Tag Archives: Microsoft 365

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.

Microsoft Defender for Business servers preview

Microsoft announce that Defender for Business servers is now in preview, offering endpoint security for Windows and Linux servers for small and medium-sized businesses. It’s free during this preview period and will then be charged at $3 per server instance per month at General Availability, when it will be available as an Add-on licence to Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Microsoft Defender for Business.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3RZ7TVO, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3BhF3d3.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare adds cloud services to support healthcare scenarios for customers already licensed for Microsoft 365 and/or Dynamics 365.

At its launch in November 2020 it was licensed via User SLs, but from 1 April, 2022 it will move to a per tenant licensing model costing $20,000 per month.

Find a useful datasheet here: https://bit.ly/3DNDPFU, and information on how to transition to tenant-based licensing here: https://bit.ly/3NT0pl3.

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.

Microsoft 365 Business offer for Google legacy G Suite customers

Customers with Google’s G Suite legacy free edition must move to a paid Google Workspace subscription from 1 May, 2022.

Alternatively, they can avail of a new Microsoft offer which allows them to purchase a 12-month Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, or Business Premium subscription with a 60% discount, simply by confirming their eligibility with a support agent at this site: https://bit.ly/3Dm73eM.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3DqnV3X

Microsoft Priva

Privacy Management for Microsoft 365 was made available in November 2021 with a Privacy Management – Risk User SL and a Privacy Management – Subject Rights Request licence. Note that Microsoft Priva has become the new branding for these solutions with the licences now called the Priva Privacy Risk Management User SL and the Priva Subject Rights Request licence.

See our blog for the original availability details here: https://bit.ly/3tExPKK, and/or learn more about Microsoft Priva here: https://bit.ly/3CoShDq.

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.

Privacy Management for Microsoft 365

Microsoft announce the general availability of Privacy Management for Microsoft 365.

This product helps organisations to safeguard the personal data they hold, and to make it easier to respond to subject rights requests – when individuals ask to see the specific pieces of data an organisation has collected about them.

From a licensing perspective, it’s an Add-on to Office 365 E1/E3/E5 costing $5 per user per month, with Privacy Management – Subject Rights Requests costing $200 per request. These requests are available in packs of 1, 10 or 100 and are active for 12 months after purchase. Privacy Management for Microsoft 365 is a tenant-level service and so this is a good resource: https://bit.ly/30zMAnU.

Find the availability announcement here: https://bit.ly/3FdxOle.

Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise is now an EOLS

There’s a change to the status of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise when it’s purchased through an Enterprise Agreement. It’s now designated as an Enterprise Online Service which means that it doesn’t need to be purchased enterprise-wide and 500 licences can be acquired to start an Enterprise Online Services-only enrolment.

Find the relevant page of the Product Terms site here: https://bit.ly/3ABfP5K.