How to setup Shared Computer Activation step by step for your education environment

This is a great feature for using Office 365 ProPlus on multiuser/share machine scenarios such as school labs, classroom carts, VDI, RDS, Citrix, Remote App since you can run Office 365 ProPlus in a shared machine model.

Prerequisites before using SCA:

1) You need to have an Office 365 Education tenant

2) You need to have the Office 365 ProPlus licenses

3) You need to assign those Office 365 ProPlus licenses to the users See license script samples here.

Step by Step to setting up Shared Computer Activation with Office 365 ProPlus

1. Download the Office Deployment Tool for C2R (ODT):

Grab the ODT tool here.

2. Download OPP bits to local location with ODT tool (Note: this download process can be used for SCCM, OS imaging, or other local deployments as well)

Please see here for more ODT information.

Run the setup.exe /download option such as the example:

Be patient: It will take a bit to download about 1GB for the Office 365 ProPlus bits. You will see an \Office folder in the local share and the command prompt will return control when it is done.

3. Now configure your configuration.xml based on how you want updates (local or 100% cloud), versions, 32 or 64 bit, etc. and add in the SCA flag into the same xml file:

First customize your configuration.xml (or any .xml name you would like) using this guidance here.

Add these TWO lines inside of the configuration.xml file if not already present:

<Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="True" />

<Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="1" />

Note: If you are using the default configuration.xml file that came with the ODT tool make sure you remove the comment lines out or it will fail.

4. Install Office 365 Proplus with SCA flag:

Setup.exe /configure \\fileserver\share\configuration.xml  (as an example)

Install will be silent and will also take some time so be patient. It will finish the silent installation when the command prompt returns. When the prompt returns, you will then see Office 365 ProPlus applications like Word, Excel, etc.

Note: this step can be used in SCCM or 3^rd party software deployment solutions as well and just executed on a local workstation or lab workstation, etc.

5. Verify SCA is enabled

a. Within Office application, Click File > Account

b. Verify Screen looks like Figure A and not Figure B

c. If it looks like figure B, SCA was not enabled and revisit steps above

6. If you have an issue, there is a useful troubleshooting SCA link you can visit here.

More things to know about SCA

With ADFS federation to Office 365:

Prerequisites:

1) Office 365 tenant with Office 365 ProPlus license assigned to the users with ADFS federation enabled.

2) Domain joined machine

3) Each user logged in to AD domain with separate user profile

The initial time the user starts Office with SCA enabled and an Office application is launched no prompts will occur since Single Sign On occurs not requiring a prompt.

Without ADFS federation to Office 365:

Prerequisites:

1) Office 365 tenant with Office 365 ProPlus license assigned to the users

2) Unique user workstation log in with separate user profile

The initial time you start Office with SCA enabled and an Office application is launched a prompt to login into Office 365 will occur. This is required to obtain a 3-4 day temp token. No prompts will occur thereafter while the temp activation token is valid.

Sample Configuration.XML file with Shared Computer Activation enabled:

<Configuration>

<Add SourcePath="\\fileshare\office64" OfficeClientEdition="64" >

<Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">

<Language ID="en-us" />

</Product>

</Add>

<Updates Enabled="TRUE" />

<Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />

<Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="1" />

<Logging Path="%temp%" />

<Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" />

</Configuration>

Firewall needs for SCA and OPP Activations

Required URLs for Office 365 ProPlus Activations including SCA:

https://activation.sls.microsoft.com

http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftProductSecureServer.crl

http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftRootAuthority.crl

http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftProductSecureCommunicationsPCA.crl

http://www.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/MicrosoftProductSecureCommunicationsPCA.crl

https://odc.officeapps.live.com

https://ols.officeapps.live.com/olsc

http://officecdn.microsoft.com

go.microsoft.com

office15client.microsoft.com

sls.microsoft.com

Required IP ranges and Ports for SCA and OPP activations:

65.52.98.231:443

157.55.44.71:443

157.55.160.109:443

157.55.192.81

168.62.30.34

See here for the most current Firewall IP/Port/URL list for Office 365 ProPlus.