Change the Office 365 ProPlus update channel for devices in your organization with Intune

The benefit of running Offie 365 ProPlus is that is it always update date with both features for Office apps and security updates.
As a IT admin you can control how often this happens in your organization, this is done with update channels. The different channels lets you decide when your end user are getting new features. No matter what channel your are selecting for your end user you will get security and non-security update every month.

When you are installing Office 365 Pro Plus from Intune you are selecting channel :

It you at some point want to change the channel to another one. You can change Office ProPlus channel in both directions – and the installed Office version with change accordingly.

In my example I have installed Monthly (Target) and want to change it to Monthly

TABLE 1

Update channel	Feature updates	Security updates	Non-security updates
Monthly Channel	Monthly	Monthly	Monthly
Semi-Annual Channel	Every six months, in January and July	Monthly	Monthly
Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)	Every six months, in March and September	Monthly	Monthly

 

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Create a policy in Intune to change Office Pro Plus update channel:

Start Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center : https://endpoint.microsoft.com

1. Select Devices
2. Select Windows
3. Select Configuration profiles
4. Click Create profile

1. Select Platform : Windows 10 and later
2. Select Profile : Administrative Templates

1. Enter Name : Set Office 365 ProPlus update channel to Monthly

1. Click Computer Configuration
2. Click Microsoft Office 2016 (Machine)
3. Click Updates
4. Select Update Channel
5. Select Enable
6. Select Channel Name : Monthly Channel

Set Scope tags as needed.
I have created a group “Office 365 ProPlus update channel Monthly” and assigned it to the policy.

You can create a Intune profile for each Office ProPlus update ring and deploy it to different groups in your environment to test out the different Office rings.

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What happens on the end user device?

You can check the channel in about on of your installed Office products – as you can see this is on  Monthly Channel (Target)

You can see the policy being applied in regedit:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\office16v2~Policy~L_MicrosoftOfficemachine~L_Updates

If you cannot wait for the “Office Automatic Update 2.0” to run you can start it your self.

By default the scheduled task is running:

• Weekly – Every day at 3.00AM
• At log on – At log on of any user
• On Idle – When computer is idle

You can always follow you update channel :

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\Configuration

Monthly Targeted:
http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/64256afe-f5d9-4f86-8936-8840a6a4f5be

Monthly:
http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/492350f6-3a01-4f97-b9c0-c7c6ddf67d60

Semi-Annual Targeted:
http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/b8f9b850-328d-4355-9145-c59439a0c4cf

Semi-Annual:
http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/7ffbc6bf-bc32-4f92-8982-f9dd17fd3114

 

Happy deployment

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Read more:

Change the Office 365 ProPlus update channel for devices in your organization

Overview of update channels for Office 365 ProPlus

Update history for Office 365 ProPlus (listed by date)

Change management for Office 365 clients

Release information for updates to Office 365 ProPlus