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.

General Availability of Teams Phone Mobile

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Teams Phone Mobile, previously known as Operator Connect Mobile, which gives users a single, business-provided number for Teams and their mobile phone.

From a licensing perspective users will need to be licensed for Teams Phone and will also need to have the $0 Teams Phone Mobile Add-on licence assigned to them.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3yO1aGi.

Microsoft Scheduler

Microsoft announce the availability of Scheduler, a new Microsoft 365 service to make scheduling meetings easier and faster. Users can now ask Cortana in their own words to schedule a meeting whether that’s with internal attendees, external people, or a mixture of both. Meeting organizers need to be licensed with a Scheduler licence which is priced at $10 per user per month and requires one of a whole host of qualifying licences – essentially Exchange Online Plan 1 or any plan which includes it.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/35CH0zJ, and the Product Terms page with the list of qualifying licences here: https://bit.ly/2OFt7vB.

Power Platform Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (June 2021) Power Platform Licensing Guide.

There are just two minor updates, the first being that the availability of the Power Apps Portals login Tier 3 Add-on is no longer just restricted to CSP, and secondly, Process Advisor is added.

Process Advisor helps organisations decide which parts of their processes it would be best to automate, and it’s licensed via a Power Automate per User licence – you can find out more about Process Advisor here: https://bit.ly/3g1GotB, and the updated Power Platform Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/2Rv0KSx.

Power BI Premium per User

Microsoft announce that Power BI Premium per User will become generally available on 2 April, 2021.

There will be a standalone licence costing $20 per user per month, or an Add-on for users already licensed with a Power BI Pro or Office 365/Microsoft 365 E5 licence costing $10 per user per month.

Find the announcement article, which also details Power BI Premium features and capabilities, here: http://bit.ly/3rm1B4E, and a useful FAQ on the Power BI Premium per User licence here: https://bit.ly/3j1YNWc.

New Power BI Premium per user licensing option

Today, organisations using Power BI need to license all users who publish shared content with Power BI Pro licences, and then choose to license the consumers of that content with further Power BI Pro licences or subscribe to Power BI Premium which is licensed on a capacity basis.

At the September 2020 Ignite conference Microsoft announced a new Power BI Premium per user licensing option. This will include all the features of Power BI Pro as well as other capabilities only available in Premium today. 

The public preview is planned to start in early November 2020 when the licence will be free, and GA is expected in Spring 2021 at a price to be announced.

Find a useful article on this new licensing option here: https://bit.ly/3j1YNWc and sign up to receive more information here: https://bit.ly/3379VvH.

Expansion of self-service purchase capability

Microsoft expand the capability for end users to purchase licences on their organisation’s tenant without going through the IT department.

From 15 September, 2020 users will be able to purchase Visio Plan 1 and Plan 2, and Project Plan 1 and Plan 3, as well as the currently available Power Apps per user, Power Automate per user and Power BI Pro products.

IT administrators can see any licences that have been purchased in this way through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, and can turn off self-service purchase on a product by product basis using PowerShell – find instructions here: https://bit.ly/2Eum8Am.

There’s also a useful FAQ to get an overview of the processes from both the end users’ and the IT administrators’ perspective here: http://bit.ly/2T034Pe.