Tag Archives: Office 365

GA of Microsoft Places

Microsoft announce that Microsoft Places is now generally available. This new technology is based on Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot and is designed to help users have a better experience when they’re working from their office – by making it easy to coordinate in-person gatherings or to sync up spontaneously with colleagues also working from the office on a particular day. From a licensing perspective there are three tiers of features: core, enhanced, and additional. If you’ve got Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium, Office 365 F3/E1/E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 F3/E3/E5 licence then you have access to the core features, although you’ll also need a Teams licence if it’s not included in your plan. The enhanced features are available through a Teams Premium Add-on licence, and the additional features need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence too.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4eIoUgX with lots of visionary information as to what Places might do for you, and the more pragmatic Learn documentation here: https://bit.ly/4i3m8ph.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison for education

Microsoft’s plan comparison documents are fantastic for seeing which components are included in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plans. They’re often updated monthly and the eagle-eyed among you have spotted that we didn’t post a November 2024 version for Education earlier in the month. Well, we’ve found it now and it’s uploaded for your download delight here: https://bit.ly/496JV3P.

Office 365 E1 Plus

Microsoft announce that Office 365 E1 Plus is available through CSP from 1 September, 2024. It’s a special flavour of Office 365 E1 which adds on additional security and management features to Office 365 E1 and is available both with and without Teams. However, it can only be purchased in select markets in LATAM, ASEAN, India, and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3Zlw6eZ, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/4gpRR3o. LicenseVerse is updated here: https://bit.ly/3Twqefb.

Copilot for Sales/Service prerequisites expanded

Microsoft expand the list of prerequisites for Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service, adding in Microsoft 365 F1/F3, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, and Office 365 F3/E1.

Find the prerequisites listed in the Product Terms here: https://bit.ly/2OFt7vB.

LicenseVerse (with full history) updated: Copilot for Sales – https://bit.ly/4daRW8D and Copilot for Service – https://bit.ly/4drjM0n.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 licensing prerequisites extended

Microsoft update the May 2024 Product Terms to add some eligible licences for the purchase of Copilot for Microsoft 365: now, users licensed with Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 F1/F3 and Office 365 F3/E1 may also purchase this product.

Check out the Product Terms here: https://bit.ly/2OFt7vB.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents

There are updated (March 2024) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with the new components of the Intune Suite added (see our blog: https://bit.ly/3PBpkMz).

These useful documents tell you which (of the many) different components are included in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plan, and there’s a table for SMB customers (https://bit.ly/49TclOh), and one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/496ATly), and still more for EEA customers – one for SMB (https://bit.ly/43uZqiY) and the final one for Enterprise (https://bit.ly/3vluC7T).

Office/Microsoft 365 EEA offerings

Late in August 2023, Microsoft announced that there would be changes to the offerings available in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to address European competition concerns – you can read that article here: https://bit.ly/3Pfx0Ty. These offerings are now live in the October 2023 Product Terms, so here’s the summary…

A customer in these regions who has not purchased Office 365 E1/E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 E3/E5 before 1 October, 2023 must now buy “EEA (no Teams)” SKUs – which, as the names suggest, don’t include Teams. If the customer does want Teams, then they need to purchase a separate Teams EEA User SL for their users. If they have purchased any of these licences before 1 October then they can add more licences and renew existing Subscriptions.

For Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium, customers in the affected regions will be able to choose the original offerings or new EEA flavours without Teams. The same goes for Microsoft 365 F1/F3 and Office 365 F3.

This site, aimed at partners, has information about pricing, and a useful FAQ document: https://bit.ly/3EDGHX4.

General Availability of Viva Sales

Microsoft announce that Viva Sales is generally available as of 3 October, 2022. Viva as a brand is about improving the employee experience, with the Viva Suite aimed at employees in any role across a business.

Viva Sales, however, is tailored to improve the employee experience for a specific role – sellers – and it enables these users to use Office 365 and Teams to automatically capture, access and register data into a CRM system, eliminating the administrative burden of manual data entry.

Viva Sales is included in Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licences, and is also available as a standalone licence priced at $40 per user per month.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3fZC28I, with links to other useful resources such as pricing information and an “Introduction to Viva Sales” course on Microsoft Learn.

Viva Sales in preview

Microsoft announce that Viva Sales is in preview. Viva as a brand is about improving the employee experience, and the Viva Suite is aimed at employees in any role across a business. Viva Sales is tailored to improve the employee experience for a specific role – sellers – and enables users to use Office 365 and Teams to automatically capture, access and register data into a CRM system, eliminating the administrative burden of manual data entry. In the public preview, Viva Sales will be available at no additional charge to organisations who use Microsoft 365 and Teams, and you’ll need to be licensed for Dynamics 365 to try out the full experience. Further details on licensing will be released when Viva Sales is generally available.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3bPH0TR, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3vRZPwz.

Office 365 and Microsoft 365 nonprofit pricing changes

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

  • Office 365 E1 (up to $2.50 from $2)
  • Office 365 E3 (up to $5.75 from $4.50)
  • Office 365 E5 (up to $15.20 from $14)
  • Microsoft 365 E3 (up to $9 from $8)
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium (up to $5.50 from $5)

Find the Microsoft FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3NVg3MW.