Microsoft just release a new preview tool a couple of days ago as part of the Office Client Management portal https://config.office.com – personally I think that this is a cool tool that need a change. The big advantaged of this new tool is that it makes cloud-based policy manage of Office ProPlus. This will work on devices that are managed and unmanaged – so basically  all devices that the user in your Office 365 organisation is logging in to.

The assignment is group based and at the first look I took at it there is 1636 user policies for Office ProPlus to set. I have only tested a subset of them. Normally I work work with Microsoft 365 deployment and are using Intune MDM or GPO to do settings management for Office.

Requirements for using the Office client policy service

At least Version 1808 of Office 365 ProPlus.
User accounts created in or synchronized to Azure Active Directory (AAD). The user must be signed into Office 365 ProPlus with an AAD-based account.
Security groups created in or synchronized to Azure Active Directory (AAD), with the appropriate users added to those groups.

Pros for Cloud-based policies management:

It works on all devices – managed and unmanaged, both Intune and SCCM
It works on BYOD and personal devices
The settings is always up to date as it is a service from the Microsoft Office team

Cons for Cloud-based policies management:

It is only user policies and not device settings
It works on BYOD and personal devices – so if a user is using Office ProPlus on the private device they will have the same policies as they do at work

I have not test policy conflicts yet – so what is happening if you have the same setting from Intune/GPO as you do fro mthe new cloud-based policies