M365 E5 vs. Office 365 E5 Regarding Business Apps (Free) - Specifically Bookings

Copper Contributor

SO, super confused on this. We have M365 E5 License (primarily), Office365  Business Premium, and Office 365 Business Essentials licenses in our tenant. I am trying to get the Bookings app to be available to our M365 E5 users, but can't seem to get it to work. I had a test user with O365 BP created and it works without having to do anything. I can even add the M365 users as admins to the Bookings site/calendar, but when I try to login to the bookings site online (https://outlook.office365.com/owa/?path=/bookings) with an M365 E5 user it says that I don't have access and that licenses have changed recently. 

 

So, a couple of questions/clarifications:

  1. What version of office is included with M365 E5?
    1. Is it O365 E5? O365 E3, O365 BP, something else?
    2. The reason being that Bookings states that it only works with BP, O365 E3, and E5 versions.
  2. How does this work/not-work across different MS/Office licenses? IE - why does it work with BP vs M365 E5?
    1. Do the organization level changes described here need to be applied to affect the M365 E5 users? 
      1. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/get-access-to-microsoft-bookings-5382dc07-aaa5-45c9-8767-50...
      2. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/turn-microsoft-bookings-on-or-off-for-your-organization-c27...

Sorry, please ask for any clarifying information that I can provide.

Note I am not an admin on this tenant and am relying on our Service Provider to do the above-referenced changes to our apps/settings/etc. and make sure everything is set up correctly. It is very difficult for me to sit back and take their word for it that everything was done correctly, so are there any ways I can verify any of the settings without admin access?

10 Replies

Hi,

Office 365 E3 is in Microsoft 365 E3 and Office 365 E5 is in Microsoft 365 E5.

However, AFAIK, you need to add the free business apps add on licence onto those E5 users in order to use Bookings

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Get-access-to-Microsoft-Bookings-5382dc07-aaa5-45c9-8767-50...

Hope that answers your question!

Best, Chris

@Christopher Hoard I am being told by my MSP that Microsoft is singing a different tune and that licensing and feature availability for M365 E5 (My local version of office says Pro Plus) is, in fact, different than O365 E5.

The MSP states that they did all of the steps noted in the linked article to enable Business Apps (Free) for our E5 users, but it still does not work.

 

Any thoughts?

@MikeWintrode 

 

I have raised this direct over Twitter. I'll get back to you once they confirm.

 

M365Bookings2.PNG

Let's see what they say. Personally I think it ought to work given that Office 365 E5 is a component of Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 has more (Windows 10, EMS E5) but it has Office 365 in it.

 

Best, Chris

Thanks @Christopher Hoard. This stuff is clear as mud these days....

Unfortunately it is not always 1 to 1 conversion. Say recently they added shared computer activation to Office apps in M365 Business plan (it has Office 365 Business). But Office 365 Business Premium not receiving that. Names can be similar, but feature set can differ.

So still no clear answer on this one. Can someone at Microsoft shed some light on this? Is Office 365 E5 a feature for feature match with the Office that is included in M365 E5?

@MikeWintrode  Hi Mike,  My name is Jordan and I work for a cloud solutions distributor that deals primarily with Microsoft and O365 licensing called Pax8.  www.pax8.com 

 

You can 100% use the Business Apps w/ M365 E5 as well as O365 E5.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  jtaj@pax8.com 

 

Best,

Jordan

@MikeWintrode 
Was wondering if you could help me with a problem I'm faced with. Is it possible for you to show me what the M365 E5 license looks like on the portal please?

I would really appreciate a screenshot or even an extract from  Get-AzureADSubscribedSku | Select SkuPartNumber would be most helpful 

Microsoft 365 "Business Apps (free)" which is available for Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E5 users includes the following:

Microsoft Connections
Microsoft Listings
Microsoft Bookings
Microsoft Invoicing