Microsoft has announced in a message on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center that it will automatically begin updating all devices with Office apps to the Monthly Enterprise Channel next month. The Redmond giant is urging commercial customers to get ready for the move for various reasons, based on user feedback.
The Monthly Enterprise Channel allows users to get new Office updates on the second Tuesday of each month. The monthly release schedule is particularly useful for organizations with IT departments looking for a predictable release schedule for downloading new features, security improvements, and non-security patches.
“Customers on a monthly feature update cadence, such as those customers on Monthly Enterprise Channel, have reported higher satisfaction than those receiving semi-annual feature updates. In addition to receiving the latest features and fixes, having all devices on the same update frequency helps enable better collaboration experiences for users in your organization,” the company explained on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Microsoft noted that this change affects both existing and new Office installations in tenants on all update channels except the Monthly Enterprise Channel. Additionally, Microsoft Office will get updates “directly from the internet.” It should make it easier for IT Pros to keep their Office installations up-to-date.
For end-users, this switch to the Monthly Enterprise Channel will happen in the background while using the Office 365 apps. With this change, users will be able to get some new features that were not previously available in their tenant.
Microsoft recommends IT Pros to opt-out of this change before May 20
To prepare for this change, IT admins will need to manually opt-out before May 20 to keep their devices on the existing channel. To do so, head to the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center, select View details option available on the notification. Finally, click the Keep my devices on current configuration button.
Microsoft plans to begin rolling out this change to Microsoft 365 commercial customers in late May, and the deployment is expected to be complete in early June. Do you think that moving to the Monthly Enterprise Channel will help to reduce the administrative workload in your organization? Let us know in the comments section below.