NHS organisations face numerous challenges when deploying a new version of Office 365 within a Trust; many are often unique to the NHS and carry major risk. Frequently, alternative approaches and additional steps are required to smooth transition.
One such example is the scripted SCCM deployment approach presented by Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber (RDaSH) at a NHS Digital update session. The solution has allowed the Trust to solve the problem of protecting its VPN and slow links by first populating data locally on the client and then making the application available to the users based on SCCM compliance baselines.
However this is not the only challenge that Trusts are facing, many of whom have contacted BDS Solutions to support additional requirements. Such as the issue of being unable to mandate a deployment, with the native Office installation only lending itself to being triggered by end users.
Enhancing Office 365 deployments
BDS Solutions is continuing to help and support NHS Trust’s identify enhancements to their existing deployment processes, providing additional controls over how and when their installation takes place. By ‘wrapping-up’ the setup process, it is possible for Trusts to enforce deployment in ways that are sympathetic to its end users whilst also allowing IT to retain full control over how and when the deployment takes place.
For example:
- Calling a WinForms GUI, which prompts the user to start the deployment and warns then to save and close any office applications. Such a GUI can be configured in various ways depending the deployment scenario. Such as:
- Allowing the user to cancel the deployment.
- Restricting the number of times a user can cancel a deployment before the option is removed.
- Without the cancellation option a timeout can be provided to user after which the installation will start automatically.
- Allowing the deployment to start automatically if there are no users currently logged on to the computer.
- Allowing the deployment to start automatically if users do not current have any office documents open.
There is no one size fits all approach, with different groups of users having different requirements at different stages of the rollout process. However what is common is that as functionality and security for legacy Office versions continues to diminish, Trust IT departments require evolving solutions that will allow them to retain granular control and the ability to mandate deployments while not impacting on patient care.
For more information on BDS Solutions’ Deployments and Migrations