The University is moving towards modern authentication technologies in a drive to ensure optimal security practices and processes including MFA. While most modern clients support this out of the box, Office 2013 and Office 2016 applications may require a small configuration change before access can be enabled.

What is the Issue?

Office 2013 and 2016 applications, including common apps siuch as Word and Outlook, and more specialised applications such as Sharepoint Designer, may not provide native support for modern authentication.

Is there a solution?

Yes, Microsoft recommend that the Office 2013 or Office 2016 version you are running is fully updated. See later in the article for minimum file versions.

Additionally, a Windows Registry setting must be implemented. This can be achieved manually by adding the following key:

The EnableADAL registry key referenced earlier must be created (Reg_DWORD) and set to 1:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Identity\EnableADAL = 1

Alternatively, download and double click the attached file, and accept the warning messages to automatically create the key.

Once complete, all Office apps should be closed and restarted to pick up the altered setting.

 

You are likely already running the updated version, but to check ensure the versions of the following files are at least as follows:

Once confirmed, a small registry change is required.