M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

Should you address compatibility issues before or after rolling out a new version of MS Office?
There has been much debate about whether companies should address compatibility issues before or after deploying a new version of MS Office. The post deployment approach, or fix on fail, seems to be the easy answer at first glance. Rather than trying to test each and every file in the company, a potentially time-consuming and expensive process, this approach means that only the files that have a problem and are currently being used will be fixed. There are some obvious and hidden costs to this approach that must be considered. End users will uncover compatibility issues while they are attempting to do their day-to-day work, so with each issue that is discovered lost productivity and frustration occurs. Additionally, if numerous files have compatibility issues then end users may develop the impression that the new version of Office is unstable or not as good as the prior version. As productivity is affected by each file that is broken, more and more pressure is placed on the team responsible for fixing the files to provide instant fixes or face the prospect of being overwhelmed with end users looking for status updates of their problem files. A second option is to test and fix all of the files before deploying the new version of Office. While this approach will avoid the downtime and aggravation associated with the fix on fail approach it can delay the Office deployment significantly. A modification of this approach is to test and fix a subset of the files, such as those files that were last modified in the past 60 or 90 days. The third option is a hybrid of the first two. Many companies decide to test and remediate the files on network shares prior to the Office deployment and then enable end users to submit problem files from their local machines. The primary deciding factor as to which approach is best for a company is the amount of risk they are willing to face. Companies that have large numbers of users who depend heavily upon their Office files working will need to focus the migration efforts prior to deployment. Companies that are less reliant on their Office files working when Office is deployed are more able to use the hybrid or fix on fail approach.

Telemetry Dashboard Overview

Both the MS Office Telemetry Dashboard and ConverterTechnologys M3 Suite for Office are a suite of tools intended to assist companies during a migration to Office 2013 from prior versions of Office. There are both technical and philosophical differences in how the two function. The Office Telemetry Dashboard is designed to log and track compatibility issues when they happen. The M3 Suite for Office is designed to identify compatibility issues before they occur. The Office Telemetry Dashboard includes a Telemetry Agent that is installed on each end user machine. Each time an Office file is used the Telemetry Agent tracks the following events: OnOpen, OnClose, and OnError. The information that is collected for each user is stored locally initially then uploaded to a central database. Using a fix on fail approach during an Office migration can be a valid approach for some companies, but it is important to recognize all the hidden costs involved. If end users could be relied upon to fully test all of their vital Office files before they actually needed to use them, all would be good. Unfortunately, most end users will not test their files until they actually need them. This means when a compatibility issue is encountered the end user is

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409

M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

prevented from doing their normal work task until someone remediates the problem. The Telemetry Agent can compound this problem. Each time an error occurs in the file an entry is made in the log. However, if the VBA code is not executed when the file is open no error occurs. Therefore, no entry is made in the Telemetry Log indicating that there is a migration issue and the file is classified as stable with no issues. Even when issues are found in a file, the Overview in the Telemetry Dashboard will list a file as stable if 95% of the time the file is opened it does not fail. This means that if a file is opened 20 times but only once is the VBA code that fails executed the file will be given a status of Stable. In a small, uncomplicated file there may be only the one issue that needs to be resolved. However, in a larger file there may be many compatibility issues. This means that the team remediating compatibility issues will need to take the time to fully test all of the VBA code in the file to uncover any and all of the other compatibility issues or risk the possibility that after remediating the file , the end user will encounter a separate issue which will start the cycle all over again. Whether each file is fully tested and fixed the first time or the file is submitted each time an issue is encountered the end user is faced with being unable to do their work until the final fix has been processed. Hours of impaired productivity can be costly and add up quickly, but is often not tracked as a cost of the migration. A bigger challenge when using the Telemetry Dashboard to manage an Office migration occurs when there are multiple files with the same name. Consider the scenario in which a file exists on a network share and an end user has a copy locally, as well. The end user opens the network version of the file and encounters a VBA issue. He then tries his local copy and has the same problem. The Telemetry Dashboard will record that a single file was opened twice and failed. When the remediation team views this information they will only see the path to the file that was opened last in this case the local copy. After they make the necessary changes to the file and notify the end user that the file has been fixed the end user opens and tries to run the network version. Since the remediation team is not aware that the network based file exists, it was not fixed. The file will fail with the same error. The end user then opens and processes the local version of the file with no problem since it has been fixed. This time the Telemetry Dashboard will record that the file was opened twice but failed once. Although new failures will be logged, unless the network version of the file is the last copy that is opened the path will never be made known to the remediation team and end user frustration will quickly mount. Properly identifying and fixing files with duplicate names is a very pervasive issue with Office migrations. Defining the workflow when using the Telemetry Dashboard takes careful planning. Although the consolidation of information into a central database is automated, the actual identification and remediation of files with compatibility issues must be carefully planned. The first question that must be answered is how does the remediation team find out that a file is broken? The remediation team can view the Telemetry Dashboard for this information, but a schedule must be created (and followed) detailing how often the dashboard must be viewed. Another possibility is that the end user could send a message to the remediation team each time they encountered a file with a compatibility issue. Once the remediation team is aware of a problem file they must have access to it. Does the end user bear the responsibility of sending the file to the remediation team or does the remediation team have the necessary access and permissions to directly access the file where it is? Finally, once a file has been remediated how does the remediation team inform the end user that the issue has been resolved? All these issues require careful planning and execution. In larger enterprise, the issues become more complex to

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409

M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

handle due to jurisdictional issues, time zones, distributed business units, etc.

M3 Suite for Office Overview

The main components of the M3 Suite for Office are listed below: DiscoverIT non-agent tool designed to scan network drives to identify files that are in scope for an Office migration and the attributes of the file that can impact a migration (if a file has VBA, passwords, links, etc.) OfficeConverter scans Office files, singly or in batches, to identify VBA compatibility issues in all of the VBA modules and automatically remediate many of the issue found Click2Fix web based portal designed to enable end users to select and submit problem files for scanning with OfficeConverter, view the results of the scan and download remediated files ReportIT collects information from DiscoverIT, OfficeConverter and Click2Fix and provides detailed and summary reports of the status of the Office migration LinkLab add-in tool for Word and Excel for remediating links that break when files are converted from the Office 2003 naming format to the Office 2013 naming format

DiscoverIT quickly inventories Office files on network shares and collects information about each file to enable the migration team to identify the files that are at risk. Details such as when the file was last modified, whether it contains VBA code or links and whether or not the file is password protected are key factors in scoping the migration project. Click2Fix is a web based product designed to enable end users to identify and submit files that they store locally for testing and remediation. Email notifications are sent to the migration team each time a file is uploaded and to the end users when their converted files are available for download. This tool can be used as the principal remediation strategy or as a post migration clean up tool for local files or previously unidentified files. Once the files that are in scope for the project have been defined the files are processed in batches by OfficeConverter. In a single step OfficeConverter performs the following steps on each file: scans all of the VBA code for compatibility issues, automatically remediates 90%+ of the known issues, lists all of the VBA references and whether or not they are valid, lists all of the links in the file and the status of each link, and converts the file to the new Office 2013 format. It has a full audit trail of what was remediated and does not immediately delete the original file. Migrating MS Office 2003 binary format files to the new XML format used by Office 2013 adds an often overlooked risk to files containing links to other Office documents. By changing the extension in the file name links within documents can suddenly break. Even worse, if both the original file and the newly converted file exist in the same location the document containing the link will continue to pull obsolete data from the original document. LinkLab is designed to enable end users to manage and solve this problem. LinkLab runs as an addin for Excel and Word on the desktop and scans all of the links within the open document. Files that exist in both formats are identified by LinkLab, as well as links that have broken but a new version of the file is available, and LinkLab will update all of the links in the document with the click of a single button.

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409

M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

Methodology
In the Office 2013 compatibility guide Microsoft defines four phases to the modern Office compatibility process. The phases are Discover, Rationalize, Validate and Manage. The Discover phase refers to identifying what files are being used, who uses the files and how often. This information is used to identify the files that are most likely good example files for compatibility testing. The Rationalize phase is a collaborative effort involving IT and business users. The goal is to identify the files that are business critical and need to be ready on day one of the Office deployment. The Validate phase is a pilot deployment of Office during which users test their documents. In the Manage phase Office is deployed and the help desk is responsible for monitoring the performance of Office files and troubleshooting any issues that arise. Based on over 12 years of experience helping large enterprises successfully deploy new versions of Office, ConverterTechnology has developed a slightly different four phase approach: Discover, Scan and Convert, Testing and Redeploy. The Discover phase defines the scope of the migration project and identifies all of the files that are both in scope and at risk. DiscoverIT, a tool designed to scan files on a network share, identifies files that are at risk based factors such as last accessed or modified date and whether or not a file contains VBA code, links and ActiveX controls. During the Scan and Convert phase batches of files are scanned for compatibility issues and most of the issues are automatically remediated. Any compatibility issues that are not automatically remediated are logged and identified for manual remediation. User acceptance testing is performed during the Testing phase to verify changes that were made. The final step is the Redeploy phase when the files are moved into production. At first glance the methodologies used by Microsoft and ConverterTechnology seem quite similar. However, the information that is provided, the impact on the IT and help desk teams, and the overall project duration can be significantly different. Identifying the files that are at risk is the first step in both methodologies. The time required to identify these files using the modern Office compatibility process is directly related to what time frame is considered to be in scope. For example, if any file that has been opened in the past 30 days is used as a starting point after deploying the Telemetry Agent it will take 30 days of usage to identify that file set. Using a starting target of at least 60 or 90 days, which is typical of most companies, only extends this phase. The same information can be collected using DiscoverIT in a matter of days or weeks depending on the size of the file shares. Sorting through the information collected by the Telemetry Dashboard during the Rationalize phase involves a review of the files by business users and the IT staff to define the in scope files. What criteria are used to make this decision? According to Microsoft, the goal of this phase is to identify the business critical documents. This approach seems to assume that by looking at a list of file names the individuals representing the business users will know exactly which files are important. The impact of the Rationalize phase to the modern Office compatibility process can be the largest factor on the duration of the Office migration project. Selecting too many files means that files that are not truly vital will still be opened, tested and remediated one at a time. With an average of 10 minutes per file the number of man

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409

M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

hours required adds up quickly. If too few files are selected, or the wrong files are selected, the help desk will be inundated with priority calls on day one of the rollout by end users dealing with broken files. The Discover phase of the ConverterTechnology M3 Suite for Office combines the objectives of the Discover and Rationalize phases of the modern Office compatibility process. With a single, automated scan DiscoverIT identifies all of the files that are in scope based on your companys selection criteria and removes the need to review lists of files and make selections based on fuzzy logic. Automating the scoping portion of the project also minimizes, if not alleviates, the chances of selecting the wrong file set. During the Validate phase of the modern Office compatibility process each file that is in scope is manually opened, tested and, if needed, remediated. As mentioned above, with a conservative estimate of an average of 10 minutes per file 500 files would take one person just over two weeks to process. Depending on the Office application, OfficeConverter will scan and convert a file in an average of 10 seconds. Many companies that have used OfficeConverter have 90% or better success rate for compatibility issues being automatically remediated. The remaining 10%, in this case 50 files, would take one person just over 8 hours to manually remediate using the same average 10 minutes per file. The final phase of the modern Office compatibility process is Manage. At this point in the project the IT staff or the help desk team is monitoring the Telemetry Dashboard for files that have a compatibility issues and troubleshooting those issues. In practice, it is more likely that the help desk will not need to monitor the Telemetry Dashboard since most users will be contacting the help desk when the issue is encountered or wasting time and money trying to fix the file themselves. This phase could potentially be very hectic and stressful for the enterprise if the scoping process was not done perfectly. During the Testing phase of the M3 Suite for Office regression tests are run to validate the compatibility issues have been resolved before the end users receive the files. Once the Redeploy phase is done the need for end users to contact the help desk will be minimized, if not completely removed.

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409

M3 Suite for Office versus Telemetry Dasboard

Office Telemetry Dashboard

Phase Discover Tool Telemetry Agent What it Does Monitors each files when it is opened and logs compatibility issues Review the files identified during the Discover phase and select the files that are considered in scope Users test the documents defined as in scope during the Rationalize phase Monitor files that are used each day and troubleshoot issues as they arise

Rationalize

Telemetry Dashboard

Validate

Telemetry Agent, Telemetry Dashboard Telemetry Agent, Telemetry Dashboard

Manage

ConverterTechnologys M3 Suite for Office

Phase Discover Tool DiscoverIT What it Does Scans network shares and identifies files that are at risk base on attributes such as date last accessed/modified, contains VBA/ links/ActiveX controls Scans batches of files to identify all of the compatibility issues in a file and automatically remediates most compatibility issues User acceptance testing Move functioning files back into the production environment

Scan and Convert

OfficeConverter

Testing Redeploy

Click2Fix LinkLab

1 Tara Boulevard, Suite 301 Nashua, NH 03062-2809

Experts in Enterprise Migrations.

convertertechnology.com Tel: 603.880.9118 | 800.541.7409