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Webex Teams product update controls

Feb 18, 2020 — Patrick Eustace

You’re in control

Available to all customers with our May Desktop update, Webex Teams customers will have the ability to control product updates, allowing you to choose how often Webex Teams is updated for your users, providing you with the option to update the app monthly or quarterly. This will allow the number of updates presented to users to be reduced if desired. We’re also enabling you to defer the deployment of these by up to 4 weeks for the monthly update or up to 2 weeks for the quarterly update to enable your business to complete any required validation of the software update. These app update controls will be available through your Admin accessed Control Hub.

Continuous delivery of product improvements

We are witnessing the rapid growth and adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) apps in enterprises across all sectors. With an increasing shift of our workload to the cloud, already almost 100% of all enterprises are using some form of cloud service today.*

Our monthly delivery of Webex Teams adopts this SaaS model and provides users a monthly set of new features and content. With each monthly update of the Webex Teams desktop apps, an organization can easily stay up to date with the very latest features and fixes delivered by our product team, and we would always encourage customers and partners to stay on this cadence.

In fact, much of these improvements are delivered on our Webex platform which is continuously updated to deliver new end users experiences. Keeping on the latest app updates will ensure that your users can take advantage and enjoy these new updates.

Meeting business needs

We recognize that our customers wish to gain the advantages of continuous delivery but balance that with the organization’s needs to be in control of what software is deployed on their desktops and what user experiences are provided.

This balanced approach empowers administrators to meet the needs of stakeholders such as their Security Team but at the same time realize the benefits of managed continuous delivery.

What’s on offer

With these new changes we’re enabling an administrator to opt in and reduce the cadence of the Desktop app updates while also providing for a preview period prior to the rollout of the product update. This new product update program puts the control into the hands of the administrators as

they can choose through Control Hub to deploy Webex Teams at a cadence which works best for their organization. Our cadence options range from every month to every 3 months (Quarterly).

The preview period, defined through a deferral option on Control Hub, complements the cadence program which allows for an organization to preview the product updates prior to an organisation-wide roll out. This deferral window will allow the administrator to pass any required internal validation checks and also allow for the creation of any collateral to support a companywide update or roll out of Webex Teams. This deferral period can range from 1 to 4 weeks.

In Control Hub, administrators can review when any updates are scheduled to roll out to their organization, according to the cadence and deferral options which have been chosen. As normal, end users will receive the standard update icon in Webex Teams and the app will continue to auto update on restart.

Mobile

Our Webex mobile applications can be controlled via Mobile Device Management / Mobile Application Management solutions. More information can be found here

As we move toward a Webex unified application, you will see a continued evolution of the product update management program.

Further Reading
https://help.webex.com/en-us/1c148db/Configure-Product-Update-Controls-for-Webex-Teams

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IT administrators can add configuration policies to devices that are enrolled in an EMM solution. Sign in to the EMM console and approve Webex Meetings from Managed Google Play. IT administrators can then add app configuration policies for the Webex Meetings mobile app. After a user installs Webex Meetings, their device automatically configures the app.