Microsoft 365 Frontline Licensees Getting New Default Apps Setup -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft 365 Frontline Licensees Getting New Default Apps Setup

By Kurt Mackie
05/17/2022

Microsoft on Monday announced a rollout of a new default prepinned apps policy for users of Microsoft Teams with "frontline worker" types of licensing.

Microsoft's frontline worker licensing is called the "F SKU" (F stock keeping unit). Basically, Microsoft is moving away from the generic Microsoft 365 apps setup for these licensees, and putting forth apps that meet "the right initial frontline experience." This change will be gradually rolling out, and will affect organizations with "Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3 and Office 365 F3" licenses.

The default applications that F SKU licensees will start to see include the following, per a Microsoft document:

These new default apps will be coming for both mobile and desktop F SKU users at some point. The order of the apps can't be changed when organizations are using Microsoft's default configuration, the document indicated.

If F SKU licensees want to customize the apps that are provided to users, then they will have to change a "Show tailored apps" switch from "On" (the default position) to "Off." That change can be done using the Teams Admin Center portal, the document explained.

The coming prepinned apps F SKU policy change is seen by Microsoft as helping IT pros with messy configuration details, according to the announcement:

This new out-of-the-box experience will also help to reduce the burden on IT admins around configuring and deploying the right initial frontline experience, while still providing admins granular control over the F SKU environment.

While Microsoft is making this change for F SKU licensees, it has plans to create default apps for other Microsoft 365 products as well.

"We will be releasing other pre-pinned app experiences based on other licenses in the future, so stay tuned," the announcement indicated.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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