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Microsoft 365 Blog
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Empower your organization to achieve more with the Accessibility Baseline

Matt_Philipenko's avatar
Matt_Philipenko
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
May 08, 2023

At Microsoft, we’re always striving to empower every person on the planet to achieve more. Our latest addition to the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center and Cloud Policy is the Accessibility Baseline. It is a set of accessibility policies and recommend settings for policies to enable accessible document creation across your organization. You have the option to target all users on the tenant or select groups. 

 

Don’t worry about being a specific build. If you’re using Microsoft 365 Apps, you’re good to go! This feature is embedded in the Cloud Policy toolset in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center and will enable IT admins to configure policies that are centered around accessible document creation.

 

How do I use the Accessibility Baseline?

  1. Starting on May 8th, we'll begin rolling this out to tenants.
  2. Navigate to config.office.com and sign in.
  3. On the left navigation pane, choose Customization.
  4. Choose Policy Management.
  5. Click create to get started and continue through the steps configure your policies.

 

Example: Screen shot of the Accessibility Bassline with the current policies filtered and configuring a policy for Microsoft Excel.

 

Screenshot of the Accessibility Baseline in config.office.com with an Excel policy configured

 

As you can see in the screenshot below, once the policy is configured the end user cannot uncheck the, "Keep accessibility checker running while I work" check box.

 

Screenshot of the Accessibility options in the backstage of Excel showing a policy configured.

 

Please let us know through the Feedback portal if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback on this feature and how we can improve it to empower your organization. I would like to thank chhopkin for the partnership and collaboration on this feature! Together we are stronger!

Updated May 11, 2023
Version 3.0
accessibility
admin
Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
  • jjnom's avatar
    jjnom
    Copper Contributor
    May 22, 2023

    We enabled this and limited the policy down to a group with several users in. Do the policies carry through to the latest version of Office for MacOS as well as Windows, or just Windows? Currently the MacOS user can deselect the option if they wish.

    Should the users experience change once the setting is applied for either Windows or MacOS Office users or does it simply force enable the setting and implement the baseline set the admin centre?

     

    Thank you!

  • ArthurV66's avatar
    ArthurV66
    Copper Contributor
    May 30, 2023

    Is it necessary to apply all those suggested baselines one by one? 

    Or it there a way to select all of them at once?

     

    Thank you.

  • Matt_Philipenko's avatar
    Matt_Philipenko
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    May 30, 2023

    Hello ArthurV66  Thanks for the feedback!  We will be adding more policies over time as new Accessibility policies are released and as we onboard other applications. As far as setting them one by one that's the only option as of today. We do have a feature in the backlog to apply all of the policies. Keep an eye on this blog for an update once we ship the new option! 

  • Matt_Philipenko's avatar
    Matt_Philipenko
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    May 31, 2023

    ArthurV66  It's the Check Accessibility while editing group policy for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It is 3 policies of the 43 total but if you start with these it will empower the end users to create accessible content due to the status bar prompts to review accessibility while they're editing/creating. 

  • Matt_Philipenko's avatar
    Matt_Philipenko
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    May 22, 2023

    jjnom   Thanks for your question!  As far as the cross platform is concerned each policy in the UX shows the platforms it's available in under the Platform column and the application under the application column. Please submit feedback at the top of the page with which policies you wish to have available in Microsoft 365 Apps for Mac. 

     

    Thanks! 

  • Matt_Philipenko's avatar
    Matt_Philipenko
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    May 30, 2023

    ArthurV66  I would suggest going through the settings and apply the ones that your company needs the most. Making sure the Accessibility Checker is running.  This is the policy in my above screen shots. This will help end users create accessible content by having the Accessibility Checker notify them in the status bar at the bottom of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that Accessibility needs to be investigated or if it's good to go. 

     

    If you want we could set up a meeting as well. Just send me a direct message.