The (Re)Introduction of Microsoft Places

Microsoft first unveiled Microsoft Places in October 2022 with the aim to reimagine hybrid and in-person working. Since then, we have come out the other side of COVID, and started settling on what hybrid work means. Now, Microsoft is reintroducing Microsoft Places - let's dive in!

What is Microsoft Places?

Microsoft Places is designed to make coordinating in-office time and connecting with your co-workers easier. Microsoft Places is built into the Microsoft 365 Apps you use every day like Outlook and Microsoft Teams. When planning to come into the office, we tend to message on a range of platforms, to a group of people, to find the right time that we'll all be in. It's not straight forward, even if we send a calendar appointment to the team! Microsoft Places can also help you to book rooms and desks in the office to bring your team physically together.

Getting Started with Microsoft Places

If you are interested in trying the public preview features of Microsoft Places, I recommend you do this soon as the licensing requirements haven't fully come into effect. When Microsoft Places becomes Generally Available, users will require a Microsoft Teams Premium License. Currently, Microsoft Teams Premium is available at an introductory offer price of £5.80 per user per month.

When launching Microsoft Places, I am are presented with a selection of working environments that best match where you usually work; Office, Hybrid, and Remote.

After making the selection, I can select which hours/days I'm in the office or working from home. This setting can be found in Outlook > Settings > Calendar > Work Hours and Location. With setup complete, Microsoft Places displays who is in the office on which days. A nice touch is the upcoming meetings panel on the right hand side. It's standard for meetings to have a Teams invite these days, but with Microsoft Places, I can see a colleague is actually in the office, meaning we can host the meeting face to face.

With the public preview of Microsoft Places, users can:

• Share their proposed location schedule and see who is in the office or working away
• RSVP to meetings with either 'in-person' or 'remote' as options
• Easily see who is coming into the office within your Outlook Calendar and receive notifications to book space such as rooms or desks for days that you're in the office
• Presence signalling to indicate when you're in the office or a particular location.

To trial additional features, there is an Opt-in form by Microsoft available here.

Building an office for the future

Microsoft Places includes Places Finder - found in Microsoft Outlook. With Places Finder, you can search for rooms and desks including additional information enhanced by Microsoft and other device partners. Features such as Places Finder, room and desk booking, and office analytics are built on top of Azure Maps Creator. At a high level, Azure Maps Creator helps you build a floorplan (or take an existing floorplan) and make it compatible for Microsoft Places. The Azure tool adds Geo-References, Facility levels and Departmental Units to a floorplan. More information on Azure Maps Creator is available here.

In the second half of 2024, Microsoft will be adding Copilot capabilities to Microsoft Places to help plan meetings and which days are best to be in the office. Copilot and Microsoft Places as part of Teams Premium are clear indicators that Microsoft are showing their vision for the future of work, where basic tasks are handled automatically and intelligently by the tools we are already using. The importance on how well we use them is paramount to our success.