Category Archives: Uncategorized

Microsoft 365 Compliance changes

Microsoft 365 Compliance has been a cost-effective way of acquiring Office 365 Advanced Compliance and Azure Information Protection Premium Plan 2 at a cost of $10 per user per month, but from 1 April, 2020 there are changes.

The two Microsoft 365 Compliance components (themselves collections of services) are retired, and replaced with three “mini suites” which repackage the existing Compliance offerings into different groups and add some new functionality too. The three new mini suites are: eDiscovery and Audit, Information Protection and Governance, and Insider Risk Management, priced at $7 per user per month for Information Protection and Governance and $6 per user per month for the other two. Microsoft 365 Compliance remains the way to access the services of all three mini suites at $10 per user per month.

These suites can be added on to a Microsoft 365 E3 licence (as you would perhaps expect), but also to a whole host of other licences, and page 60 of the April 2020 Product Terms document lists the various prerequisites.

The compliance offerings are typically tenant-level services and the licensing guidance for tenant-level services is updated here: https://bit.ly/35gbdUv where you’ll also find a useful Compliance Licensing Comparison document detailing which services are licensed by which EMS, Office 365 or Microsoft 365 plan. This document is available as a PDF document (https://bit.ly/3aoaQbc) or Excel file (https://bit.ly/2zCCK6C).

Azure DevOps Services billing FAQs

If you’ve got a question about how the Azure DevOps Services are billed then this FAQ is worth a read: https://bit.ly/2RvUDKt. There’s also a section on multi-organisation billing which was recently announced here: https://bit.ly/2yNdPwM, and enables businesses with more than one Azure DevOps organisation to pay for each user once for all organisations under the same billing Azure Subscription.

Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (April 2020) Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide.

The main change is the inclusion of the Sales and Customer Service Professional Attach licences that may be acquired and assigned to either Business Central Essentials or Premium users. Find this detailed on pages 2 and 13. As usual there’s a full Change Log on page 14.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/D365BCLGApr2020

Expansion of FastTrack for Azure

Microsoft announce that FastTrack for Azure is now available through the Middle East and Africa from 18 March, 2020 (https://bit.ly/3edU5Tn) and through Central and Eastern Europe from 31 March, 2020 (https://bit.ly/2K9djff).

There’s now availability through all Azure regions with just a few exceptions that you can find detailed here: https://bit.ly/2K9djff.

Find out more about FastTrack for Azure here: http://bit.ly/2kriyNO.

April 2020 Online Services Terms updates

The very useful table on the last page of the Online Services Terms document which shows you which components are included in which Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans is updated for April 2020.

The main changes are for the revised Firstline Worker plans with Office 365 F1 renamed to Office 365 F3, Microsoft 365 F1 renamed to Microsoft 365 F3, and the new Microsoft 365 F1 added. OneDrive for Business Plans 1 and 2 are added while some other components are removed, including the now discontinued Azure Information Protection Plan 2.

Find the Online Services Terms documents here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.

Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (April 2020) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with three main changes.

Firstly, there’s extra detail added to the Team Members use rights table on pages 32/33.

Then there’s a new Dynamics 365 IoT Intelligence Scenario section on pages 18/19 detailing the licensing for this new capability – the ability, for example, for a manufacturing system to detect machine failures through IoT signals and to generate an alert. 

Finally, the Base and Attach SKU table is updated on page 56 for the ability to use Sales/Customer Service Professional Attach licences with Business Central Base licences. As usual there’s a full change log on page 57.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/D365LGApr2020

Extension to SA voucher end dates

Microsoft announce a number of measures in response to the disruption caused by the coronavirus, including an extension to the end date of existing Deployment Planning Services and Training Vouchers.

Active vouchers created prior to 1 April, 2020 will be extended for an additional 90 days. In addition DPS engagements may now be carried out remotely.

Find details of this and other adjustments to end dates for competencies, certifications, and program qualifications here: https://bit.ly/2JR2gXD.  

Priority notifications for Teams promotion extended

Priority notifications for Teams grants users the ability to continually send notifications that repeat every two minutes for up to 20 minutes on all messages marked as urgent. Originally, priority notifications were available as a promotion to all Teams users until 1 April 2020, but this has been extended until the second half of 2020 to enable all users to connect urgently with their colleagues during the coronavirus pandemic.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/2V8flm5, and learn how to use priority notifications here: https://bit.ly/3cc9lOL.