Manage your Office 365 Updates More Efficiently

In the recent Office Mechanics Show, Julia White announced that Microsoft has released over 450 updates to Office 365 this year. New changes have been made to Office 365 change management and tools, and all the changes came from customer feedback.

How Microsoft will roll out Office 365 updates:

Microsoft knows how Office 365 updates may potentially impact your organization, so they are determined to ensure quality updates for their customers by giving you time toprepare. Microsoft does this with a set of Rings of validation for changes occurring.

Rings of validation for changes:

• Feature teams (Ring 0) – The start of validations by a team of engineers who build and test proposed changes.
• Office 365 team (Ring 1) – The Office 365 team takes a test drive before releasing proposed updates to all Microsoft employees.
• Microsoft employees (Ring 2) – After passing three internal validation hurdles, roll out begins with First Release customers.
• First Release (Ring 3) – Once the First Release customers have validated the updates, Microsoft incorporates their feedback before the worldwide rollout.
• Feedback (Ring 4) – Since Office 365 is so massive, a staggered release to tenants needs to be implemented, with changes usually taking a few weeks or more.
• Worldwide – Worldwide rollout!

Turn on first release