Enterprise Value
Applies to: Office 365
Microsoft Office applications are available in many Microsoft Office 365 subscription plans, and versions are available for both Windows and Mac operating systems. Office 365 customers can download and manage by using the Office 365 portal. The following Office features support IT professionals responsible for deploying and managing Office in an enterprise environment.
Five installs per user on PC or Mac
The Office Licensing Service (OLS) enables a user to install Office applications on up to five computers (PC or Mac) at the same time. If the user tries to install Office applications on a sixth computer they will receive an error message. The user can deactivate one of the first five computers on which Office applications are installed, by using OLS. That will release the license and allow the user to activate the sixth computer. Learn more about Office 365 ProPlus licensing and activation.
Automated user account provisioning
Office 365 provides several methods to add users to the service and manage user accounts. Learn more about Office 365 ProPlus.
Multilingual user interface
Users can change the editing, display, ScreenTip, and Help languages of their Microsoft office programs, so that they appear in their preferred languages. The languages available to users depend on the language versions of Microsoft Office that are installed on their computer. Additional language versions of Office applications can be installed from the Office 365 portal.
Client push deployment
In managed enterprise environments, administrators who have signed up for Office 365 can use the Office Deployment Tool to customize Click-to-Run installations to allow users to install Office applications from an on-premises location instead of installing from the Office 365 portal. This is useful in scenarios where administrators want to minimize the demand on the network or to prevent users from installing products from the Internet because of corporate security requirements. Learn more about deploying Click-to-Run by using the Office Deployment Tool.
Client support for on-premises Exchange
If your organization has Exchange Server 2013 deployed on-premises and you have Office 2013 installed on your computer, you can open Office attachments in Microsoft Outlook 2013 that you receive directly by email. Learn more about What's new in Outlook 2013 and previewing and opening attachments in Outlook 2013.
Client support for on-premises SharePoint
If your organization has SharePoint Server 2013 deployed on-premises and you have Office 365 ProPlus or Office 2013 installed on your computer, you can view and edit Office files in a SharePoint document library. Learn more about collaborating on documents in SharePoint 2013.
Control of software updates
By default, Click-to-Run for Office 365 installations are automatically updated, and the update process automatically detects and downloads the new data in the background. Enterprise administrators can opt to have updates automatically delivered to users or they can stage and deploy Click-to-Run updates from an on-premises location by using the Office Deployment Tool. Learn more about deploying Click-to-Run by using the Office Deployment Tool. For Office for Mac 2011, create your own Office 2011 image with the updates and then deploy to client computers. Learn more about deploying Office for Mac 2011 to client computers.
Database Compare
Similar to Excel Spreadsheet Compare for Access databases, you can choose two Access databases and get a report of the differences between tables, queries, modules, and more. This feature exists as a separate program within Office Professional Plus 2013, and not within Excel 2013. For more information, see Compare two versions of a database.
Desktop virtualization
Customers can use Remote Desktop Services (RDS), a role in Windows Server, to provide a centralized server on which they can install Office. Users log on remotely to this centralized server to run Office. Organizations can also use Remote Desktop Services with Hyper-V to deploy virtual desktops to users. To deploy Office 365 ProPlus by using RDS, you need to use shared computer activation. To learn more, see Overview of shared computer activation.
Excel Spreadsheet Compare
Compare multiple versions of a workbook side-by-side to quickly gain visibility of important changes down to the cell level, including changes to workbook structure, formulas, cell values, VBA code, cell format, and more. Rest easy during an audit knowing that you have an audit trail of the changes in your workbooks. For more information, see Compare two versions of a workbook by using Spreadsheet Compare.
Excel Spreadsheet Inquire
Diagnoses your workbooks for errors, inconsistencies, hidden information, data dependencies, and other important aspects. Excel Spreadsheet Inquire includes valuable tools like workbook analysis, relationship diagrams, and Spreadsheet Compare. For more information, see What you can do with Spreadsheet Inquire.
Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Archiving and Compliance
Office applications include support of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online In-Place Hold, which can help your organization meet message retention and eDiscovery requirements.
Group Policy support
Office 2013 includes Group Policy Administrative Template files (ADMX, ADML) with new policy settings that apply to both Windows Installer-based (MSI) and Click-to-Run Office 2013 installations. These new templates include settings related to security, performance, Telemetry Dashboard, Outlook, OneNote synchronization, Office templates, and Add-in management. Learn more about Office 2013 Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool (OCT).
Information Rights Management
Some Office 365 options include Azure Rights Management (RMS), which allows users to apply Information Rights Management (IRM) protection to documents. Learn more about using rights management within Office 365.
Office 2013 includes a new Information Rights Management (IRM) client, which has a new user interface (UI) to help simplify identity selection. It also supports automatic service discovery of on-premises Windows Server Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) servers. In addition, Office 2013 has read-only IRM support for Office Online. Office Online can view IRM-protected documents in a SharePoint library or IRM-protected documents that are attached to messages in Outlook Web App. Learn more about Information Rights Management in Office 2013 and Information Rights Management in Office for Mac 2011 Deployment Guide.
Office Add-in, ActiveX, and BHO support
Office 365 ProPlus supports existing Office solutions, including add-ins, ActiveX controls, and Browser Helper Objects (BHOs). To learn more about building Office solutions that target the .NET Framework, see Office Solutions Development Overview. To learn more about building Office solutions that focus on web integration, see Create Apps for Office by using Visual Studio.
Office Telemetry
Office Telemetry is a new compatibility monitoring framework that works with Office 2013, Office 2010, Office 2007, and Office 2003. This framework can speed up Office deployments by helping you discover business-critical Office documents and solutions in your organization. To learn more about Office telemetry, see Office 2013 compatibility guide and Deploy Telemetry Dashboard.
Offline support for client applications
Office Online launches from a web browser and relies on an Internet connection. To view and edit Office files while disconnected from the Internet, Office desktop apps must be installed on your device.
Optimized side-by-side client installation
Click-to-Run support of side-by-side installations of Office means that you will not have to uninstall earlier versions of Office to use Office 2013. Users can test the new Office version without having to uninstall their current version. After you complete testing, users can uninstall the earlier version of Office. Learn more about Click-to-Run.
Power Map for Excel
For 3D data visualization, Power Map provides mapping, exploring and interacting with geographic and temporal data. Customers can visually plot up to a million rows of data in 3D on Bing Maps, view data in a geographic space, and share findings through screenshot scenes and cinematic, guided video tours. To learn more, see Get started with Power Map.
Power Pivot for Excel
For analyzing and modeling data, Power Pivot enables customers to create flexible models within Excel that can process large data sets quickly using the in-memory database found in Microsoft SQL Server. You can customize the model as needed all within Excel – no extra coding needed. For more information, see Power Pivot: Powerful data analysis and data modeling in Excel
Power Query for Excel
For data search and discovery, Power Query is a data search engine customers can use to query data from within their business and from external data sources on the Web, all within Excel. Partners will provide a private version of this search engine so businesses can customize the engine and index the data sources they commonly access. Power Query also cleans and merges data sets from multiple sources, enabling IT and BI users to focus on data insights rather than data management. For more information, see Connect to Internal and External Data Sources.
Power View for Excel
For visualization and exploration, Power View enables you to manipulate data and compile it into charts, graphs, and other visual means. Great for presentations and reports that provide new insights at the speed of thought with highly interactive, familiar data exploration, visualization, and presentation for all levels of skills. For more information, see Power View: Explore, visualize, and present your data.
Roaming settings
Roaming settings are a small group of settings that are tolerant of the nature of remotely-synced data. They connect to user-specific data that affects the Office experience and remain the same across logins, whether on a desktop, a laptop, or a mobile device. Learn more about Office 2013 user and roaming settings.
Shared computer activation
Shared computer activation enables you to deploy Office 365 ProPlus to computers in your organization that are shared by multiple users. For example, if you use Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to provide shared desktops that users connect to remotely, then you need to use shared computer activation.
To use shared computer activation, you must deploy Office 365 ProPlus by using the Office Deployment Tool. To learn more, see Overview of shared computer activation.
Support for blocking cloud-based file storage
By default, Office 2013 gives users access to Office files that reside on the Internet. However, there is a new registry setting that, when enabled, prevents a user from accessing those resources. Look for UseOnlineContent in the registry. There is also a new SignOnOptions registry setting to determine which ID types to offer a user at log on—their Microsoft account ID or their work or school account. Or you may choose to disable these settings and restrict users to on-premises content and access. Learn more about Authentication in Office 2013.
Version upgrades
Office 365 is a subscription-based service that provides the most up-to-date versions of Office software. When a new version of Office is released, Office 365 customers have access to the new version.
For customers who do not have an Office 365 subscription, access to a new version of Office, such as Office Professional Plus 2013, is available only to those customers who have Software Assurance. Learn more about Office 365 ProPlus.
Volume activation
Activation establishes a relationship between the software product key and a particular installation of that software on a device. For volume licensed editions of Office 2013, Microsoft includes product activation technologies and requires that these products are activated. Three volume activation methods are available for Office 2013: Key Management Service (KMS), Multiple Activation Key (MAK), and Active Directory-Based activation. Learn more about Office 2013 volume activation.
Feature Availability
To view feature availability across Office 365 plans, standalone options, and on-premise solutions, see Office Applications Service Description.
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