Online is entirely hosted in the cloud and is accessed through a web browser. Most Online applications contain only the most common features but can be accessed from anywhere, and from any device that has an internet connection. Online acts as a portal for storing and sharing data – and maximizes communication and collaboration on all types of work.

Desktop gets installed onto a computer, tablet, or mobile device. Desktop includes full featured professional versions of applications and can be accessed while offline.

Most people benefit from the professional Desktop applications since all features are available and may only use the Online applications for making quick edits from a hotel or internet cafe before a presentation.

Others may find that the Online applications are all they require to complete their work.

When used together, people get the best features and the best options for storing, sharing, collaborating and communicating – all through a seamless experience.

Office 365:  Online + Desktop = Maximum Productivity

Office 365 will stop working fully once an account is no longer licensed/active with Brock. It will go into a very limited state until you associate an updated/active account, purchased by yourself or from another institution.

“The cloud” is a friendly way of describing web-based computing services that are hosted outside of Brock. With Office 365, information storage, computation, and software are located and managed remotely on servers owned by Microsoft. Many services you use every day are a part of the cloud—everything from web-based email to mobile banking and online photo storage. Because this infrastructure is located online or “in the cloud,” you can access it virtually anywhere, from a PC, tablet, smartphone, or other device with an Internet connection.

One of the benefits of using Office 365 Online is that your documents save in real time automatically, meaning you don’t have to hit save. Because these apps are programmed to autosave, some of them don’t have actual save buttons.

Go to myoffice.brocku.ca to begin self-service installation of Office 365.

There are a few known reasons why the installation process may fail below:

• Existing programs were still running during the installation. All running programs need to be closed before installing Office Desktop.
• The computer account being used to install Office Desktop does not have administrative rights.
• The KACE agent is not installed on the computer (for computers on Campus domain without administrative rights).

Installing Office Desktop may take between 5 – 30 minutes to complete. Wired connections will deliver a better experience than when being connected to WiFi.

If the Install Now button is missing, it is most commonly due to the computer not having the KACE agent installed.  Contact the IT Help Desk for assistance.

The installation process does not remove previous version of Office. Applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from previous versions of Office can be opened in the event that features such as Mail Merge or Add-ons don’t work properly with the new versions. Outlook however is upgraded during the installation process.

Yes, it is a great practice to keep system performance optimal, but it is highly recommended to thoroughly test the use of Macros, Mail Merge and Add-ons in Desktop before removing previous versions. Otherwise, previous versions can be uninstalled with the following methods:

Uninstall Office 2010 – Self Service for on-campus computers

Uninstall Office 2013 – Self Service for on-campus computers

To remove, office from non-campus computers, uninstall previous Office versions from the Control Panel\Programs.

Submit a Security Access Request Form on BrockDB and wait to be contacted by IT with payment instructions.