Create Office 365 Installer using SCCM

There have been many different posts about deploying Office 365 with SCCM. The majority of them used the Office Configuration tool in a more or less creative way.

An easier method has been available for awhile to help SCCM admins to create the “perfect” Office 365 package. The SCCM Office 365 Installer is a new feature released in SCCM 1702. SCCM Office 365 Installer provides an easy-to-use wizard to define every related item for an Office 365 application.

Whether you are new to creating Office 365 package or simply want to refresh an older package, this solution will ease every step of creating an Office 365 package.

In this post, we will detail how to use the Office 365 Installer creation wizard.

If you are looking for How to Update Office 365 using SCCM, see our previous post.

Prerequisites

• SCCM Current Branch 1702 and up

Create SCCM Office 365 Installer Package

• Browse to Software Library / Office 365 Client Management

• Select Office 365 Installer

• Define the Name and Network path to store the content for the Office 365 installation

• Select Manually specify the Office 365 client settings

• Select
  • Suite:
    • Office 365 Business
    • Office 365 ProPlus
    • For more details about suites, see the following Microsoft documentation
  • Applications :
    • Acces
    • Excel
    • OneDrive for Business(Groove)
    • OneDrive (Desktop)
    • OneNote
    • Outlook
    • PowerPoint
    • Publisher
    • Skype for Business
    • Word
  • Additional products:
    • Project
    • Visio
    • Remember that licenses are required even if installed

• • Select
    • Architecture
      • 32-bit
      • 64-bit
    • Version: leave blank for the latest release
    • Channel:
      • Monthly
      • Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)
      • Semi-Annual Channel
      • More details on Office 365 channels on Microsoft documentation
    • Languages
    •  Properties
      • Accept EULA
      • AutoActivate
      • Shared Computer Activation
      • Pin icons to the taskbar (Win7/8.x only)

• A prompt will display when selecting the Accept EULA

• Select to deploy the application now or not. Deploying it now will also ask to distribute the content.

• Summary

• Progress, this will actually download the content to install Office 365. It will take some time.

• Completion

Result

The content folder has the Office Deployment tool, configuration.xml and actual bits of the Office click-to-run installer

Configuration.xml has almost all the required information in it.

• An application is automatically created at the root of Software Library / Application Management / Applications

• The Detection method is automatically populated.

This is by far the easiest method to create an SCCM Office 365 application or package. No problem of syntax in the Configuration.xml, no problem to define the Detection Rule.

SCCM Office 365 Inventory Report

Remember to look at our free Office 365 report to keep track of your deployed version and channel.