Category: Microsoft

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Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft MACC


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I’ve recently recorded a couple of videos with Nathan Miller, Microsoft Program Manager at Bytes.

In the first, we discuss Copilot for Microsoft 365 (we recorded this in October 2023 but it took me ages to edit it!):

We talk about the General Availability of Copilot for M365 as well as tips for preparing for deployment.

We then talk about the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC): agreement:

where we explain what the MACC agreement is, how it works, and the potential pros and cons for customer organisations. We also talk about the Azure cloud marketplace and the impact this will have on customer procurement processes and also the wider IT channel.

I hope you find the videos useful and informative – as there are more planned! Let me know if you have requests for topics and also if you’d like to jump on a video or podcast with me at some point. I usually focus on blog posts but am looking to get all multimedia on you in 2024 so this is just the start 😁

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Microsoft Product Terms: January 2024


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A few changes for January 2024 – further expansion of the Frontline SKU lineup and Copilot makes its way to the world of education.

  • Defender for Frontline SKUs added for Cloud Apps, Endpoint, Identity, and Office 365
  • Azure Information Protection Premium Plan 1 removed
  • D365 Field Service Contractor USL added to EA/EAS/MCA
  • D365 Finance Premium USL added to EA/EAS/MCA/EES/MPSA
  • Copilot for Microsoft 365 added to EES for A3 & A5
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Microsoft Copilot for Service


Microsoft have announced a new Copilot – we now have Copilot for Service.

Copilot has been within Dynamics 365 for a few months already and now Microsoft bring the ability to “synthesize[s] vast amounts of data already available from an organization’s trusted knowledge sources to provide relevant, timely guidance to agents in their flow of work” to users of other CRM and Contact Centre solutions including Salesforce and ServiceNow, and Zendesk.

How does it work?

Microsoft say that it will very easy:

“Organizations can simply point to their data—such as public websites, SharePoint, knowledgebase articles, and offline files—and in a few minutes unlock generative AI-powered conversations across all of their data”

It will enable customer service agents to ask natural language questions of their data, whether in Teams or another client. Further down the line additional features will include email summaries, email drafts, and meeting recaps as well as automating common CRM tasks based on emails and context.

Interestingly, this product will include the much hyped Copilot for Microsoft 365 – meaning these users will also have access to Copilot across their Office suite.

Pricing and availability

Copilot for Service will be $50 per user per month (pupm). Remember that this includes Copilot for M365 which is priced at $30 pupm alone.

Copilot for Service is currently in public preview in US-based environments only, and the Copilot for M365 features may not be available during preview.

Announcement here and more info sign up form here.

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Microsoft Product Terms: December 2023


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The final Product Terms update for 2023 is here:

Power Virtual Agents replaced with Copilot Studio

ClipChamp SKUs added:
ClipChamp Std standalone USL
ClipChamp Premium standalone USL
ClipChamp Premium add-on* license for M365 E3/E5/BS/BP
*ClipChamp (Std) added to M365 E3/E5/BS/BP

Update to terms around add-on USLs being purchased on same agreement. It now says “Add-on User SLs, as specified in the Add-ons section of each respective product section,”

New Failover rights for Azure SQL database = “One geo-secondary specifically for disaster recovery purposes“

It has also been spotted that M365 Business Standard and Business Premium have been removed from the license prerequisites for Copilot for Microsoft 365:

Is this a temporary removal to prevent confusion as it is isn’t currently available for those licenses…or is it a sign that M365 Copilot won’t be available for SMB customers? I feel it’s the former but you never know!

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Microsoft SharePoint Embedded


Following on from SharePoint Premium, we now have SharePoint Embedded too.

Aimed at both enterprise customers and ISVs, “SharePoint Embedded offers a headless, API-only pattern to build content apps that integrate management capabilities like collaboration, security, and compliance into any app by storing content inside an enterprise’s existing Microsoft 365 tenant“.

Both Microsoft Loop and Microsoft Designer are built on this new technology and partners such as Peppermint Technology and KPMG are building solutions on top of it too.

SharePoint Embedded will, of course, be available via a Pay As You Go (PAYG) model based on storage, API calls, and data egress as so:

This really is becoming Microsoft’s primary model – one which is much harder for most organisations to understand, forecast, and manage spend.

If organisations don’t pay on time, features of the service will be blocked and then data will be deleted after 30 days.

More info here.

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Microsoft Copilot Studio licensing


It’s been announced that Power Virtual Agents (PVA) is now part of Copilot Studio so let’s look at the licensing for this new product.

Microsoft Copilot Studio for Microsoft Teams

Just as there is Dataverse for Teams, this is a cut-down version for use exclusively with Teams and the rights are included with “select” M365 licenses. These seem to be a way of keeping PVA available to many users and further promoting the idea that Teams is where all internal bot related scenarios should occur.

As you can see, the features are relatively limited:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/requirements-licensing-subscriptions

It will be possible to acquire a full Copilot studio license via the Teams app so SAM managers beware! I’m yet to find pricing for the standalone license but will update once I see it.

  • Microsoft state that “use rights and functionality available as part of paid, standalone Power Automate subscriptions serve automation scenarios cannot be applied to Microsoft Copilot Studio scenarios“.
  • Copilot Studio entitlements are also included within D365 Customer Service Digital Messaging and Chat add-ons.

The Microsoft page is here.

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Microsoft Project Sophia


Microsoft have announced “Project Sophia” which “aims to help…customers solve complex, cross-domain business problems with AI, by enabling them to interact with data in new ways and answer strategic questions that drive better outcomes“.

Reading the announcement blog, it sounds very interesting but I don’t fully understand how it differs from the raft of Copilot products being released at the moment. Project Sophia “enables users to discover, visualize, and interact with data in new ways, to optimize business processes, and answer strategic questions that drive better outcomes” which sounds a lot like what we expect from a Copilot to me. It currently sits as part of the Dynamics 365 product area so no doubt we’ll see about 874 new SKUs appear at some point as the Project Sophia functionality makes its way to the price lists.

I’m keen to see what comes of this – I expect much of it will be absorbed into other products or SKUs.

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Microsoft Copilot Studio


Microsoft Copilot Studio is a new low-code tool to help “citizen developers” within organisations create their own copilots as well as customize Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft say it is built on the “foundations of Power Virtual Agents” and other parts of Power Platform too – this is a roundabout way of saying that Power Virtual Agents is included within Copilot Studio. Copilot Studio itself will be included within Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses…does this mean that the only way for users to continue with Power Virtual Agents is to purchase Copilot for Microsoft 365?

The ability to customise and create Copilots seems very cool and I can imagine there being some fantastic results within organisations. I also think the management of them all will be very tricky!

See more info from Microsoft here:

Copilot Studio announcement

Copilot Studio page

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Microsoft 365 Archive pricing


Microsoft have announced more information about Microsoft 365 Archive, including pricing.

It will cost $0.05 per GB* per month to archive content and will then cost $0.60 per GB to restore that content. There is a 7-day grace period following archival where sites can be re-activated (restored) free of charge.

*This will appear on the bill as $0.00167/GB/day.

Note that archive fees are only charged where active storage + archived storage = more than the tenant’s overall SharePoint storage allocation…which is 1TB + 10GB per user. Reactivation fees are charged whether or not you’re within that allocation.

The price per GB for archiving data is 1/4 of the price for adding additional SharePoint storage, meaning it can help reduce storage costs in environments with strong processes and policies. Currently archiving works at a site level so you can’t restore just a single file, you have to restore the whole site…which could quickly get expensive.

If you want to understand more about SharePoint information management, governance, and more – go and check out Information EXP, they’ve got some great ideas!

Microsoft Learn for Archive

Microsoft 365 Archive product page

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Microsoft SharePoint Premium


Breathing life into an old favourite, Microsoft have brought new features and licensing options to SharePoint Online – partly by wrapping SharePoint Syntex into the new offering. New features include:

  • Contract renewal alerts
  • Document portal for external partners/customers
  • SharePoint eSignature
  • Translation for files & videos
  • Personal Information detection
  • Redaction
  • Document governance and control

Licensing

There will be 2 licensing models for SharePoint Premium (which can be used simultaneously as needed) , depending on the features you require.

Those coming from Syntex such as:

  • document processing
  • eSignature
  • PII detection
  • autofill columns
  • content assembly
  • translation
  • image processing

will be available on a Pay As You Go (PAYG) basis on top of most Microsoft 365 plans.

New features such as:

  • Business Documents app
  • Documents Hub
  • Enhanced File viewer

will be available as add-on licenses on top of Microsoft 365 plans – further increasing the number of additional licenses to choose from. Pricing for these will be announced at General Availability in 2024.

Microsoft also talk about “SharePoint Advanced Management” (SAM) which covers content governance and is currently available as an add-on license to:

Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Business Standard/Business Premium/F1/F3/E3/A3/G3/E5/A5/G5; Office 365 F3/E1/A1/E3/A3/G3/E5/A5/G5; SharePoint Online

You can see the Microsoft announcement here – https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/sharepoint-premium-blog/introducing-sharepoint-premium-the-future-of-ai-powered-content/ba-p/3981076

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