There is a lot of change happening on the licencing front for Teams Rooms. It is worth checking what you have in place before July to make sure you are still going to be operating as you would like to on July 1st. Let’s explore what is changing.
First of all, Microsoft Teams Rooms is not to be confused with Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is team collaboration software. If you have a Microsoft 365 account, you will already have access to this included in your subscription. A Microsoft Teams Room is the physical space that encompasses this software with the audio visual hardware required for enhanced team collaboration.
Today it is possible to assign an end user licence such as an E5 to a Teams Room, which is essentially a shared device. All this will change on July 1st when Microsoft enforces a long-standing policy which could cause a disruption to your environment.
It’s a great question because it doesn’t make a lot of financial sense. The Teams Room licensing options provide all the components you may need at a significantly reduced cost. The only real reason an E5 would be used is out of convenience.
Microsoft have alerts in the Teams Admin Centre that explain this well. According to Microsoft "This license will be blocked from sign in" is a clear warning that any room with a user licence is going to stop working if left in its current state. Microsoft suggests that to keep things in a working state the licence should be upgraded to Teams Room Pro or Basic.
The Basic license is great if you want to run a pilot and don’t have any real operational requirements for the systems. They are free but are limited to a maximum of 25 in any tenant. The Pro licence should really be purchased if you wish to use all the features of a Microsoft room system and want to get a return on your investment in that device. The standard pricing is $40 per month per room. You will need one of these in order to take advantage of alerting, reporting and advanced updating capabilities. The Pro licence also allows you to integrate with ServiceNow.
The Pro Portal can auto generate an incident and send it straight to the assignment group of your choice, which is very useful for early warning of any issue affecting a meeting room. The Pro licence is also required to harness the full features of the devices you have purchased. Features that we would consider to be fundamental to the room experience such as Front Row and Dual Screen both need a Pro licence.
Microsoft and the Tech community have done a pretty good job of raising the awareness on this Rooms licencing change. The first changes happened on September 1st 2022 when the new Pro and Basic licences were launched. From that point on it was only possible to buy the new SKUs. The Standard and Premium licences will still work but you will not be able to renew them. All four Rooms licences will continue to work post July 1st. You can find all the official documentation here that shows the difference between Basic and Pro in terms of the Service Plans and Features.
If you are looking to take an early July summer break and want to feel confident that your meeting rooms will continue to work, please take a look at the licences you have in place. Be sure to:
If you need any advice on this or want help with purchasing your Microsoft Teams Room licenses, please contact SoftwareOne.
Want to talk to an expert about your Microsoft Teams Room licenses to ensure you don’t face challenges on 1 July 2023, complete the form and one of our experts will get in touch.
Want to talk to an expert about your Microsoft Teams Room licenses to ensure you don’t face challenges on 1 July 2023, complete the form and one of our experts will get in touch.
