In March, 2019 it was announced that Office 2013 clients’ connections to Office 365 cloud services would no longer be supported as of October 13, 2020. That deadline is now looming.

After the deadline, any commercial investments involving Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business – or any Office 365 cloud services – will proceed based on post-Office 2013 requirements, typically Office 365 ProPlus. Ongoing support for Office 2016 and Office 2019 applications in Office 365 will be provided until October 2023. Relevant information on current system requirements can be located on the Office system requirements page, as well as in the Office system requirements matrix.

Microsoft 365

Older Microsoft Office clients will not be blocked from accessing as Office 2013 and Office 2010 and connecting to Office 365 services. However, such legacy clients attempting to connect to an up- to- date cloud service may experience performance and availability issues. Clients will be risking security and compliance issues which Microsoft may no longer be able to resolve due to the service no longer being supported.

To understand how your organization will be impacted by the termination of support, you can visit one of two System Center Configuration Manager dashboards that can will assist with questions, as well as information on how to migrate users:

  • The SCCM Product Lifecycle dashboard permits users to see which versions of Office are running on desktops, and identify which need upgrades to stay in congruence with Office 365 services
  • The Office 365 ProPlus Upgrade Readiness Report, located on the Office 365 client management dashboard, will assist in the identification of inventory desktops that are readily configured to upgrade to Office 365 ProPlus easily.

These dashboards will have the ability to locate users still on Office 2010 and Office 2013 clients, install Office365 ProPlus (or another supported version of Office) to those desktops, and guarantee the support they need after the October 13, 2020 deadline.

If your organization still relies on Office 2013 and is worried about being orphaned in October, call the team at Alliance IT today. We can help you to assess your current vulnerability and make recommendations based on your business model, budget and strategy. don’t get left out in the cold this fall, call today and make your changes in advance of the deadline.