An Outlook Bug released May 12th 2021 caused widespread chaos for Office 365 users hiding email text in the Desktop version of their App.

The Outlook Bug prevented users from seeing their email text which had a huge impact on users globally (including Myself). The Bug caused emails to become mostly unreadable and replies not functional or unreadable as you typed. I was able to quickly identify the issue and forced Office back to a previous version that did work, luckily. Eventually, Microsoft identified the problem and started rolling out a global update to resolve it.

Yesterday(12th of May) at 3pm NZ time Microsoft claim they rolled out the Outlook Bug Fix to the general public. Phew.

Email is a critical function for most businesses and its loss clearly had serious consequences. For some business was lost and others caused unexpected delays.

What Causes Bugs?

Bugs, glitches, anomalies, errors, call them what you will, are a result of human error. Software Developers are human and as such will make errors. We try not to of course, and often have automated systems and manual tests to verify functions work as intended… But… Software is full of many complex and interactive components, functions, procedures, and rules that must also coexist with other systems on the same computer. There are substantial variations even in the hardware or computer that the Software runs on.

All of this must be considered, although much of this is handled by the “Operating System” Software (read Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android, etc).

Outlook Bug Testing – Removing the Chaos

In this case, Microsoft’s internal Outlook Bug testing clearly missed identifying the problem. The newer buggy version of Outlook was then published to their servers, going “live” to users globally.

Microsoft is arguably the world’s biggest Software developer and Outlook is one of their most-used applications, so the impact of the bug was huge. Somehow it got past their large team of testers and we all felt the impact.

The usual process would involve a gradual rollout of new or improved features. Telemetry would be read back from users experiencing any issues and a fix would be rolled out t

Luckily in these modern times, we did not have to wait for the next “monthly patch” to be released, as used to occur, but instead, the problem was identified and rectified in less than a day and rolled out globally via Microsoft extensive infrastructure of datacentres and servers.

ProcessIT and Bugs

We too produce software with bugs! Sadly, it is almost impossible not to (even Nasa lost a $125Million Mars Probe to a software miscalculation!)

ProcessIT is focused on developing Custom Applications for Clients to use in specific situations. We do not have the luxury of thousands of users, like with Microsoft Outlook, to provide bug reports and feedback. We must rely on our Clients and their staff to identify and request fixes to bugs. Although this process may sound inefficient it is in fact the opposite. Extensive testing under various situations on different hardware and with an extensive range of data input all takes substantial time and effort. Frequently well beyond the budget of a single client.

At ProcessIT we use a process based on the Continuous Improvement Model of Identify, Plan, Execute, and Review. This cyclic process is then repeated until a hardened product is formed. In this way, we can implement a system quickly and refine it over time.

As feedback trickles in we can identify more specific needs that Customers are sometimes unaware of until they use the system regularly or gain a better understanding of their Business data.

Tech Tip

How to Avoid (most) Office Bugs!

Microsoft rolls out Office Updates based on your optional Settings. These are usually unchanged from the Default settings resulting in most people being on the “Current Channel”.

What are Channels?

Microsoft has 3 public “Channels” as well as internal test channels. The Public ones are:

• Current Channel – Get new Office features as soon as they are ready.
• Monthly Enterprise Channel – Get new Office features only once a month.
• Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel – For Extremely critical or controlled services.

Typically, most Microsoft Office 365 Customers are on one of a few small business plans or even a personal plan, and these all default to the “Current Channel”. You can read an extensive description of Channels from Microsoft here.

And read how to change your Channel here

If you need surety of function, you are probably best to move to the “Monthly Enterprise Channel” but then you do not get to play with the latest features.

That’s all folks (- BUGS Bunny)

Until next time Stay Safe…

Regards,
    Brian Henderson & James Dickinson