office 365 provides options to choose which software users want to download and they can directly installit  to their devices. This is a great advantage for the users to directly install the software from the Office 365 portal.

But at the same time the admin can also allow the users to install only some applications but restrict them frominstalling the other software. In this way Admin can set the organization level policy.

To configure the above settings (which software user can install from the office 365 portal), perform the following steps:

1. Sign In to Office 365 - https://portal.office.com
   
   
2. Make sure you have admin rights, then only you can configure these settings.
   
   
3. If users have admin rights and are signed in to the Office 365 portal on home page you could see the “Admin” option as shown in following figure
   
   
                              Figure 1 : Admin option on Office 365 home page
   
   
4. Click on “Admin” option, then user wilbe redirected to the Office Admin Center as,
   
   
                                                         Figure 2 : Office Admin Center
   
   
5. From the Left side options Go To “SERVICE SETTINGS >> User software” as shown in below figure
   
   
                                                      Figure 3 : Manage user software
   
   
6. User will be redirected to “Manage user software through Office 365” page where we (admin) can set the options for the users like which apps we want to keep available for download as
   
   
               Figure 4 : Manage user software through Office 365

Here I am using the trial version under Office Developer program so I could see the above options which I can set so that other users of my organization who have office 365 licenses can download and install those softwares on their devices.

As from Figure 4, users of my organization can install Office 2016, Skype for Business, SharePoint designer etc. Also there isan option to get the updates   either every month or every four months. There is alsoan option available to install Office 2013 version.

When user selects Office by default it includes all the software, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. But, Admin can set the option of which are allowed tobe downloaded  and installed and which are not. Admin can restrict them.

These options available here completely depend on which Office 365 subscription organizations have. Different Office 365 subscriptions have different options.

If Admin does select the option to install the Office, the user will see a message that Office installations have been disabled when they go to the manage User Software Page.

Also to download these softwares and install them, the user will require local administrator rights on their device (Computer, Laptop etc. )

References :

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