Expected behaviour of Office desktop apps with an RM Unify federated Microsoft 365 account
Published Date : 16 Feb 2018
Last Updated : 03 Oct 2024
Content Ref: TEC6099702
Operating System
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Summary
Explains the expected behaviour when accessing locally installed Office desktop apps when you have an Microsoft 365 domain federated to RM Unify.
Symptoms
You have an Microsoft® 365™ domain federated to RM Unify and users with Microsoft 365 accounts and mailboxes.
You also have locally installed Microsoft Office apps (Excel, Word etc.) on your network devices.
You may or may not have RM Unify device single sign-on (SSO) enabled for your network.
Cause
There are two key points
RM Unify does not sign users in to locally installed Office desktop apps in any automatic way, even with SSO enabled. RM Unify SSO is for single sign-in to RM Unifyand any apps installed to RM Unify.
Once a user has signed in to an Office desktop app, they should stay signed in that device, including through reboots and logoffs, until their credentials change.
Requirements
The expected behaviour is that users will need to manually sign in to their Office desktop apps using their Microsoft 365 account.
Procedure
How to manually sign in to an Office desktop app
Launch the Office desktop app.
Click File, Account, 'Sign in'.
When users sign in, they will get a slightly different experience, depending on their version of Office:
The Office 2013 sign in dialogues are Microsoft branded, but beneath the surface RM Unify processes the account authentication.
The Office 2016 sign in experience initially displays a Microsoft window requesting an email address. Once a federated email address is entered, the user will be taken to the RM Unify login page to authenticate.
Persistence of the user's sign in
When a user signs in to an Office desktop app, an entry is created in Windows Credential Manager. It is these credentials which are used to sign in to Office apps the next time that user logs on to that device.
Access Windows Credential Manager by clicking Control Panel, User Accounts, Credential Manager.
The image below shows the credential entry that was saved after signing in to Office 2013.
Note: The persistence level of this credential is 'Local computer', so it will not roam between different computers.
Possible Issues
Microsoft has noted an issue with the Credential Manager approach when using third party federated identity providers (such as RM Unify) and have provided an update to help improve the user experience: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/2913639.