[FOR QA]

# Braintree Briefing: Monday, 17 August 2026

**Three Microsoft deadlines need named owners. Declan and Verity, neutral British.**

## Cold open, warm bed under hosts

**DECLAN:** [briskly] Exchange Online integrations can be blocked in October if nobody acts before the end of this month.

**VERITY:** Office LTSC twenty twenty-one stops receiving security updates in eight weeks, and old Azure document-processing calls have fourteen days left.

**VERITY:** Good morning. This is the Braintree Briefing.

## Opening, signature bed under hosts

**DECLAN:** I'm Declan. I have the email integrations that need a named owner.

**VERITY:** I'm Verity. I have the Office security decision and the document automation version check.

**DECLAN:** We are the Braintree AI news team. Both voices on this show are AI.

**VERITY:** AI researches, writes and narrates. A human checks every fact before you hear it.

**DECLAN:** It's Monday, the seventeenth of August. Three deadlines. Three owners. Exchange first.

## Segment 1: Exchange integrations can be blocked in October

**DECLAN:** [with energy] Microsoft updated its Exchange Web Services plan on Friday. E W S is an older interface that applications use to reach Exchange Online mailboxes.

**VERITY:** So Outlook may look fine while archive tools, service-desk links or line-of-business apps depend on the older route.

**DECLAN:** Microsoft says a tenant left on the default setting will be changed to blocked as the rollout begins on the first of October. Every E W S application can lose access.

**VERITY:** The controlled bridge is due this month. Set E W S enabled to true and define the application I D allow list by the end of August.

**DECLAN:** That avoids the automatic block. It does not cancel retirement. Microsoft Graph is the destination, and final E W S shutdown still arrives in twenty twenty-seven.

**VERITY:** Today's owner is the messaging lead with each application owner. Pull the usage report. Map every application I D to a business process and a person.

**DECLAN:** Allow only what is needed, test one real transaction for each critical app, and give every remaining dependency a Microsoft Graph migration date.

**VERITY:** Evidence means the usage export, approved allow list, successful transaction and migration backlog. Not a green admin page.

> **[TRANSITION STING]**

## Segment 2: Office LTSC 2021 reaches end of support

**VERITY:** [with energy] Second. Office LTSC twenty twenty-one reaches end of support on the thirteenth of October.

**DECLAN:** L T S C means Long Term Servicing Channel. This is the fixed, volume-licensed Office release, not Microsoft three sixty-five Apps.

**VERITY:** Microsoft says no technical support, bug fixes or security updates after that date. It warns about security exposure and compliance impact.

**DECLAN:** Word should still open. The business problem is an unsupported control still receiving documents, attachments and add-ins.

**VERITY:** Microsoft recommends Microsoft three sixty-five Apps. If the organisation must stay on premises, it points commercial customers to Office LTSC twenty twenty-four.

**DECLAN:** The endpoint owner needs the business owners of critical add-ins. Finance, legal and operations often carry the compatibility risk.

**VERITY:** Within seven days, inventory every install with its user group, process, add-ins, macros and regulatory constraints.

**DECLAN:** Choose the target path and pilot a representative group. Keep the version inventory, signed decision, pilot result and dated deployment wave as evidence.

> **[TRANSITION STING]**

## Segment 3: Azure document automation needs a version check

**DECLAN:** [briskly] Third. Microsoft lists the Azure Document Intelligence version two point zero A P I for retirement on the thirty-first of August.

**VERITY:** This is the service many teams still call Form Recognizer. It extracts fields from invoices, receipts and other documents for automated workflows.

**DECLAN:** The deadline is version-specific. Version two point one and version three have different dates. The product name does not answer the risk question.

**VERITY:** The request does. Find the A P I version in the endpoint, S D K or application configuration.

**DECLAN:** Microsoft redesigned the interface after version two. A call can succeed while a downstream invoice or claims process reads the wrong field.

**VERITY:** Microsoft's current guidance uses version four point zero for new development and tells customers to migrate before their version's retirement date.

**DECLAN:** The application lead owns the change with the process owner who knows what a correct document result looks like.

**VERITY:** Within seven days, inventory every endpoint. Record the version, model and downstream consumer. Then build a golden sample set with clean, poor and rejected documents.

**DECLAN:** Run the target version in test. Compare fields, confidence, exceptions, latency and cost. Keep the request trace, field comparison and process-owner sign-off.

## Close, outro bed swells underneath

**VERITY:** Three actions. Map every Exchange Web Services dependency. Inventory Office LTSC twenty twenty-one. Read the version on every Document Intelligence request.

**DECLAN:** Email integration, desktop software and document automation all look stable until a deadline changes the control underneath them.

**VERITY:** From the Braintree AI news team. We are back tomorrow morning.

**DECLAN:** From Braintree. We are specialists in Business Applications, Modern Workplace and Azure.

**VERITY:** Let's grow.