When dropping my partner off at work, I noticed she was using Microsoft Teams on her phone to chat with coworkers while we were in the Dunkin’ parking lot. It illustrated a point that Teams is vital to most organizations in today’s business framework. The ability to collaborate with anyone in your organization at the click of a button streamlines efficiency in organizational communication.
And guess what? Now there will be a Teams Premium edition! This upgrade offers a more holistic approach to Teams that has legitimate benefits for customers. Let’s look deeper into add-on licenses.
Why Upgrade to a Teams Premium License?
Like their change to Teams Room Pro recently, Microsoft is enhancing their Teams features to an all-inclusive single payment option, Teams Premium. The base Teams license will still be included in most Microsoft and Office 365 subscriptions, but now customers can purchase Teams Premium as an add-on. Here are some of the enhanced features in Teams Premium:
- More personalized and intelligent meetings and webinars
- Enhanced protection for meetings
- Advanced management and reporting capabilities for IT
- Advanced Virtual Appointments
Teams Premium will include more features in the areas of Meetings, Webinars, Meeting Protection, Meeting Reporting, and Virtual Appointments. You can see tables that break down the differences on Microsoft Learn.
What’s the Catch?
There will be some features that will be moved from the Base Teams license to the Teams Premium license exclusively. The below information outlines which features will be permanently migrating to Teams Premium and the grace period current Teams users have for each feature:
- Live translated captions: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 60-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
- Timeline markers in Teams meeting recordings for when a user left or joined meetings: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 60-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
- Custom organization of Together mode scenes: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 30-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
- Virtual Appointments—SMS notifications: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 30-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
- Virtual Appointments—Organizational analytics in the Teams admin center: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 30-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
- Virtual Appointments—Scheduled queue view: Available to all Teams subscribers for a 30-day grace period after Teams Premium general availability.
After the Grace Period ends on a feature, it will no longer be available in the Base Teams license and the Teams Premium license will need to be purchased.
Why Pay Extra for Teams Premium?
Along with the enhanced and migrated features, Teams Premium offers organizations the opportunity to further their effective communication through a new avenue. This path will see end users experience a more personalized way to communicate. They will have more control, and the IT department will have new control features as well.
Microsoft realizes how important Teams is to an organization. It allows employees to talk from anywhere they have Internet access, even in a Dunkin’ parking lot on their way to work. That is why they are enhancing the product and making it even more essential. This product may be a game changer, and it is better to be ahead of this change than play catch-up. Teams Premium will be available for purchase in February 2023. Please get in touch with your Connection Account Team for more information.
Paden Livingston
Paden Livingston is a Microsoft Solutions Associate at Connection with a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and prior experience in academia. Before moving to the Microsoft Center of Excellence team, Paden was an Account Manager at Connection. In his free time, he enjoys being a “cat dad” to his six cats.
