Author Archives: Louise Ulrick

Dynamics 365 Marketing Customer Journey Orchestration

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Customer Journey Orchestration capabilities in Dynamics 365 Marketing, with the aim of helping organizations to create deeper relationships with their customers through more meaningful interactions. This gives rise to a change in the licensing of Dynamics 365 Marketing. Previously centred entirely around Marketing contacts, there are now allocations for interactions included (10 for each Marketing contact licensed per month), with Additional Interactions packs available.

Find the Customer Journey Orchestration GA announcement here: https://bit.ly/3j5PF5k, and information on pricing and official definitions for Marketing contacts and interactions here: https://bit.ly/384JQyL.

Audio Conferencing update

An Audio Conferencing licence enables you to provide a dial-in phone number for Teams meeting attendees, and to dial-out during a meeting to invite other callers into that meeting.

Currently there are two promotions that entitle EA and CSP customers to free Audio Conferencing licences (https://bit.ly/33NIFkN), with both promotions running until 31 December, 2021 (https://bit.ly/3gn1wu8).

However, Microsoft have now announced that over the coming months they will add unlimited dial-in capabilities for Teams meetings for existing Office 365 and Microsoft 365 licences. Find the information towards the bottom of this page: https://bit.ly/3kdqvBg.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, helping customers to take and fulfil orders at the fastest speed and lowest cost. It’s licensed via a tenant licence costing $300 per month which covers 1,000 order lines. There’s no separate licence for additional capacity, customers just buy more units of the tenant licence.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3D8EDnQ, and confirmation of the pricing here: https://bit.ly/2WhOZBd.

Pricing changes for Microsoft 365

Microsoft announce that there will be per user per month price increases for the following products from 1 March, 2022:

  • Office 365 E1 (up to $10 from $8)
  • Office 365 E3 (up to $23 from $20)
  • Office 365 E5 (up to $38 from $35)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic (up to $6 from $5)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium (up to $22 from $20)
  • Microsoft 365 E3 (up to $36 from $32)

Find the announcement from Microsoft here: https://bit.ly/3kdqvBg.

SharePoint (and Project) Server Subscription Edition

Microsoft announce the public preview of SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, the next version of the on-premises SharePoint Server product.

Back in September 2020 they announced (https://bit.ly/3j8SrEy) that the next versions of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Skype for Business Server, and Project Server would only be available with the purchase of a subscription licence entitling organisations to support, product updates, and security patches. Project Server Subscription Edition is a part of the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition installation and thus also available for preview.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/2W34YTx.

Skype for Business Online is retired

Microsoft confirm that the Skype for Business Online service is retired. It’s replaced, of course, by Teams, and organisations that haven’t yet made a full transition from Skype for Business Online can find useful information here: https://bit.ly/3muR2gh.

This retirement does not affect the Skype consumer service or Skype for Business Server products.

Azure Stack Hub Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (April 2021) Azure Stack Hub Licensing Guide with information added throughout about buying from partners. Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/2VuwuZD.

Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (July 2021) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with 3 changes of note.

Firstly, Fraud Protection transactions can now be paid for on a consumption basis against an Azure Subscription – find the details on our blog here: https://bit.ly/3i5WCTw.

Secondly, there are some changes to Business Central capacity – find the details on our blog here: https://bit.ly/3i68DbO.

And finally, there’s some clarification added to the definition of the Average Order Value specifying that it’s the Gross Merchandise Value (total value of all transactions processed through Dynamics 365) divided by the total transaction volume.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3qIoik1.

Product Terms related resources

Microsoft add a new section for each product category on the Product Terms website to make it easy to find related resources.

For instance, check out this link to the Microsoft Cloud App Security page (https://bit.ly/371z6Rb) where you can easily access the Licensing Datasheet as well as the relevant product and docs sites.

Changes to Business Central Database capacity

Microsoft make some changes to the way that Business Central Database capacity is assigned, accrued, and acquired from July 2021. Historically, the first Business Central Essentials or Premium license enabled 80 GB of Business Central Database storage for the tenant, and this remains unchanged, but now individual licences accrue additional capacity: 3 GB for Premium, 2 GB for Essentials, and 1 GB for the Device licence. Customers could buy Capacity Add-on in increments of 1 GB, and may continue to do that, but there’s a new 100 GB Add-on with its own special Overage Add-on which offers advantageous pricing for further 1 GB increases.

Find the relevant Microsoft docs page here: https://bit.ly/2Ty9t7w.