How to use the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool to assess the compatibility of a desktop for Office 365

This article discusses the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool and how to use it to assess the compatibility of a desktop for Microsoft Office 365. Many small business organizations want to assess all the computers in their company for compatibility with Microsoft Office 365 services before they deploy Office 365. Until recently, the only options are the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit for Office 365 or the Office 365 Deployment Readiness Tool. However, these tools generally require large, enterprise-level Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) environments to assess the readiness of each desktop.

The Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool is actually not a new tool. It is a different mode of the Office 365 Desktop Setup tool. Instead of signing in to the Office 365 portal, an IT administrator can send users an email message that contains a link that is coded by using specific parameters. The link opens and runs the Desktop Readiness Tool. No authentication is required to run the tool. Therefore, users do not have to sign in, and users can run the tool without having an account that is set up.

Depending on the options that you (the IT administrator) select, all the results can be uploaded to a locally available network share that you specify.

To generate the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool email message that you send to users, complete the Desktop Readiness Tool form. Based on the options that you (the IT administrator) select, the parameters are automatically changed. The following table lists some query string possibilities. As mentioned earlier, the Office 365 Desktop Readiness tool uses the same click-once application link as Office 365 Desktop Setup. To run the tool in readiness mode, users only have to click the link.

Generate the link to run the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool

To generate the link to run the Office 35 Desktop Readiness Tool, administrators must follow these steps:

1. Visit the Desktop Readiness Tool form page, and complete the required fields.
   
2. If you want the results of users' readiness reports sent to a single location, click to select the appropriate check box on the form, create a public network share on the domain, and then add the location to the form.
   
   Note Make sure that permissions are set to enable all users to write to this location.
   
3. After you complete the form, an email message that contains a link to the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool is generated. Copy the contents of the email message, and then forward to the necessary users. The email message is specifically created for your company.
4. In the network share that you created, view the results the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool after the users run it.

View information that is collected by the Office 365 Desktop Readiness Tool

The following data is collected and stored in logs:

• Fully qualified host name and domain name (if the computer is joined to the domain)
• Windows user name
• Microsoft Outlook logon names or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) address
• Version of Windows
• Version of Microsoft Office
• Version of Windows Internet Explorer

When the data is written to the network location, the file name format for the <state> parameter is displayed as passed, update, or failed:

• If the user's computer passed, the state is displayed as passed.
• If the computer requires minor system level updates, the state is displayed as update.
• If the computer requires major system level updates, the state is displayed as failed.

The format of the stored log file is as follows: