M365 Changelog: (Updated) New Service Plans for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva SKUs
MC482179 – Updated February 21, 2023: Microsoft has updated this message to ensure visibility.
As previously announced, Microsoft will be releasing our new experiences for Viva Engage and Answers in Microsoft Viva in early 2023. Microsoft is now assigning the new service plans to the corresponding SKUs to get ready for the release.
When this will happen:
Beginning in mid-December 2022 and expect to complete by late December 2022.
How this affects your organization:
As part of this step, you may notice the following service plans visible and available:
- Viva Engage Core: If you are an existing customer of any of the following SKUs, you may see this service plan available. This service plan is intended to support the currently available basic features* in Viva Engage currently available (Storylines, Communities etc.). To ensure continued Yammer experience, this service plan will also enable Yammer services.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Microsoft 365 Basic Standard
- Microsoft Business Premium
- Office 365 (E1)
- Microsoft 365 E3 / Office 365 E3
- Microsoft 365 E5 / Office 365 E5
- Microsoft 365 F3 / Office 365 F3
- Microsoft 365 F1
- 2. Viva Engage Communities and Communication: If you are an existing Microsoft Viva Suite customer, you may see this service plan available. This service plan will be used to provision the new Viva Engage features (Leadership Corner, Campaigns, AMA etc.) in early 2023.
- 3. Viva Engage Knowledge: If you are an existing Microsoft Viva Suite or Viva Topics customer, you may see this service plan available. This service plan will be used to provision the new Answers in Microsoft Viva experiences in early 2023.
For more details, please refer to these blog posts: Viva Engage Generally Available | New Viva Experiences
What this means for you:
You may see these service plans ‘enabled’ for the users in your organization, and following are the actions you should take, corresponding to each service plan:
- Viva Engage Core: If you have disabled Yammer for your users, you will need to remove Viva Engage Core license for those users too. This will continue to disable the Yammer access. Please make sure that you have enforced the Yammer license check for users from admin settings.
- Viva Engage Communities and Communication: If you have purchased Viva Suite, and want to disable Viva Engage premium experience for the users, you will need to remove the license to this service plan for those users. When the new premium features are rolled, these users will not have access to them.
- Viva Engage Knowledge: If you have purchased Viva Suite or Viva Topics, and want to disable Answers in Viva experience for the users, you will need to remove the license to this service plan for those users. When the new premium features are rolled, these users will not have access to them.
For existing Viva Suite and Viva Topics customers: Please note that Viva Engage Communities and Communication and Viva Engage Knowledge service plans are in placeholding capacity as of now; they will be used to provision the new premium features and experiences in Viva Engage and Answers in Microsoft Viva in 2023. For more details, please refer to the MC495879 (January ’23) and MC495322 (January’23) for Viva Engage and Answers in Microsoft Viva premium features roll out respectively.
Please find below some key questions and our response to them.
Q: Why do I see the new service plans in SKU?
A: Service plans are the mechanism to provide experiences to our customers. Microsoft has begun with preparatory steps to get ready to provide our new experiences in early 2023 and assigning placeholder service plans to the SKUs is the first step.
However, please note that Viva Engage Core service plan currently provisions Yammer services as well; this was done to maintain continued experience of existing Yammer services. If you have disabled Yammer or wish to disable Yammer services for your users, please ensure that you remove both Yammer enterprise service plan as well as Viva Engage Core service plan for your users. This will disable access to Yammer as well as Viva Engage.
Q: Why are these service plans already assigned to all the users?
A: The service plans have been enabled to the users to provide a smoother and easily controlled feature roll out process. You will still be able to control the roll out of the features to the users as per your requirements through disabling these service plans for the users that you wish to disable premium features for.
For existing Viva Suite and Viva Topics customers: For more details on controlling premium feature roll out, please refer to the MC495879 (January ’23) and MC495322 (January’23) for Viva Engage and Answers in Microsoft Viva premium features roll out respectively.
Q: If I have disabled Yammer for the users, what action should I take to continue to disable Yammer?
A: If you have disabled Yammer for your organization, then make sure that you remove Viva Engage Core license for those users as well. In addition, please ensure that you continue to enforce Yammer license check for your users through admins settings. This will disable or continue to disable Yammer access.
Q: What if I disable Viva Engage Communities & Communication service plan for my users?
A: For existing Viva Suite customers: This will not have any impact as of now. If you wish to exclude specific Viva Suite users from Viva Engage premium experiences, then you should disable this service plan for them. For more details, please refer to the MC495879 (January ’23) for Viva Engage premium features roll out.
Q: What if I disable Viva Engage Knowledge service plan for my users?
A: For existing Viva Suite or Viva Topics customers: This will not have any impact as of now. If you wish to exclude specific Viva Suite or Viva Topics users from Answers in Viva premium experiences, then you should disable this service plan for them. For more details, please refer to MC495322 (January’23) for Answers in Microsoft Viva premium features roll out.
Q: My organization was already using Viva Engage features (like Storylines, Communities) before Viva Engage Core; Why does Microsoft has this new service plan now and what will change?
A: Currently, existing Yammer service plan provisions these features on Yammer as well as Viva Engage app in Teams for experience continuity. However, in the future, Microsoft plans to migrate to Viva Engage Core service plan to provision new features in Viva Engage app, while Yammer service plan will continue to provide access to Yammer. Please note that currently Viva Engage Core service plan also enables Yammer access, to ensure your continued experiences with Yammer. If you wish to disable Yammer services, please make sure that you disable Viva Engage Core service plan for your users, in addition to disabling Yammer service plan.