Microsoft Places….A Quick Comparison of What you Get with Each Licence Type

If you’re wondering which Microsoft Places features are included with your current Microsoft 365 license, the table below breaks it all down.

Note: Features marked with an asterisk (*) are expected to roll out in Q2 2025.

A clear pattern is emerging:

• Workplace presence features (like sharing your location and seeing when colleagues are in) tend to be available with a Core Microsoft 365 license.
• Workspace booking capabilities (such as desk and room reservations via the Places app) typically require a Teams Premium license.
• In some cases, unlocking advanced insights or intelligent booking support may also require a Copilot license.

The comparison below highlights how Microsoft is structuring the feature set across different license tiers – helping you understand what functionality is available today, and what’s coming next.

The following sections review in more detail what you will get for your licence money!

This is What you Get with Your Core Microsoft 365 Licence

Your Core licence provides a whole suite of functionality to support in person collaboration (i.e. helping you decide whether to visit the office and connect with co-workers when you’re there) – aka Workplace Presence.

This includes:

• Setting your location schedule for the week – e.g. from Outlook
• Seeing where your co-workers are planned to be – e.g.,
  • Using the Places App ‘People’ view, or
  • Via ‘Places Cards’ in Outlook & Teams calendar.

If you want to start making workspace bookings to accommodate your planned office visits, you can do one of 3 things:

• Use the regular Room Finder in Outlook – check out this article to make sure you have the optimum Room Finder configuration
• Use a third-party workspace booking system
• Upgrade to the Teams Premium licence for workspace booking in Places – see next section.

This is What you Get with Your Premium Teams Licence

Your Teams Premium licence is what you need if you want to enable room and desk booking using the Places Finder in Outlook or Teams, from the Places Cards in Outlook & Teams, or using the Places App in Outlook or Teams.

‘End user’ capabilities include:

• Selection from an interactive map (currently only via the Places App)
• Prompts that enable you to book workspaces from your calendar view – e.g.:
  • For an upcoming meeting in your calendar, or
  • When you see a quorum of your co-workers are planned to be in the office.

There’s also a few Admin or ‘Facilities Management’ features that will come along with Teams Premium licences, including the ability to set auto-release policies in the event of a ‘no show’ (this relies on end users using a Microsoft Teams session check in, so I’m guessing that if the room or meeting space in question is not associated with a Teams meeting, this may not work).

The other area for improvement coming down the track is with regard to how Places is configured. At present this is very much a PowerShell-driven-technical-gig – and not for your regular FM.

This is What you Get with a Copilot Licence

At present, I would say the added functionality you get with a Copilot licence is not as compelling as it will become in the future.

That said, it really depends on your current expectations around workspace booking.

For example, we recently worked with a client who needed to book recurring meetings – and just as importantly, manage the inevitable room conflicts that arise when a room is unavailable for one or more dates in the series.

It would appear that to handle these scenarios smoothly, you’ll need a Copilot license. And to book the recurring meeting room series in the first place, we expect you’ll also need a Teams Premium license.

Getting intelligent suggestions on the best day to visit the office seems to be something that ‘Core’ (only) + ‘Copilot’ might deliver, however.

There also seems to be some better facilities utilisation analytics available with Copilot, but it’s not clear whether just the facilities manager will need to be licenced to use Copilot….