Category Archives: Uncategorized

Teams Essentials and Teams Phone bundle offers

Microsoft announce promotional pricing for Teams Essentials and Teams Phone bundles for customers in the US, Canada, and the UK. Organisations can choose Teams Essentials with just Teams Phone Standard, or with a Domestic or International Calling Plan, or PAYG calling. Equally, customers could choose to add these Teams Phone options on to their existing Teams Essentials licences at a promotional price. Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3QidSXf, and details of the promotional offers here: https://bit.ly/3rKyDjZ.

Changes to Power Apps licensing

Microsoft make a small change to Power Apps licensing – the Power Apps per User licence is renamed the Power Apps Premium licence. There are no other changes – it’s still a user licence costing $20 per user per month, and allows the licensed user to access an unlimited number of apps and Power Pages websites. It continues to include Dataverse capacity and AI Builder service credits – find the detail here: https://bit.ly/BOKPApPricing.

Viva Pulse is generally available

Microsoft announce the availability of Viva Pulse to help leaders seek regular and confidential feedback about their team’s experience, and this new app is included in the existing $12 per user per month Viva Suite.

You can find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3DY4Bwh, and a useful Viva app comparison sheet which includes Viva Pulse here: https://bit.ly/3QqHAcz.

Microsoft Dev Box is generally available

Microsoft announce the general availability of Dev Box – think Windows 365 optimised for developer use cases and productivity.

In common with Windows 365, users need to be licensed for Windows 11 Enterprise, Intune and Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1, and then there’s a fee for the Dev Box services each month. And this is where it’s a bit different… You need to pay a flat monthly storage fee – which differs depending on which Dev Box configuration you’ve chosen – and then you pay an hourly compute fee for each hour of active usage during the month. However, for each Dev Box type there’s a maximum monthly price and when a Dev Box’s total cost (including its monthly storage and hourly compute) reaches the level of the maximum monthly price, billing will automatically stop for that Dev Box.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3KnMHX7, pricing information here: https://bit.ly/3QknTD5, and an article with general Dev Box information here: https://bit.ly/3rYwIZ6.

Windows 365 Frontline is generally available

Microsoft announce that Windows 365 Frontline is generally available. Users need to be licensed with Windows 11 Enterprise, Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory Premium Plan 1, and Window 365 Frontline plans start at $42 per 3 users per month.

Get an overview of Windows 365 Frontline on our blog here: https://bit.ly/479OhFT, pricing information across the 11 different Cloud PC configurations here: https://bit.ly/44Oywm3, and the excellent announcement article with lots more useful information here: https://bit.ly/3rLf8aZ.

Changes to Power Automate licensing

Microsoft announce that a new product – Power Automate Process Mining – will be available from 1 August, 2023, and that there will be other changes to Power Automate licensing starting on that date too.

First of all, a new Power Automate Premium licence replaces both the Per User ($15 per month) and Per User with Attended RPA ($40 per month) licences. The price of the new licence will be $15 per month, and allows users access to Cloud Flows (DPA) and Desktop Flows (RPA) in attended mode. This is what the old Per User with Attended RPA included, but the new licence also gives entitlements to the new Power Automate Process Mining capabilities.

Next, there’s a new Power Automate Process licence. This can either be used for running unattended Desktop Flows (replacing the Unattended RPA licence) or for Cloud Flows used by an unlimited number of users in an organisation (replacing the Flow licence).

Power Automate Process Mining is a tool which can help customers to understand what is happening across their business and to reduce the complexity of their processes. Organisations can get started with Power Automate Process Mining using the entitlements in the Power Automate Premium licence and then (as required) purchasing a Power Automate Process Mining Add-on licence for an additional 100 GB of Process Mining data storage which will cost $5,000 per tenant per month.

Find the announcement article with more information on Power Automate Process Mining here: https://bit.ly/476AP5Q.

Azure Active Directory becomes Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft announce that Azure Active Directory will be renamed to Microsoft Entra ID from 1 October, 2023.  There are no changes to any functionality or costs, and there’s no action for customers.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3Ddt9km, and this page has further useful information including some FAQs: https://bit.ly/43EgdPr.

Teams Rooms licensing enforcement grace period

Teams Rooms devices must be licensed with device licences rather than user licences from 1 July, 2023 (see our blog: https://bit.ly/3rdKRkS). However, there’s now a grace period delaying technical enforcement until 30 September, 2023 to give customers more time to get compliant.

Find details of this and other useful information in an FAQ here: https://bit.ly/43ft7mu.

Reservation utilisation alerts

Reservations are a great way of saving money in Azure if you can commit to a 1-year or 3-year term for services such as virtual machine compute. However, savings are only made if the Reservations are used, stopping Pay-As-You-Go charges. Administrators have historically been able to view utilisation rates in the Azure Management Portal, but there’s now a new alert feature which sends an email whenever a Reservation exhibits low utilisation.

See the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3qZSxah, and find information on how to set these alerts up here: https://bit.ly/44ocFRN.