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Overview of Office 365 ProPlus
Published: July 16, 2012
Summary: Contains information about and recommendations for setting up and using the Office 365 ProPlus client suite in your organization.
Applies to: Office 365 ProPlus
Audience: IT Professionals
Office 365 combines the Office 365 ProPlus client suite, Project Pro for Office 365, and Visio Pro for Office 365 together with cloud versions of Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online. The Office 365 ProPlus offering provides the complete Office client suite as a monthly subscription service. The combination of the Office 365 ProPlus suite and the Office 365 services provides the best way for users to collaborate on documents. It also enables them to work either online or offline and provides access to documents, email messages, and calendars from almost any device.
The Office 365 ProPlus subscription enables customers to purchase monthly licenses for each user. Each user license gives users five concurrent installations.
Note:
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Both 32- and 64-bit versions of Office 365 ProPlus are available. However, we recommend that you install the 32-bit version. For more information, see 32- and 64-bit editions of Office 2013 products in this article. For detailed information about deployment considerations for Office 365 ProPlus 64-bit, see 64-bit editions of Office 2013. |
You download and manage Office 365 ProPlus from the Office 365 portal. After you download Office 365 ProPlus, you can make the Office suite available to users in your organization, based on the number of user licenses that you sign up for. The deployment procedures in Deployment options for Office 365 ProPlus guide administrators when they set up and use Office 365 ProPlus in small businesses and enterprise environments.
The download process for Office 365 ProPlus is known as Click-to-Run, a streaming and virtualization technology that is designed to significantly reduce the time that is required to download and use Office 365 ProPlus client products. Streaming enables users to begin to use a Click-to-Run program before the complete program is downloaded. For more information about Click-to-Run, see Overview of Click-to-Run and Overview of Click-to-Run for Office 365 setup architecture.
Audience: IT Professionals
Important:
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This article is part of the Content roadmap for Office 365 ProPlus for IT Professionals. It applies to Office 365 ProPlus. Are you looking for help with installing Office with Office 365? You may be looking for Get started with Office 365 and Install Office with Office 365, which will help you learn how to set up and use Office 365 on your computer, phone, and tablet. |
In this article:
What’s included in Office 365 ProPlus
Office 365 ProPlus includes the same applications that are available in the Office Professional Plus 2013 client suite. These include the following:
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Access
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Excel
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InfoPath
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OneNote
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Outlook
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PowerPoint
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Lync
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Publisher
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Word
Depending on the plan that you purchase for Office 365, the subscription license may include access to Microsoft SharePoint Online and Office Web Apps for viewing and editing documents on the web.
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Note:
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Office Web Apps is available only with an Office 365 plan that includes SharePoint Online. |
Office Web Apps are web browser-based versions of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word applications that enable users to access and edit documents, regardless of their location:
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Excel Web App
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OneNote Web App
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PowerPoint Web App
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Word Web App
32- and 64-bit editions of Office 2013 products
Servers and desktop computers that use 64-bit processors can use more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit systems. This enables users to work with very large data sets and to analyze and solve large computational problems. Office 2010 introduced native 64-bit versions of Office products to take advantage of this larger capacity. This additional capacity is needed only by those Excel users who require Excel spreadsheets to access more than 2 gigabytes (GB) of addressable memory. The 32-bit version of Office 2013 provides the same functionality and is also compatible with 32-bit add-ins. We recommend the 32-bit version of Office 2013.
Installation recommendation
Office 2013 also provides support for 32-bit Office 2013 applications that run on 64-bit Windows operating systems by using Windows-32-on-Windows-64 (WOW64). WOW64 is the x86 emulator that enables 32-bit Windows-based applications to run seamlessly on 64-bit Windows systems. Office 2013 lets users continue to use existing Microsoft ActiveX Controls, COM add-ins, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which are primarily 32-bit because no 64-bit versions are available yet for many add-ins. Support for 32-bit Office 2013 applications that run on 64-bit operating systems provides better compatibility with controls, add-ins, and VBA.
The 32-bit edition of Office 2013 is the default installation even on computers that run a 64-bit edition of Windows. The installation recommendations are as follows:
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If users in your organization depend on existing extensions to Office, such as ActiveX controls, third-party add-ins, in-house solutions that were built on earlier versions of Office, or 32-bit versions of programs that interface directly with Office, install 32-bit Office 2013 (the default installation) on computers that run both 32-bit and 64-bit supported Windows operating systems.
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If some users in your organization are Excel expert users who work with complex Excel spreadsheets, they can install the 64-bit (x64) edition of Office 2013 to move beyond the 2 GB addressable memory boundary that is imposed on 32-bit editions. Note that this boundary differs from the physical (on disk) size of the spreadsheet on your computer's hard disk drive. It is possible to have an Excel file whose size on disk is smaller than 2 GB, but which, when the file is opened, contains enough data to occupy 2 GB or more of addressable memory. In addition, if you have in-house solution developers, we recommend that those developers have access to the 64-bit edition of Office 2013 so that they can test and update in-house solutions on the 64-bit edition of Office 2013.
System requirements
For information about the system requirements for Office 365 clients, see the following resources:
Office 365 ProPlus and volume licensed product comparison
The following table summarizes the differences between Office 365 ProPlus and volume licensed editions of Office 2013.
Differences between Office 365 ProPlus and volume licensed editions of Office 2013
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Download location |
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Software |
Office Professional Plus |
Office Standard 2013 Office Professional Plus 2013 |
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Deployment options |
Office 365 portal Unmanaged options (through Click-to-Run) |
Managed options (through Microsoft Installer [MSI]) Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) |
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Product key and activation |
Subscription-based activation Terms: monthly per user license |
Volume licensing technologies: Key Management Service (KMS): 180 days Active-Directory-based activation: 180 days Multiple Activation Key (MAK): perpetual activation |
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When Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) starts |
In 60 days from last activation |
KMS: No RFM - Notification mode in 180 days Active-Directory-based activation: No RFM - Notification mode in 180 days MAK: not applicable |
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Allowed number of copies |
5 active installations on different devices per user |
One device per license\activation |
Office 365 ProPlus components and interactions
Office 365 ProPlus includes new activation technology that enables a monthly subscription model. Every month, Office 365 ProPlus automatically verifies the status of a user’s subscription. The validation process requires Internet access.
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If a user has a valid subscription, Office 365 ProPlus is activated for another 30 days.
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If the user’s subscription cannot be verified, Office 365 ProPlus enters a 30 day grace period.
During the 30 day grace period, Office 365 ProPlus tries to verify a user’s subscription every 24 hours. If, by the end of the 30 grace period, Office 365 ProPlus still cannot verify the status of a user’s subscription, Office 365 ProPlus enters Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM).
For information about how to reactivate Office 365 ProPlus if Office 365 ProPlus enters RFM, see General troubleshooting in Office 365 ProPlus.
For detailed information about the Office Professional Plus client components and interactions, and the validation process, see Overview of licensing and activation in Office 365 ProPlus.
Office Professional Plus for Office 365 also uses Microsoft Office 365 desktop setup, an additional component that is downloaded from the Office 365 portal. For more information, see Deployment options for Office 365 ProPlus.
Licensing and activation
Office 365 ProPlus offers a pay-as-you-go per-user licensing model. When a user's Office 365 ProPlus subscription is canceled, Office enters reduced-functionality mode (RFM or read-only mode). In contrast to the traditional Office 2013 client activation, which requires the user to enter the 25 character product key, Office 365 ProPlus automatically obtains a product key and activates it. The user has to enter his or her user ID for Office 365 and password only one time to validate the subscription. A user can have up to five concurrent installations by using the same user ID and password.
To verify the licensing state of the Office 365 clients, the clients must have reliable Internet access every 30 days. For more information about activation, see Overview of licensing and activation in Office 365 ProPlus.
User authentication methods
In small business scenarios, the organization's administrator sets a new domain name and creates a user ID for his or her account during the Office 365 sign-up process. The user ID is an email address and password combination that is used to sign in to Office 365. Administrators use their user ID to sign in to perform administrative tasks, view billing and account information, and use any of the services. These include Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.
The administrator adds users to the organization's subscription and creates a new user ID for each user. New users are assigned a temporary password and are asked to change it before they sign in for the first time. To learn about sign-in, passwords, and managing user accounts and permissions, see Get started with Office 365 and What is my user ID and why do I need it?.
When the Office Professional Plus for Office 365 setup is complete, users are prompted to install the Online Services Sign-in Assistant. The user ID for Office 365 manages user credentials. To sign in and use the services, you must install Online Services Sign-in Assistant.
In enterprise environments that have deployed Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) on premises, administrators can configure the following services:
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Single sign-on or identity federation. By using single sign-on, Active Directory users can use their existing Active Directory corporate credentials (user name and password) to access services in Office 365 for enterprises. Single sign-on in Office 365 uses Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 (AD FS). Deploying AD FS enables you to extend your organization’s existing identity management capabilities to the Internet.
To learn about requirements, advantages, and preparing for identity federation, see Single sign-on roadmap.
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Active Directory synchronization. If your organization has Active Directory installed on-premises, you can synchronize user accounts, contacts, and groups from your local Active Directory to Office 365. To do this, when you subscribe to Office 365 for enterprises, you use the Online Services Directory Synchronization tool. This tool is used to keep your local Active Directory synchronized with Office 365. This enables you to create copies of each user account and group, and also enables global address list (GAL) synchronization from your local Exchange Server 2013 environment to Microsoft Exchange Online.
To learn about how to prepare for directory synchronization, installing the Directory Synchronization tool, synchronizing the directory and verifying synchronization, activating users, and managing directory synchronization, see Directory synchronization roadmap.
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Domains. When you sign-up for Office 365, a new domain is automatically provisioned for your account. This domain is fully functional. You can use the domain to send and receive email messages, create SharePoint sites, and create public websites. If your company already has a registered domain name, you can redelegate that domain so that it can be used in Office 365.
When you redelegate your domain, you change the destination of domain services—such as email messages and web hosting—to point to Office 365. In Office 365, you can partially redelegate your services. By using partial redelegation, administrators can change domain destinations while maintaining the existing relationship between their company and the domain registrar. To learn about how to redelegate a domain, see Set up and manage domains in Office 365 enterprise.
Deployment options
You can find detailed information about the options available for deploying Office 365 ProPlus at Deployment options for Office 365 ProPlus.
Customization tools
You can find detailed information about the tools for customizing Office 365 ProPlus at Deployment options for Office 365 ProPlus, Overview of Click-to-Run customization, and Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run.
