Learn what is coming next regarding Software Assurance and keep your organization prepared.
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What is Software Assurance?

Software Assurance is a comprehensive Volume Licensing program that includes a unique set of technologies, services, and rights to help you deploy, manage, and use your Microsoft products more efficiently. Starting next month and continuing over the next two years, Microsoft has announced they will be making substantial changes regarding Software Assurance benefits. Make sure your company is prepared and knowledgeable about what comes next!  

Moving Forward 

Microsoft is making changes to Software Assurance, specifically with Planning Services, Training Vouchers, and 24x7 Problem Resolution Support. In February 2020, Microsoft will begin the phase-out of these benefits, so taking the time to understand the changes and put a plan together is important so you don’t miss the deadlines. 

Microsoft 365 licensing comes in different versions - with one for smaller businesses and three for larger corporations. How do you determine which plan is going to add the most value to your organization?

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All businesses share common needs: increasing productivity, working more efficiently, and securing their data. Before smaller organizations were forced to pay for Enterprise subscriptions that had features they would never use, or they would just live without. That’s no longer the case with Microsoft 365 Business —organizations now have their own value bundle.

Now Microsoft is offering Microsoft 365 Business, combining the productivity tools and features of Office 365, with the security of Windows 10. This cost-effective subscription is built specifically for small and midsize businesses to empower their team to be more productive through collaboration while keeping a peace of mind that their data is secured.

When looking at these subscriptions, it’s important to understand the differences between M365 Business and M365 Enterprise E3 because it is not always obvious which option is best for your business. This blog will dive into the comparison of each option to help guide your decision. To start off, why should companies choose Microsoft 365 in general?

PowerApps is a low code/no code suite of apps, services, connectors and data platforms that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs.

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Using PowerApps, you can quickly build custom business apps that connect to your business data stored either in the underlying data platform (Common Data Service) or in various online and on-premises data sources (SharePoint, Excel, Office 365, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and so on).

Apps built using PowerApps provide rich business logic and workflow capabilities to transform your manual business processes to digital, automated processes. In addition, apps built using PowerApps have a responsive design and can run seamlessly in a browser or on mobile devices (phone or tablet). PowerApps "democratizes" the custom business app building experience by enabling users to build feature-rich, custom business apps without writing code.

PowerApps also provides an extensible platform that lets pro developers programmatically interact with data and metadata, apply business logic, create custom connectors, and integrate with external data.

Microsoft has made massive changes to its end-user automation tools including branding, pricing and the complexity of its licensing.
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On the branding side, Microsoft Flow is now called Power Automate. Power Automate is a cloud-based software tool that allows employees to create and automate workflows across multiple applications and services without the need for developer help. View the video below to learn more about Power Automate.

Get the same Security and Compliance Tools but Avoid Paying the Full Microsoft 365 Enterprise Price!

Does your organization have security and compliance needs, but you aren’t ready to pay for everything in the Microsoft 365 E5 Suite? 

This past February, Microsoft added new advanced security and compliance offering bundles to their price list. These packages are great for businesses who are not yet ready to use or to pay for the highest-end Microsoft365 E5 bundle – which runs at $57 per user. The new Identity & Threat Protection and Information Protection & Compliance offerings are designed to provide customers with a bundle of solid functionality without breaking the bank. These new bundles give customers a smaller set of features at a smaller cost. If your business is not quite ready to make the leap to a larger bundle, these new security and compliance bundles may be the right choice; get the features you need without paying more for other features you won’t use right now.