Jamf Pro - Detecting Office versions on Macs using smart groups

Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 applications use some of the version numbers, but it can be important to distinguish the version to scope your policies correctly. For example, you might want to find all your machines running 2019 so you can upgrade them without touching the ones that are already upgraded. You may also have machines running Office 2016, which can be distinguished by version number, and some users may be logged in to Office 365.

This article will show you how to identify these different scenarios using Smart Groups.

Microsoft Office 2016 has version numbers ranging from 15.x up to 16.16.x.

Microsoft Office 2019 started with version 16.17, increasing up to 16.54 and beyond.

Microsoft Office 2021 started with 16.53. These are the same binaries as the current versions for 2019 of 2019 and O365; the only difference is which license is activated.

Because there is overlap with 16.x, we need to use regular expressions in Jamf to properly determine which version is installed.

Office 2021 Smart Group

• Create a new Smart Group.
• Under Criteria, click Add and select "Office License Type"

  You may need to click "Show Advanced Criteria" to see Office License Type

  .

• Configure it as
• Configure it to:
• Click Add again and select Application Version.
• Configure it to:
  
  Example image:
  

Office 2019 Smart Group

• Create a new Smart Group.
• Under Criteria, click Add and select "Office License Type"

  You may need to click "Show Advanced Criteria" to see Office License Type

  .

• Configure it as
• Click Add again, and select Office License Type again.
• Configure it as
• Cick Add again select Application Title.
• Configure it to:
• Click Add again and select Application Version.
• Configure it to:
  
  Example image:
  

Office 2016 Smart Group

• Create a new Smart Group.
• Under Criteria, click Add and select Application Title.
• Configure it to:
• Click Add again and select Application Version.
• Configure it to:

Office (any version) Smart Group

• Create a new Smart Group.
• Under Criteria, click Add and select Application Title.
• Configure it to:

Computers without any Office version Smart Group

• Create a new Smart Group.
• Under Criteria, click Add and select Application Title.
• Configure it to:

All of these will only detect Office installations that include Excel. If someone installs only, for example, Microsoft Outlook, it will not be detected properly by these Smart Groups

Contact

If you need assistance creating policies or smart groups, please contact the Endpoint Management team at euc-help@mit.edu.

Related articles

See Jamf Pro - Software Deployment for more information on how to create deployment policies.
See [Jamf Pro - Third-party software patching] for information on deploying new updates as they are released.
See Jamf Pro - Installing and updating Microsoft Office