Teams Premium is an add-on license that brings advanced features to Microsoft Teams that make customers experience more personalised, intelligent, and secure.
Licensing
Teams Premium is an add-on license that can be added to add to any base O365/M365 license that includes Teams.
Currently, there is no discounted education or nonprofit Teams Premium subscription. Education and NFP customers can still purchase Teams Premium, but they will need to get the commercial subscription.
Teams Premium has an introductory pricing offer which is 30% discount that applies to the entire subscription term. The introductory pricing offer ends on June 30th 2024.
Generally speaking, every user who needs access to a Teams Premium feature should be licensed with it as it’s a per-user subscription. However, for some features only the organiser or admin needs a license. There are three types of features, attendee-based, organiser-based, and admin-based.
Attendee-based features
Only users with a Teams Premium license can access them, so they are not accessible by any users without a license.
Organiser-based features
Only meeting organisers need a license, but the features are only accessible to the organisers or the attendees during the meeting.
Admin-based features
Only the admins need a license, as the features will only benefit admin users.
You can purchase a trial for Teams Premium, however as with all trial licenses, it must be purchased directly in the M365 admin centre. The trial subscription will include 25 licenses and auto-renew will be enabled, so make sure to turn off auto-renew so it does not convert to a paid annual subscription direct with Microsoft, instead of through you.
Meeting Templates
Meeting templates are a feature of Teams Premium that allow you to create and save reusable meeting agendas, settings, and options, to help you have time and ensure consistency. You can use meeting templates to quickly start a new meeting with the same format and content as a previous one, or to standardise recurring meetings with your team, clients, or partners.
To create a meeting template, you need to have a Teams Premium license and be the organiser of a scheduled meeting. You can create up to 50 custom templates with Teams Premium and they can be created by admins in the Teams Admin Center.
You can specify the following settings in the meeting template:
For each of the meeting options you can choose to lock the setting, meaning the organiser cannot change it, or you can leave it unlocked so the meeting organiser can change the setting if needed. You can also choose to hide the options if you do not want the organisers to see them. By default, all options will be unlocked and visible.
Once they are created, it can take up to 24 hours for the templates to become visible to users. To use a meeting template, you can select it from the drop-down menu when you create a new meeting in Teams. The meeting details will be populated with the information from the template, and you can make any adjustments as needed. You can also share your templates with other organizers in your organisation or import templates from other sources.
For more information about meeting templates, refer to the following documentation:
Overview of custom meeting templates in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
IT admins - Create a custom meeting template in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Manage meeting templates in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Custom Meeting Themes
One of the features of Microsoft Teams Premium is the ability to customise the appearance of your meetings with custom meeting themes. Custom meeting themes allow you to choose a background image, a logo, and a colour scheme for your meeting invitations and join pages. You can create different themes for different types of meetings, such as team meetings, webinars, or training sessions. Custom meeting themes can help you create a consistent and professional look for your meetings, as well as reinforce your brand identity and message.
To create a custom meeting theme, you need to have a Microsoft Teams Premium license and be a global administrator or a Teams service administrator. You can use the Teams admin center or PowerShell commands to create and manage your custom meeting themes. You can upload your own images and logos, or choose from the default ones provided by Microsoft. You can also preview how your theme will look before applying it to your meetings.
To use a custom meeting theme, you need to select it when you create a meeting in Teams. You can either use the theme that is assigned to your organisation by default, or choose a different theme from the drop-down menu. You can also change the theme of an existing meeting by editing the meeting details. The theme will be applied to the meeting invitation and the join page that your attendees will see. You can also share your custom meeting themes with other organisers in your organisation or import themes from other sources.
For more instructions on creating custom meeting themes, refer to the following documentation: Create and manage meeting themes for Teams meetings - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Custom Meeting Backgrounds
Custom meeting backgrounds are another feature that you can use to personalise your meetings in Teams Premium. This feature lets you upload your own organisation branded Teams backgrounds and make them available to users. Users can still upload their own custom backgrounds, but by uploading custom org-wide backgrounds you can ensure consistency across the organisation. You are also able to use the meeting customisation policies to enforce
that users can only use the custom backgrounds you upload. However, only users with a Teams Premium license will be able to use the custom backgrounds.
For instructions for setting up custom backgrounds, refer to the following documentation: IT Admins- Manage and create custom meeting backgrounds for Teams meetings - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Custom Together Mode Scenes
Custom together mode scenes allow you to create your own scenes for the together mode, which places the video of participants in a shared background. You can design your own scenes using the Microsoft Scene Studio and upload them to Teams. You can then select the scene when you start a meeting in together mode. You can also share your custom scenes with other organisers in your organisation or import scenes from other sources.
For instructions for creating custom scenes, refer to the following documentation: Custom Together Mode Scenes - Teams | Microsoft Learn
RTMP-in
RTMP-in is a feature that allows you to stream live video from external sources, such as cameras, encoders, or software applications, into Teams meetings. This feature enables you to bring high-quality video content into your meetings and enhance the engagement and interactivity of your participants. You can use RTMP-in to stream events such as webinars, presentations, panel discussions, or performances. You can also use RTMP-in to stream content from multiple sources simultaneously, such as different camera angles or guest speakers.
To use RTMP-in, you need to have a Teams Premium license and be a meeting organiser or presenter. You also need to have an RTMP-enabled device or application that can send the video stream to Teams. You can configure the RTMP settings in the Teams admin center or use the PowerShell cmdlets to manage the RTMP streams. You can then start or stop the RTMP stream during a meeting using the Teams desktop app or the Teams web app.
For instructions for setting up RTMP-in, refer to the following documentation: Manage RTMP-In for Teams meetings, webinars, and town halls - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Advanced Virtual Appointments
Virtual appointments allow you to schedule and manage online appointments with your customers or clients using the Bookings app. You can create different types of services, such as consultations, assessments, or coaching sessions, and set the availability, duration, and price of each service. You can also customise the booking page, confirmation email, and reminder messages for each service. Your customers or clients can then book an appointment with you through the booking page and join the meeting via Teams or a web browser. These capabilities are available with all M365 and O365 licenses.
Advanced Virtual Appointments with Teams Premium includes additional management features that help improve the appointment experiences for organiser and customer:
- SMS notifications – Automatic custom text reminders that include the appointment details and meeting join link, which helps to reduce missed appointments and makes it easier for customers to join from their mobile device. This feature is currently only available in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- Custom waiting room – Allows you to customise the waiting room with your company logo and branding.
- A queue of scheduled and on-demand appointments – this feature makes it easier to manage scheduled appointments with a central location the see all appointments, wait times, live statues of the meeting and which staff member is assigned to them.
- Analytics – Analytics available to individuals in the Teams app shows data like no-shows, wait times, and calendar-level analytics. In the Teams admin center you can see analytics across the whole organisation.
This table provides a comparison of the features included in Teams Premium vs the M365/O365 licenses.
Advanced Webinars
Teams Premium offers advanced webinar capabilities that allow you to customise the webinar experience and better manage registrations. You can create custom email templates, custom reminders, create a waitlist, and set a registration timeframe to control when attendees can register for the attend. It allows you to manually approve or deny people who have registered for the webinar, which is helpful for webinars that may be discussing sensitivity information or intended for a specific audience, as you can control who is able to attend the event. You can also hide attendee names from other attendees.
For more information on Webinars in Teams, refer to the following documentation: Plan for Teams webinars - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Premium Town Halls
Town Halls are large-scale online events that allow you to broadcast live video and audio to a large audience of up to 20,000 attendees. You can use Town Halls to share important updates,
announcements, or presentations with your organisation or external stakeholders. They aren’t designed to be interactive – attendees don’t use cameras or mic but instead they can use the Q&A which is moderated by the presenters and organisers. Town Halls are powered by Teams Live Events, which provide a high-quality and reliable streaming experience. You can produce the event using Teams, an external encoder, or a third-party production tool. You can also record the event and make it available on demand. The key differences between Towns Halls and Premium Town Halls are as follows:
- Organisers can create custom Town Hall email templates to send to attendees
- The Town Hall attendee and Q&A capacity is 20,000 (instead of 10,000)
- Additional languages available for live translation, the languages included are:
- English (en-us)
- Japanese (ja-jp)
- Spanish (es-es)
- Portuguese (pt-pt)
- French (fr-fr)
- Chinese (zh-cn)
- German (de-de)
- Italian (it-it)
- Korean (ko-kr)
- Russian (ru-ru) - Ability for organisers to see real-time insights during the live Town Hall
- Real-time monitoring of the attendee experience in the Teams Admin Center for admins to troubleshoot during the live Town Hall
For more information about Town Halls, refer to the following documentation: Plan for Teams town halls - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Sensitivity Labels
Teams Premium offers advanced meeting protections that can be enforced through sensitivity labels. Sensitivity labels can be applied by meetings organisers when they create the meeting invite from Outlook or Teams. In the labels you can control the following meeting settings:
- Who can bypass the lobby
- Who can present
- Who can record
- Encryption for meeting video and audio
- Automatically record
- Video watermark for screen sharing and camera streams
- Prevent or allow copying chat contents to the clipboard
The settings configured in the label that’s applied to the invite are inherited by the meeting and apply straight away.
To use sensitivity labels and apply watermarking, the customer must also be licensed with Microsoft 365 E5.
Resources
There are heaps of resources Microsoft have made available to partners to help with selling and deploying Teams Premium.
Modern Work for Partners - Co-Sell with Microsoft GTM Resources - this website has lots of resources including customer pitch decks, one-pagers, click-through demos, use case guides etc.
https://aka.ms/TeamsPremiumDeployment - this contains two technical deployment guides, they cover the benefits, use cases, perquisites, limitations, and links to the set-up instructions for the features in Teams Premium. One of the guides have step-by-step instructions for configuring Teams Premium.
https://cloudpartners.transform.microsoft.com/download?assetname=assets/Teams-Premium-user-guide.pptx&download=1 -This is a Teams Premium user guide for end-users that shows them how to use the Teams Premium features within the Teams app.
