Microsoft to Retire its Readiness Toolkit for Office Add-ins and VBA

Office 365

Key Takeaways:

  • Microsoft is discontinuing its Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA, with an end-of-support date set for March 31, 2024.
  • The toolkit will no longer be available for download on the Microsoft Download Center.
  • Enterprise customers are advised to generate advanced reports before the deadline to ensure ongoing compatibility with Microsoft 365 Apps.

Microsoft is getting ready to retire its Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA. The toolkit will reach end of support on March 31, and it will also be removed from the Microsoft Download Center.

Microsoft launched the Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA back in 2017. It’s a set of resources and tools that allow organizations to detect compatibility issues with the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros and add-ins used with Office. The Readiness Report Creator tool analyzes Office documents and creates an Excel report to help organizations assess their readiness to switch to Microsoft 365 Apps.

The Readiness Report Creator is designed to check compatibility with multiple Office apps, including Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Visio, Project, Publisher, and Access. It also helps to check for certain types of add-ins used with Microsoft Office.

“After March 31, 2024, the Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA will no longer be available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. Additionally, attempts to generate advanced reports will result in an error message stating that no readiness information could be acquired, and only a basic report will be generated,” Microsoft explained in a message on the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

How to prepare for the Office Readiness Toolkit retirement?

According to Microsoft, the upcoming change won’t affect several other features, such as Silverlight detection, the Signature scan, generating basic reports, and creating inventories of macros or add-ins. However, the company plans to discontinue support for these features by the end of March.

Microsoft suggests that enterprise customers who rely on the advanced report feature in the Readiness Toolkit for Office add-ins and VBA should create the reports before March 31, 2024. Keep in mind that all existing reports will remain functional, but users will not be able to generate any new advanced reports after the deadline. They will be able to access a basic report accompanied by an error message instead.

Microsoft notes that IT admins can use the Microsoft 365 Apps readiness dashboard to assess add-in compatibility within their organizations. If you’re interested, you can find more details on this support page.