Microsoft Announces New Offers in response to the COVID-19 Crisis
In support of individuals and organisations around the world responding to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, Microsoft are announcing several new offers. These offers are intended to provide organisations with the personal and organisational agility they need not only to weather the current crisis, but to emerge with the foundations for continued business growth.
Power Platform Emergency Response Solutions and six-month Free Offer
Power Platform allows you to quickly build web and mobile applications to improve communication and streamline processes during an emergency response.
During this time, Microsoft have been helping build and deploy emergency response and industry Power Platform Solutions. They have turned these solutions into templates for all customers to leverage.
Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Apps portals are now available through free product offers for up to six months for customers in the Healthcare, Education, Non-profit, and Government sectors. Power Virtual Agents is also available to these customers, excluding government organisations in GCC data-center regions.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service is available Free of Charge for up to six-months
The global pandemic is straining service centres everywhere, with a massive uptick in call volumes, further complicated by many agents working remotely. With omnichannel capabilities for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, call centre employees can provide consistent, personalised support whilst working remotely.
To help support the increased demand on contact centres during the COVID-19 crisis, Dynamics 365 Customer Service (including Digital Messaging) is available free of charge for up to six months for customers implementing a Customer Service solution in response to COVID-19.
Dynamics 365 Remote Assist available Free of Charge for up to six months
Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows technicians to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all.
Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is also available free of charge for up to six months for customers implementing a Remote Assist solution in response to COVID-19, either a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation. Contact us for more information.
Licensing and Technical Enforcement Deadline Extensions
In addition, Microsoft want to ensure customers have ample time to prepare for upcoming license transitions and technical enforcement deadlines. Below is a summary of the deadline extensions:
- Dynamics 365 Team Members: Existing Dynamics 365 customers who acquired the Team Members license prior to October 1, 2018 can continue to renew their existing Team Members subscription through December 31, 2020 (extended from June 30, 2020). Starting January 1, 2021, all renewing customers will need to transition to the new Team Members license.
- Dynamics 365 Storage & Prod/Non-prod instances: Existing Dynamics 365 customers can continue to renew their existing storage and prod/non-prod instance use rights through December 31, 2020 (extended from June 30, 2020). Starting January 1, 2021, all renewing customers will need to transition to the new model. In the meantime, Dynamics 365 customers are allowed to use their existing storage and prod/non-prod instances.
- Dynamics 365 Portals: Existing Dynamics 365 customers can continue to renew with their portal use rights through December 31, 2020 (extended from June 30, 2020). Starting January 1, 2021, all renewing customers will adhere to the new portal licensing use rights.
- Dynamics 365 Plan Customers: Renewing Dynamics 365 Plan, Customer Engagement Plan, and Unified Operations Plan customers can use qualifying offers to transition to attach model through June 30, 2021 (extended from June 30, 2020).
- Technical Enforcement Extensions: Technical enforcement for Dynamics 365 Team Members licenses purchased or transitioned after October 1, 2018 will come into effect on January 31, 2021 (extended from September 30, 2020).
- Microsoft will continue to deliver on their innovation roadmap and leverage their safe deployment models, but will provide allowances for uptake of the 2020 wave 1 release. Microsoft’s April and, in some cases, May updates are already progressing through their readiness phases according to the published Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans. They expect that those will be available as planned. However, Microsoft will defer the mandatory uptake of the 2020 wave 1 update for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement by one month to May, instead of April, and enable one additional update deferral for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. This should allow clients to take the 2020 wave 1 updates when it is most convenient—either in the month of April, as originally planned, or deferred to May.
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