Forum Discussion
Status of Microsoft Places
In a community call last year, there was a demo of Microsoft Places. Can anyone provide an update regarding the release date of this? We are interested in the hotel desk component of this tool. Also, is it going to be part of the Microsoft 365 licenses, Teams Premium, etc.? Thank you.
Microsoft just took to much time to realize places... In the mean time we tested in our company a lot of planning tools and then settled on seatti.com which even brings us more features for half of the price.
You're not wrong. And you had to do what you had to do! Hope it goes well.
- I signed up for the public preview and got the notice in mid-August that it was activated. I'm in the process of exploring the preview and setting it up in my developer tenant. Should have some early results before end of October.
- brining this to the top as this has officially been release
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-places- I don't see any information about pricing/licensing. Is it included in any licenses or is it an extra cost?
- Wow!!! Will it ever actually be released though? Any information about the pricing and licensing, and is Copilot required?
AI brings new life to flexible work with Microsoft Places
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2024/05/13/ai-brings-new-life-to-flexible-work-with-microsoft-places/Deployment guide for Places - Deploy Office | Microsoft Learn
Prerequisites
Microsoft Places Preview requires one of the following subscriptions:
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Microsoft 365 or Office 365 (E1, E3, E5)
- Microsoft 365 or Office 365 (A1, A3, A5)
More information on feature availability by license type will be shared as we get closer to general availability.
- I had the opportunity to speak with a member of the Microsoft product team today and got some information about the future of Places. While it's not a ton of info, some news is better than none.
There are two definitive details I confirmed today:
1. Places will be available only with a Teams Premium license
2. The M365 Floorplans feature will not be replaced, in terms of its original purpose (which was my use case)
I also asked about the extreme delays and why we haven't heard anything about it. Many resources were diverted away from Places to contribute to the aggressive and accelerated development of Copilot. Now that Copilot is launched, my guess is that Places will get some fresh attention. But we won't know anything for a while. The core product team has kept a very tight lid on the status of Places. Naturally, I wasn't given any timeline details. She said they are all waiting anxiously for updates on the status of Places just as we all are.
I hope this news helps the community breathe a bit about Places!- Tying Places to Teams Premium is odd. I would think every space, not just Teams rooms, would be eligible for Places.
- It's a strange decision but nothing is certain based on how quickly Microsoft has recently pivoted away from new ideas so soon after they were announced. Viva Topics was a paid add-on and then they started allowing lightweight features with standard licenses. Maybe they will do the same with Places.
- Vaporware?
So it's 6th of December 2023 - and we are steadily inching closer to 2024. This means, it looks like #MSPlaces won't be launched in 2023 as expected. Does anyone at MS have any information regarding MS Places? It's like it died the day after it was launched at Ignite in 2022 (October)???
Please.....- Are you just very interested or do you urgently need such a solution?
SonjaGaertner - I am "urgently interested", in that I need to advise my client on what to do in the project that we currently are in the midst of. So any and all information about MS Places would be much appreciated. I don't want to advise them to wait for Places, if it doesn't come to fruition. On the other hand, I don't want to go with a 3rd party vendor, if Places is right around the corner.
So urgently trying to figure out what is going on .
- I've already tried many ways to get real answers from Microsoft with no success. My educated guess on the reason for the massive delay is that the rapid rise of AI evolution in the last year stole their focus.
Microsoft was part of the development of ChatGPT throughout the last year by offering Azure dev space to ChatGPT by using Azure credits. I think they were happy to do that because they wanted to integrate Copilot into every part of M365. What better way is there to gain a competitive AI advantage than to have the most recognized AI development happening in their backyard?
I suspect Places will come out next year with Copilot behind it and they will make good on their promise, even if extremely late and without any communication. Why didn't they communicate? I have only one suspicion and it's that they wanted to avoid any negative attention about breaking the 2023 promise for Places. But if Places never arrives, I'd also not be surprised.
At least the design of the website changed a few days ago
https://outlook.office.com/places/
I still have some hope that something will happen here.- I can highly recommend having a look on deskbird if you're looking for a desk and resources booking tool with floorplan. The mobile and desktop apps are so easy to use. You can reach out to me if you have questions about it 🙂
CKWGA
zzzzzz everyone still waiting for any shred of information. The communication is really disappointing from Microsoft. Not heard of any mention at Ignite either...- I did a search yesterday to see if I missed the Places sessions from Ignite but nothing. I year after the original announcement and no new information.
