Effective October 1, 2021, Microsoft will start to remove excess overallocated Microsoft 365 licenses. Microsoft 365 commercial customers using 95 percent or less of their purchase count will see the removal of unused overages that were made available prior to the updated overallocation process. This is the final step in the changes to how licenses are allocated.

Prior to recent updates to Microsoft’s license overallocation process, Microsoft provided customers with access to incremental excess licenses. This would help in situations such as step-ups from Microsoft 365 E3 to E5 without potential interruptions due to lack of available licenses. But because these incremental, unpaid licenses led to compliance risks for the customers, they are being removed from the system. Customers will continue to be protected from loss of service through the updated overallocation process.

For customers who haven’t transacted a qualifying license transition order, any existing (fixed-value) unused overallocation will be reset to zero starting October 1, 2021.

Customers need to do the following to prepare for the change:

• If customers only assign licenses using the Microsoft 365 Admin Center user interface, this message is just for awareness.
• If customers use license assignment workflow automation – for example, via Microsoft PowerShell scripting – and their automation logic permits assigning more licenses than they own, they will need to update the automation logic to avoid an overallocation.
• To avoid potential process failure, customers should update the automation logic before October 1, 2021.
• Note that already licensed users won’t see any loss in or impact on their service.
• If customers use group-based licensing, they should periodically verify that the available licenses are adequate for their group membership counts.
• If customers anticipate having an insufficient number of licenses to meet their needs, they might be able to place a license reservation in the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center or place an order through SCHNEIDER IT MANAGEMENT.

For more information about licensing, including license reservations and how to make a license reservation, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/license-faq.

Please contact us for more information and to request a quote.

Effective July 2021, a lightweight version of the Visio web app is available for Microsoft 365.

This version offers core Visio functionalities and allows business users to create and edit professional Visio diagrams effortlessly and collaborate with others by sharing diagrams seamlessly.

Visio has long been available only as a standalone app for purchase. Now, this lightweight version of the Visio web app is available, at no additional cost, to users licensed with Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium, Office 365 E1/E3/E5/F3, Microsoft 365 F3/E3/E5, and Microsoft 365 Apps for business/enterprise licenses.

For the announcement, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2021/06/09/bringing-visio-to-microsoft-365-diagramming-for-everyone/.

For more information on Visio, please visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-365/visio/flowchart-software.

Please contact us for more information and to request a quote.

Effective May 3, 2021, Microsoft 365 Calling Plans are available in additional countries, including Luxembourg.

Microsoft Calling Plans allows Microsoft Teams users to call regular phones from within their Microsoft product. This allows both the use of Microsoft Phone System with Calling Plan to connect to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and the connection to other Microsoft Teams users within one environment.

There are two Calling Plans options:

• Domestic Calling Plan: Licensed users can call out to numbers located in the country where they are assigned in Microsoft 365 (e.g. Luxembourg).
• Domestic and International Calling Plan: Licensed users can call out to numbers located in the country where their Microsoft 365 license is assigned to, and to international numbers in 196 countries.

In Luxembourg, there are four plan options available per calendar month:

• 120 minute Domestic Calling Plan
• 240 minute Domestic Calling Plan
• 1200 minute Domestic Calling Plan
• Domestic and International Calling Plan: 1200 minutes of domestic -OR- 600 minutes of international calling (whichever is reached first in the calendar month)

Outbound calls to premium numbers are not supported at this time.

This launch will expand the availability of Calling Plans to 10 new markets across the EMEA and APAC regions. The APAC markets are Singapore and New Zealand. The EMEA markets are Luxembourg, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and Slovakia.

For additional information on Calling Plans for Microsoft 365, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/calling-plans-for-office-365.

For a list of the 196 countries included in the Domestic and International Calling Plan, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/country-and-region-availability-for-audio-conferencing-and-calling-plans/users-can-make-outbound-calls-to-these-countries-and-regions.

For more information of availability in Luxembourg, including Calling Plans, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/country-and-region-availability-for-audio-conferencing-and-calling-plans/availability-in-luxembourg.

For further information on Microsoft Calling Plans in general, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/calling-plan-landing-page.

Effective March 15, 2021, Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Antivirus management and Universal Print capabilities.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus provides your PCs with robust antimalware protection. The new Active Threats page of that antivirus management experience has been rolling out for the past few months and is now available to all customers worldwide.

Universal Print is a Microsoft 365 subscription-based service that allows IT to manage printers directly through the Universal Print portal, without the need for on-premises print servers. For organizations that are committed to Microsoft 365, it replaces the Windows Server print server functionality.

For the announcement, please visit: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/small-and-medium-business-blog/new-in-microsoft-365-business-premium-antivirus-management-and/ba-p/2212333.

For more information on Microsoft Defender Antivirus, please visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/threats-detected-defender-av?view=o365-worldwide.

For more information on Universal Print, please have a look at this article: https://www.schneider.im/microsoft-universal-print/.