Unblock Copilot by switching into and enabling Cloud updates for Current channel in Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center

Originally posted by Microsoft Oct 9, 2023 Uncategorized 0 Comments

New capabilities coming soon to Microsoft 365 Apps admin center to help Admins unblock access to Microsoft 365 Copilot on licensed devices! Now Admins can activate Current Channel Profiles in Cloud Updates and switch Update Channels for their Devices or AAD Groups in Inventory.

Overview of upcoming changes:

In Inventory (https://config.office.com/officeSettings/inventory), Admins can switch channel of their devices or AAD Groups by clicking ‘Show all devices’ under Data Insights and then clicking ‘Switch Device Update Channel’ link over the Device Schema. The can pick targeted channel and devices/AAD groups in the flyout and click ‘Move Devices’. Device/(s) will reflect in targeted channels in Inventory within 24 hours and will continue to receive updates from Internet. If Cloud Updates are not already enabled, the Channel Change action will also automatically enable Cloud Updates, in other words, activate Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel Profiles – if not already active. This way you can unblock your Copilot users from accessing Copilot capabilities. Checkout this ‘How-to’ video to learn more: How to trigger an update channel change for devices in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

Cloud Updates will offer an ‘Enable Cloud’ button on the home dashboard of Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center, 6will activate profiles for Current channel and/or Monthly Enterprise Channel (if not already active) in about 30 minutes. If the change does not reflect, it is suggested to refresh the webpage. Devices will be mapped to respective profiles based on their channel and will receive updates based on Profiles rules as configured by the admin. Checkout this ‘How-to’ video to learn more: Cloud Updates – Enabling the Current Channel Profile 

All the ‘Tenant Settings’ in Overview Page of Cloud Updates i.e. ‘Exclude Groups’ and ‘Exclusion Window’ will be applicable across all active profiles i.e. Current and Monthly Enterprise Channel.

Exclude Groups: If an admin adds an AAD Group to ‘Exclude Groups’ setting, the devices in this group will be excluded from Cloud Updates. The devices will be marked under ‘Cloud Update Status’ column as ‘Excluded from Current Channel or Monthly Enterprise Channel’ in the Inventory (Device Schema) within 30 mins. After this information is reflected in Inventory, Admins can manage these devices by first setting ‘ignoreGPO = 0’ for these devices before beginning to manage them using management tool of choice. Checkout this ‘How-to’ video to learn more:  Cloud Updates – How to exclude devices using Azure AD groups.

In Current Channel Profiles, Overview Page will have Rollout information representing current and next release dates for updates. Update Progress chart will display devices in the current channel which have been updated to the latest version available as well as which have not yet started the update. Admin can view all devices which are part of Current Channel profiles by clicking ‘View all devices.’  Learn more in this video:  Cloud Updates – Overview of Current Channel Profile

In Monthly Enterprise Channel Profiles, you can now validate updates in production via Deployment Validation. This will help you get statistically significant report for application compatibility across all your add-ins on devices in first wave to give you a high confidence for further rollouts to remaining waves. Microsoft highly recommends that you move all your devices from non-monthly channels such as semi-annual into Monthly Enterprise Channel to alleviate any of your application compatibility/ add-in related concerns with respect to updates. Learn more here: Introducing Deployment Validation in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center

When this will happen:

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out these changes from mid-October 2023 through mid-November 2023 to all customers except those using group inclusions.

How this will affect your organization:

The transition to the new release of Cloud Update and inventory will happen automatically.

FAQs:

1. When can I see these capabilities in my tenant?

Tenants which have fully adopted Cloud update aka Servicing profiles and are not using group inclusions qualify for receiving these new capabilities between mid-October 2023 to mid-November 2023. So, if you are using group inclusions because you have any devices which you do not want to be onboarded to cloud update, move them into AAD groups and use the ‘Exclude Groups’ feature to exclude them from cloud update while onboarding all the other devices. This way your tenant will qualify for all new features much sooner. 

2. Will devices change their assigned Microsoft 365 Apps update channels?

No, this will not affect your update channel configuration.

3. What are the goals of this change?

To unblock devices from using Copilot and to give the Admins a single pane of management for all their monthly update channels, reduce admin burden and provide more visibility & control over build rollout.

4. When should I Enable Cloud?

If you want to use the latest Copilot features, track update progress across Monthly and Current Channel devices of your environment in one aggregated view, and benefit for the many upcoming new controls such as ‘Pause updates’ and ‘Update Deadlines’ for Current Channel etc, you should click ‘Enable Cloud’ or ‘Finish Enabling Cloud’ (for existing Monthly Enterprise Channel Profile Customers).

5. Will Enabling Cloud impact any of my other settings and controls?

It will not impact any of your configurations or controls in existing profiles, if any.

6. What’s the Microsoft recommended action for me with respect to these changes?

For the best-in-class, low cost, low effort, high end-user productivity and most supported management experience of Microsoft 365 Updates, we highly recommend our customers to:

• Enable Cloud Updates – this will activate your Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel profiles
• Use Channel change capability to move ideally all of your devices to Current or Monthly enterprise channel. This is especially recommended if your organization is using Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Do not use Group Inclusion, instead use Exclude Groups feature to exclude any critical devices which you do not want to be managed via Cloud update.

Microsoft highly recommends that admins enable Cloud update and move all of their devices Monthly Enterprise and/or Current channels for accessing Microsoft 365 Copilot, for getting the latest collaboration experience and productivity enhancing features and fixes faster, as well as for significant reduction in admin burden and management costs! Please share your feedback on the changes via the ‘Give Feedback’ button in the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center.

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