Content Change Notification - Microsoft Visio and Project Name and version changes

wmahmood · ‎Feb 14, 2022

Note:

The below changes were originally part of the February 25th ARL, SKU/PURL/Bundle release. However, the changes had unintended consequences. With the 11th of March release, we reverted the changes and re-activated Visio and Project 2016, 2019, Standard and Professional (that were ignored). The evidences that got linked to the new 16.0 and 17.0 versions are re-linked to the commercial versions.

Based on changes made by Microsoft on Visio and Project, Application Recognition Library (ARL) need to change Product, Version for existing Microsoft Visio and Project applications.

Product Change:

Microsoft ‘Office Visio’ and ‘Office Project’ have been renamed ‘Visio’ and ‘Project’ respectively. All the versions of these products in ARL will be updated accordingly.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/visio/flowchart-software

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/project/project-management-software

Version Change:

Often, Microsoft will release versions based on the build, and the 16.0 version connects with the 2016, 2019 and 2021 versions. We are going to maintain an internal version for 2016, 2019, 2021 as 16.0 and for 2019 as 17.0 in ARL..

New product	Application name	Version	Old version
Project	Project	17.0	2019
Project	Project	16.0	2016/2019/2021
Project	Office Project	2013 and below versions
Visio	Visio	17.0	2019
Visio	Visio	16.0	2016/2019/2021
Visio	Office Visio	2013 and below versions

KACumiskey · ‎Mar 01, 2022

We are not seeing Visio Standard 17.0 (2019) in our All Application listing after the ARL update above. Is this going to be re-added in the near future? We do see Visio 16.0 standard and professional.

LM_BITS · ‎Mar 02, 2022

We agree to KACuminsky!

shuduguru · ‎Mar 02, 2022

Hi @KACumiskey ,

Currently, we dont have evidence for Visio Standard 17.0 in our library. These evidences will be processed in future if we get evidences from customers.

Thank you,
Srivatsa HS

lelfers · ‎Mar 02, 2022

We do have Visio Standard 2019 in our environment and the application was removed due to this update. What is the work around until evidence is added to the library? Do we manually create the application or will it be removed again?

shuduguru · ‎Mar 02, 2022

Hi @lelfers ,

Yes, Please create application locally. Clean up activity is completed , hence no more Visio/Project applications will be removed.

bmaudlin · ‎Mar 03, 2022

Hello,

We have a scenario where in a number of markets we purchase the subscription version of Project and Visio - no problem there as these licences / recognition are part of M365 and we use the Built In-Business Adapter to take care of those.

We have one market however, that still purchases perpetual licences for their versions of both of the apps.

How is it possible that we can allocate the correct licence to the correct application when all Project and Visio versions are showing as v16 in the system following this change?

ericchenns · ‎Mar 04, 2022

We still have too many purchases perpetual license for old and the latest version - 2016/2019/2021.

How can we differentiate them (2016/2019/2021) based on Flexera reporting?

JenniferMunson · ‎Mar 04, 2022

In addition to not being able to differentiate 2016/2019/2021 for perpetual licenses, we are also not seeing the difference between Standard and Professional editions for Visio and Project. They are showing up as Unspecified.

ChrisG · ‎Mar 07, 2022

@bmaudlin - do you know whether in your case there is any difference in installer evidence between installs of software from the different markets?

If the installer evidence is the same then I expect it will be difficult to automatically identify differences. But if the installer evidence is different, then it may be possible to have different evidence linked to different applications.

JosephKaufman · ‎Mar 08, 2022

Please confirm the internal version numbers you have provided as they seem inconsistent. Historically (since Version 2002/ Internal 10) Visio and Project have incremented the internal version number by one every time the Year Version incremented, except internal version 13 was skipped due to Triskaidekaphobia.

MS Project Visio Versions No Dates.jpg

nrousseau1 · ‎Mar 09, 2022

Hello everyone,

The change was done with a good intension (because, with latest releases, the technical version is disconnected from the commercial version), particularly on Visio or Project for Microsoft 365, that can be assumed to be under subscription (here, tracking the technical version would not hurt).

It turns out this is causing big issues on the "historical" installations that are monitored by licenses that are not always maintained and need the commercial version to be tracked.

Apologies for this mistake. We are going to fix it (at latest with March 18th delivery).

Here is the plan, your thoughts are welcome.

We are reverting the changes and will re-activate Visio and Project 2016, 2019, Standard and Professional (that were ignored). The evidences that got linked to the new 16.0 and 17.0 versions will be re-linked to the commercial versions.
We will later create a new Visio for 365 and a new Project for 365 product, that will be linked to the evidences left by the Microsoft 365 installations. These ones were up to now recognized as Project and Visio unspecified editions. These evidences show no version, no edition (in the evidence display name)... The version will be managed for these to "For 365" product with technical version: 16.0 and 17.0
If you created licenses linked to the applications that started to be ignored last week and were no longer recognized, you will see some installations back and licenses will re-consume on these "historical" installations.

Sorry again for the inconvenience that will be fixed very soon.

Any feedback, warning, idea is welcome.

Best regards,

Nicolas Rousseau
Senior Product Manager
Flexera ITAM

nrousseau1 · ‎Mar 11, 2022

Just an update on this.

Today's ARL release rolls back the changes: Visio Project, 2016, 2019, Standard and Professional are back and new Visio and Project For 365 products are created, that only map to 16.0 version so far.

This means the licenses covering Visio (or project) legacy installation and Visio or Project installed from the 365 plan need to be updated with these new products.

Thanks to the ARL team for the quick fix...

Apologies to Flexera ITAM users for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience.

Nicolas

shuduguru · ‎Mar 11, 2022

Many thanks Nicolas.

We have reverted the Visio/Project changes in ARL, and it is going to be part of today’s release i.e., 11^th March 2022.

Summary:

Evidence which contains versions like 2016, 2019 have been mapped to respective application (like 2016 , 2019, 2021 and not for 16.0, 17.0)
Evidence which has only internal version like 16.0 but no edition , is mapped to newly created application called Visio for 365 16.0 application.
Evidence which contains editions and internal versions like 16.0 (doesnt contain version like 2016, 2019, 2021 ) has been mapped to latest version of the Visio application with respective edition. Currently 2021 is the latest version in ARL. This is because 16.0 is coming as part of 2016, 2019 and 2021.

The above same changes have been reverted for Microsoft Project also.

bmaudlin · ‎Mar 16, 2022

Hi @nrousseau1,

I have noticed since the content change the software usage is not being populated under the installed applications page, as shown here >

Screenshot 2022-03-16 215359.png

Screenshot 2022-03-16 215508.png

Is this the expected behaviour?

Ben

nrousseau1 · ‎Mar 18, 2022

Hi @bmaudlin,

The Visio and Project chapters are not closed... the Visio For 365 and Project for 365 are not yet linked to file evidences... and if no installer evidence comes into FNMS, no usage will be reported. We will work on that (you can in-between add the file evidences "not for recognition", and usage will come back.

Another topic we are starting to investigate is that Visio 17.0 (that sounds like the M365 installer) and Visio Professional 2016 of the exact same row version coexist on computers. Does it mean that when Visio 17.0 (is found but not Visio 17.0, this is a legacy on prem installation and when Visio 17.0 AND Visio 17.0 are found, this is a M365? In that case, we will need to create a suite to differentiate M365 installations and legacy Visio / Project installations. I am not a fan of Suites (that hide the stand alone components, that why we have removed the Adobe suites), but this could be a case here where this is necessary.

Any thought / experience is welcome!

Thanks Ben,

Nicolas

bmaudlin · ‎Mar 18, 2022

Hello @nrousseau1 ,

I will have to take a further look into the Visio Pro 2016 perpetual licence, as we do have a bunch of those deployed in one of our markets.

With Visio 365 - I have this installed on my device, and looking at the usageagent.log by all accounts usage should be detected from what I can see in terms of the logging. Appreciate your comments that the file evidence is required to be matched, but the logging seems to be at odds with this >

[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} Adding directory 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office' to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us'
[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} WARNING: File path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office' already assigned to product 'Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise - en-us' (priority 10). Path has been assigned to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us' (priority 10) as its priority is equal or higher.
[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} Adding directory 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun' to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us'
[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} WARNING: File path 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun' already assigned to product 'Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise - en-us' (priority 10). Path has been assigned to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us' (priority 10) as its priority is equal or higher.
[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} Adding directory 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun' to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us'
[18/03/2022 11:38:33 (G, 0)] {7244} WARNING: File path 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun' already assigned to product '' (priority 10). Path has been assigned to product 'Microsoft Visio - en-us' (priority 10) as its priority is equal or higher.

Or is this being flagged due to the click to run installer, and we still need to map the file evidence also? As I see this following entry >

[18/03/2022 09:27:56 (G, 0)] {7244} Session logging: KNOWN PRODUCT Session start (Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\VISIO.EXE, Product: , Product version: ) Session will be added to cache on completion

RobertH · ‎Apr 01, 2022

Microsoft Visio for 365 16.0 Application

Microsoft Visio - en-us 16.0.% Microsoft% => Installer Evidence
Added Visio.exe to File Evidence but I am now getting a error in the UI -> Duplicate Records

Microsoft Visio Online for Office 365 <= Appears to be related to the M365 Connector

VISIOONLINE Microsoft%
Last used date is questionable as I am getting users saying they have not used the software on the resulting dates.
Last used date is quirky. Every machine a named user has assigned gets the same last used date.

I have attached both applications to the Microsoft Visio Professional Online license managed by the M365 Connector. I did this to get the Visio for 365 16.0 application off of the Unlicensed Installations list when the owner of the machine where the software is installed is a Named User for the subscription license.

I also have the following desktop licenses to manage.

Microsoft Visio Professional (License with current SA)
Microsoft Visio Professional 2019 (License only)
Microsoft Visio Standard (L&SA)

The desktop licenses are working fine because the installer evidence names include both the edition and the market version numbers.

nrousseau1 · ‎Apr 01, 2022

Hello,

First a short statement and "how to" because some of you have experienced issues on Visio and Project licenses.

Dear FNMS / Flexera One users, you may have experienced an issue recently (ARL on February 26th) with licenses getting unlinked from the Visio and Project applications. This issue was caused by a change in the ARL that broke the link between applications and licenses (which is surprising because the Visio and Project 2016 and 2019 applications were ignored and not deleted normally in the ARL change) and there is no way, once the license is no longer linked to any application to "restore the link".

Here is a 2 minute procedure that will allow to fix the licenses

Open the license no longer linked to any application.
In the application tab, pick up the latest version supported by your purchases... be careful, this could be an older version (2013 for example), if your license was no longer maintained.
Go to Use Rights & Rules, apply downgrade rights, apply upgrade rights up to the dates of end of your maintenance
Save the license

We are sorry for the inconvenience and hope these quick steps will solve the Visio and Project license issues.

Best regards,

Nicolas Rousseau
Senior Product Manager
Flexera ITAM

nrousseau1 · ‎Apr 01, 2022

Then, let's be practical.

@RobertH , are you on premise? Could we have a session please?

There are one or two topics you raise that I would need to verify with you (unique index violation for file to application mapping and Visio Online usage (that has always be a complicated topic (Microsoft Reports provide various types of information and I would like to check with you))).

Thanks!

Nicolas

nrousseau@flexera.com

RobertH · ‎Apr 08, 2022

Yes, I am using an on premise implementation. FNMS 2020 R2. I would be glad to share more details about my situation.

bmaudlin · ‎May 20, 2022

Hi @nrousseau1,

I have seen the upcoming notification from Microsoft that may help with M365 Project usage going forwards >

Microsoft 365 admin center: Reports in the Admin Center - Project Usage Report

A new report will be made available to help customers understand how Microsoft Project is used within their organization.

Feature ID: 81960

Added to roadmap: 5/18/2021

Last modified: 2/17/2022

Product(s): Microsoft 365 Admin Center Cloud instance(s): Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Platform(s):

Web Release phase(s): General Availability

My question is when this is released to all tenants by MS Will this feed into ITAM as we have the M365 connector connected to the portal, or will there be further work from Flexera required?

Ben