Microsoft has warned Mac subscribers of Office 365 that they must be running either macOS Sierra or macOS High Sierra next month when the company updates the productivity applications. 'As of the Office 365 for Mac September 2018 update, macOS 10.12 or later is required to update to the new version of the Office client apps for Mac and receive new feature updates,' Microsoft announced in a. Microsoft will probably deliver the Office 365 September update around September 11 or 12 if it sticks to the usual monthly refresh schedule. Related: At that time, the Office applications — Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint — will be updated from their current Office 2016 designations to the new Office 2019 labels, assuming that the suite is running on a Mac powered by macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or 10.13 (High Sierra).
Microsoft Office 365 — Pros And Cons. What’s Office 365? Traditionally, the Microsoft Office has become a program application that you install, and download on more than one PC’s under one.
Those that are not will continue to receive Office security updates but will no longer get new feature updates. The same caveat will apply if the user declines the September refresh to Office 2019: No new features will be offered the applications. Previously, Microsoft said that Office 2019 for Mac — the 'perpetual' license version of the suite — would be supported on only the of macOS. Office 365 for Mac sports the same requirement.
Once Apple releases macOS 10.14, a.k.a. 'Mojave,' this fall, Office 2019 and Office 365 must be running on systems powered by that edition, or its predecessor, High Sierra, to receive new feature updates. 'When a new version of macOS is released, Office 2019 for Mac's. Requirement becomes the then-current two most recent versions at that time: the new version of macOS and the previous version,' a said. But because Apple's policy is to support the newest version of macOS and the two previous versions, there may be Macs that continue to receive operating system security updates but that will not be served by Microsoft with new Office features. According to analytics vendor Net Applications, last month macOS Sierra and High Sierra accounted for a combined 78% of all Mac user share.
Research by GetApp shows that Microsoft Project (MS Project) is increasingly becoming the go-to project management tool among small and midsize businesses (SMBs), despite the fact that SMBs are not traditionally Project’s target end user:. In 2016, GetApp that 67 percent of businesses surveyed use MS Project. Of those respondents, three in four work in SMBs.
In 2017, GetApp surveyed SMB project managers who plan to switch to MS Project and that of those, 84 percent plan to do so within six months. Microsoft’s 30+ year-old reputation as a market leader is certainly a compelling reason to consider investing in their. However, before rushing into an investment decision, we encourage SMB project managers to evaluate their needs and be sure that MS Project is truly the best fit for their business. Just as with any project management (PM) tool, there are pros and cons to consider. In this report, we highlight three Microsoft Project pros and cons to help you evaluate if this PM solution is the best fit for your SMB. Microsoft Project Pros To compile the pros, we analyzed data from 200 reviews given by real users during 2016 and 2017, published across Software Advice, GetApp and Capterra.
To read these reviews for yourself,. The following are the main positives—or pros—reviewers report with using this system. Pro #1: Integration with Microsoft software suite Specifically, compatibility with Office 365,. In fact, integration with Office 365 is the number one driver for SMB project managers wanting to invest in MS Project, according to GetApp’s research. Additionally, MS Project shares a familiar interface with other Microsoft products, such as Excel, which makes the program intuitive for many users. This is important for companies that work with clients as client preference or level of familiarity with a certain tool or operating system can often be the deciding factor in which PM system to invest in. Example of MS Project Professional UI Pro #2: Prominence in the industry Many users refer to MS Project as the “defacto PM tool that every project manager should be familiar with.” The product’s prestige is due in large part to its worldwide distribution, the similarity to and integration with other Microsoft products and again, the fact that it has been on the market for over 30 years.
This “pro” is a positive for users in another way as well: The number of tutorials and guidance videos available online is astonishing. When searching for videos on YouTube, other popular PM products, such as or, have roughly 11K and 6K results respectively, while MS Project has over 4.6 million. Comparison of YouTube search results for MS Project, Workfront and Wrike (as of November 2017) Pro #3: Scheduling While there are challenges cited with some of the product’s functionality (see next section), at it’s core, MS Project is a solid project planning and scheduling tool. Starting in the base package, Project Standard, Microsoft offers for project planning and timeline visualization, the ability to link dependent tasks or create sub tasks and the ability to set baselines for tracking progress. From there, capabilities scale in the higher-tier packages, Project Professional and Project Server.
Gantt Chart in Additionally, with each new release of MS Project, Microsoft makes product enhancements to better meet the needs of their users, including launching Project Online, the cloud-based version of MS Project. More recently, if you’re a Project Online subscriber, Microsoft ‘s made their product compatible with, and have added features such as scrum and kanban task boards. Microsoft Project Cons To compile the cons, we analyzed data from 200 of our advisor consultations with MS Project users during 2016 and 2017 to discover the top reasons why these SMBs are looking to replace the system. The following are the three key challenges—or cons—that are driving SMBs to replace MS Project with a different PM solution.
Con #1: Not ideal for collaboration and sharing data Collaboration is a common theme we see among buyers looking to replace MS Project Standard and Project Professional. To put it simply, on-premise solutions:. Do not update in real-time as progress is made or statuses change. Make it difficult or time consuming to share data with stakeholders and the process to share data requires a significant degree of manual effort. Are purchased and installed on a desktop (and in the case of Microsoft software, on Windows PCs), which makes working remotely very challenging SMBs needing to collaborate in real time can purchase Project Online Professional or Premium for project managers and then purchase the scaled-down Project Online Essentials package for team members. However, SMBs should note that the cloud-based packages are not exact copies of the desktop tools. This means that the capabilities are not the same across platforms.
This drives many businesses currently using an on-premise version to look for a different PM solution rather than just switching to the cloud version of MS Project. Con #2: High learning curve Current users report that MS Project requires significant training and experience with the tool to use it effectively. The high learning curve makes it difficult for the layman, people new to the program or non technical users, often resulting in poor user adoption. Additionally, several SMBs report difficulties with custom reporting, resource planning and portfolio management. Whether this is the result of a lack of training on how to perform these functions or a lack of depth/advanced capability within the tool itself, is unclear. It’s possible that SMBs experiencing frustration with these applications have not upgraded to the most recent version of MS Project.
As new features are rolled out in new versions, organizations that do not upgrade will not have the full capabilities of the tool available to them. However, especially when there are several user licenses that need to be purchased, the cost to upgrade can be prohibitive. Which leads us to the third MS Project “con.” Con #3: Price The high cost of MS Project is a recurring complaint we see in both user reviews as well as hear from SMBs looking to replace the system. The cost for the desktop plans (Project Standard, Project Professional and Project Server) is such that SMBs can only reasonably expect to purchase a handful of licenses. This in turn causes issues with collaboration and sharing information in real time with both the project team, executive stakeholders and external clients. While there are cloud-based versions of MS Project (Project Online Professional or Project Online Premium), as stated above, they are not exact copies of the desktop tools, i.e., functionality is not the same across the deployment options. Meaning the capabilities are not the same across platforms.
This discrepancy causes many businesses to stay with the desktop versions. Is MS Project Right For Your SMB? While there are many advantages to using MS Project, it’s not the best fit for every organization.