Microsoft is releasing new, highly requested abilities for IT admins to update Microsoft 365 apps via servicing profiles.
According to the company, the new servicing profiles features, now generally available, are designed to make managing Microsoft 365 app updates more modern and easier for IT admins, allowing for more control over which users get automated updates and when, the ability to rollback and exclude updates for certain groups, more control over disk space used for updates and the option to target all devices.
The company says Servicing profiles allows admins to use automation to deliver its monthly updates on Patch Tuesday to apps for users or groups directly from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Microsoft says a new custom rollout waves feature allows admins to pick the order in which groups of users and devices get updates. This allows admins to build deployment rings for testing, piloting and future releases. Using Azure Active Directory, admins can create up to three custom waves, and a last “catch-all” wave will be added automatically, as well as set the number of days between the start of each wave.
Microsoft is also extending the rollback function to support groups, giving admins the ability to roll groups of devices back to the last known good build via Azure AD groups.
Servicing profiles also allow admins to exclude certain devices from updates, which may come in handy when some devices need to be updated manually through other processes.
Admins can also use the servicing profiles to target all devices, as well as better control disk space.
Admins can use the Azure AD group filtering feature to pilot the service with a small group of devices first and then expand to more devices.
For more information, read Microsoft’s Tech Community blog on servicing profiles, as well as the company’s documentation for more detailed guidance.
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