A new Windows 365 plan, Windows 365 Frontline, is now available in public preview. This offering is designed for shift workers to provide them a personalised, secure, and consistent Windows experience that can be accessed on any device.
The key benefit of Windows 365 Frontline is that a single licence allows three different employees to access Windows 365, as long as only one employee is active at any given time. Windows 365 Frontline is designed to give frontline workers access only when they need it, whereas the Enterprise plan gives users dedicated all day access. So, what that means is if you have 300 shift workers and only 100 of them work at any given time, you are only required to purchase 100 licences. So rather than purchasing a Windows 365 licence for all 300 shift workers you're only required to buy enough licences for the maximum number of concurrent active users. And much the same as Windows 365 Enterprise, Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs can be managed along with your other endpoints in Microsoft Intune.
When Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs are provisioned, they will be automatically placed in a powered off state and will remain powered off until the employee logs into the Cloud PC. This is different to Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PCs which remain on, the Frontline Cloud PCs will remain off when they're not in use. Once the employee logs in to their cloud PC will become powered on, and when they disconnect it will be powered off again. This process will all happen automatically, there's nothing you need to configure as an admin for that process to occur. If you push out any updates or policies to the Cloud PC when it’s powered off, those policies and updates will apply when the Cloud PC is powered back on again.
With Windows 365 Frontline, because you've got employees basically sharing licences it's important that the users save their work at the end of the shift and then disconnect the session so that the Cloud PC is released and available for another employee to use when the next shift starts. There is an option to configure session time limits to disconnect active cloud PC sessions to help prevent scenarios we're employees have forgotten to disconnect, leaving not enough Cloud PCs available for the next shift. The session time limit policy can be created in the Intune admin centre in device configuration profiles.
Because the Frontline Cloud PCs are off when they are inactive, there is an option in Intune which will enable you to power on the Cloud PCs even when they aren't in use. This may come in handy if you've got a time critical update/security update that needs to be deployed asap or before the next shift begins. It will also allow you to turn off a Cloud PC which you may need to do if you need to make it available for another employee.
For end-users, they can access their Cloud PC either through the Windows 365 app or via a browser at windows365.onmicrosoft.com. After signing in with their Microsoft 365 their Windows experience will be launched, and as an admin you can configure notifications to remind the users to save their work and disconnect from the Cloud PC so it can be released for the next user when their shift starts.
Currently while it's in public preview you can't purchase Windows 365 Frontline licences so the only way to get access at this stage is to sign up for the public preview. There also isn't any information available yet as to what the pricing will be or when the product will be globally available. What we do know if that the licences will be applied at tenant level which means that if you are looking at the Billing > Licences section in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, it will show that 0 licenses are assigned to users, so instead you will use the utilisation report in the Intune admin centre which is specifically for monitoring Windows 365 Frontline usage and licensing. This report is going to tell you information to help make sure that you're purchasing the appropriate number of licences by showing data such as the number of currently connected Cloud PC's, the maximum number of Cloud PC's in the last 7 or 28 days, the maximum concurrency limit based on your licencing, and it will also have warnings if you're approaching or reaching a maximum concurrency limit. Much like other Microsoft 365 services you will be able to see 28 days of data in this report.
Resources:
Join public preview: Public preview: Windows 365 Frontline (office.com)
Partner announcement - April 2023 announcements - Partner Center announcements | Microsoft Learn
Tech Community announcement - Windows 365 Frontline available in public preview - Microsoft Community Hub
MS Blog - Introducing Windows 365 Frontline | Microsoft 365 Blog
MS Technical documentation - What is Windows 365 Frontline? | Microsoft Learn
Product page - Frontline | Windows 365 (microsoft.com)
W365 FAQ - Windows 365 Frequently Asked Questions | Microsoft
Office 365 E2 Sunset
On April 3rd, Microsoft Tech for Social Impact, announced the final discontinuation of the legacy non-profit Office 365 E2 grant. From October 1st, 2023, customers will not be able to renew the Office 365 E2 grant.
The Office 365 E2 grant was only available through the web direct channel, not through CSP, meaning you will not see these subscriptions in the Dicker Data portal. However, some non-profit customers may still be using this subscription so it’s important to be aware of this change, and so you can transition them to a CSP subscription before October. Since they were direct subscriptions, Microsoft sent notifications directly to the tenant global and billing admins on April 3rd, 2023, announcing this change.
At the next renewal on or after October 1st, 2023, customers with an Office 365 E2 subscription will renew into the Office 365 E1 plan. Alternatively, you can transition up to 300 users to Microsoft 365 Business Basic which is free for non-profits. Because the existing subscription is web direct, it will renew into a web direct Office 365 E1 subscription paid by credit card, so to avoid this you should purchase either the replacement subscription (e.g., Office 365 E1 or Business Basic) through the Dicker Data portal and cancel the existing Office 365 E2 subscription before October 1st.
If you need help/advice transitioning your customers from Office 365 E2, please reach out to the Dicker Data team and we’ll be happy to help.
