Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dynamics 365 Sales Insights capabilities added to Sales Enterprise licences

Microsoft announce that Dynamics 365 Sales Insights capabilities are added to Sales Enterprise licences. It’s not the same capacity that you’d get with a full Sales Insights licence, but Sales Enterprise-licensed users can now make use of Business Card Scanning, Conversation Intelligence, Sales Accelerator, and Lead & Opportunity Scoring.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3sj4dmR, and find details of the capacity included and how it compares to a full Sales Insights licence on page 24 of the February 2022 Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide. Get that guide here: https://bit.ly/3uEes6G.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail

Microsoft announce that Microsoft Cloud for Retail is generally available. This is an add-on licence with a variety of qualifying licences required, which enable different capabilities to give retailers a holistic view of their consumers with AI helping them to better understand and elevate the consumer shopping experience. It’s a tenant-wide licence available through the EA at $20,000 per month, deployable from the UK, US, Australia, Canada or Singapore.

There’s a useful datasheet here: https://bit.ly/3HXOK0K and you can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/36cmWYx.

Power Platform Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (February 2022) Power Platform Licensing Guide. There aren’t major changes, just the rebranding of Power Apps and Power Automate Capacity Add-ons to Power Platform Requests Add-ons. You can find the updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3I1DTms.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 1

Microsoft announced back in August 2021 that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 1 would be available in a couple of different ways (see our blog: https://bit.ly/3LsJmF5).

Here’s the update: in November 2021 it was made available as a separate SKU for use on up to 5 devices for $3 per user per month – this is the announcement with a useful chart comparing it to Plan 2: https://bit.ly/3u4quG7. And the second part of the plan came together in January 2022 with Defender for Endpoint Plan 1 now being automatically included in Microsoft 365 E3 licences, and you can find that announcement here: https://bit.ly/33VsPbN.

Device licences for Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist

Device licences are now available for Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist. As you’d expect, there are no limits on the number of users who may use a licensed device, and all users use a shared login rather than their own credentials. Note that the Guides device licence only allows a user to operate a guide, rather than to author one, but the Remote Assist user and device licences give access to the same functionality.

You can find details on the ins and outs of assigning Guides device licences here: https://bit.ly/3uBVJZD.

Power BI Report Server

The Power BI team announce a new version of Power BI Report Server.

This product facilitates the distribution of interactive Power BI reports, traditionally within the boundaries of an organisation’s firewall. It’s not available to be purchased; the rights to install and use it are granted for customers who have active SA on SQL Server Enterprise Core licences, or Server Subscriptions for SQL Server Enterprise Core licences, or who have purchased Power BI Premium P SKUs.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3o0MRsd.

Microsoft Teams Essentials

Microsoft introduce Teams Essentials, a standalone Teams offering aimed at small businesses.

It’s $4 per user per month available through CSP partners or directly from Microsoft’s website and allows unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours with up to 300 participants.

This site is useful for seeing how Teams Essentials compares to other plans aimed at smaller businesses such as Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard: https://bit.ly/31LrCSX.

Find the Teams Essentials announcement here: https://bit.ly/3pF2plr, and resources for partners selling Teams solutions here: https://bit.ly/3rJOSvB.

General availability of Operator Connect Conferencing

Microsoft announce the general availability of Operator Connect Conferencing and add the licences to the Product Terms.

With Operator Connect Conferencing capabilities, organisations can add phone numbers from a third-party operator to their Audio Conferencing bridge, and use those numbers to join Teams meetings. Meeting organisers either need to be licensed with an Audio Conferencing licence (which is included in Office/Microsoft 365 E5), or with a $0 Operator Connect Conferencing licence which can be assigned to anyone already licensed for Teams, and is available through an EA or CSP.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/32Wv6CL, and details on the licensing here: https://bit.ly/3GopAHu.

Teams Phone with Calling Plan

The “Phone System” product, previously known as “Cloud PBX”, has been renamed once more, this time to “Teams Phone”.

In January 2022, there will be a “Teams Phone with Calling Plan” offering which will replace two existing products: both the “Microsoft 365 Business Voice” SKU aimed at businesses with less than 300 users, and the “Teams Calling Essentials” product aimed at larger businesses. This new voice bundle includes just the cloud-based phone system and a domestic calling plan since the originally included Audio Conferencing product will now be included in Office 365/Microsoft 365 licences – see our blog for more details on that: https://bit.ly/3D6H0b3.

Licensing-wise, it remains a User SL added onto various Office 365/Microsoft 365 pre-requisite licences, and is priced at $15 per user per month in the US, UK and Canada, and at $20 in an additional 30 markets.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3DoJLTL, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3IoUoK7.