Microsoft Places in 2026: A Guide to What It Does, the New Licensing, and Where It Falls Short

If your company runs on Microsoft 365, Microsoft Places is probably already sitting inside Outlook and Teams calendar, waiting to be turned on. It promises a tidy version of hybrid work: see who's coming in, book a desk near your team, find a room with the right kit, and give facilities real numbers of how the office gets used.

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As of April 1, 2026, a licensing change put most of that in reach of far more people, which is why so many workplace teams are taking a fresh look at it.

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Here's the honest read. Places is really good at one job, and it can't quite do everything the pitch implies. Both are true, and which side you land on comes down to what you need from it. Here's the detail:

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• what Places is
• the features that count
• the licensing change in plain terms
• 8 gaps I'd check before committing
• and a simple way to tell whether Places alone is enough, or whether you need a dedicated workplace platform alongside it

What is Microsoft Places?

Microsoft Places is Microsoft's AI-powered workplace app for hybrid and flexible work. Past the marketing label, it does three things:

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• lets people book individual desks and meeting rooms
• shows who from their team is coming in, and when
• gives facilities teams real numbers on how the office gets used

Here's what a normal week looks like with it. Monday morning you open Outlook and see that three people on your team marked Wednesday as an office day. So you mark Wednesday too and book a desk near them from the floor map. Wednesday you sit down, plug your laptop into the monitor, and Places checks you in.

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Your facilities lead, meanwhile, opens a dashboard and sees the third floor ran at 38% last week while the small conference rooms were full by 10am most days. Those are the three jobs Microsoft built it for: coordinate office days, find your people, measure the space.

It lives where people already work

What sets Places apart from a standalone booking app is that it lives inside the everyday apps people already use. Booking a desk or setting your work plan happens in the calendar in Teams and Outlook, right where you work.

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You can access Microsoft Places as a standalone app, on the web and inside Teams and the Microsoft 365 app, on desktop and mobile. But most people will touch it through Outlook and Teams without thinking of it as a separate thing.

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Microsoft also markets AI-driven features and proactive insights, but in practice the AI part is mostly Copilot: you can ask it to book you a room for a meeting. Handy, and not the reason anyone adopts Places.

It runs on Exchange, and that shapes everything

This is the part that explains the rest of the guide. Rather than a separate platform, Places sits on top of Exchange, the same system behind your Outlook calendar. Every room and desk is an Exchange calendar entry, and the building hierarchy (buildings → floors → sections → rooms, workspaces, and desks) lives in the Microsoft directory.

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Two things follow from that:

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• Nothing works until an admin builds the full directory. At any real scale, you set Places up before anyone can use it, and that's the first real project, not an afternoon's work.

• Because it's all Exchange, booking policies are set by the Exchange admin (usually IT), floor maps go through PowerShell, and changes route through the directory, so they take time to show up instead of applying on the spot.

The April 2026 Microsoft Places licensing change, explained

This is the biggest development for anyone weighing up Places today. On April 1, 2026, Microsoft split how Places is licensed. The everyday coordination features became widely included, and only the desk- and space-specific features now sit behind a separate per-space license.

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• Before the change, the advanced Places experiences (the rich Places Finder, Places Explorer, individual desk booking, auto-release, and space analytics) were locked behind a Teams Premium license at $10 per user, per month.

• After the change, the everyday coordination features became part of the core Teams capabilities bundled into most M365 licenses, so they reach almost anyone with a calendar in Outlook and Teams. That covers Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Business Basic, Standard, and Premium, Office 365 E1/E3/E5, Exchange Online, Microsoft 365 frontline plans (F1 and F3), and various Teams licenses. Education "A" licenses too. The list is broad enough that, in most tenants, almost everyone already has what they need.

The desk- and space-specific bits (individual desk booking, auto-release, and occupancy analytics) went the other way, onto a per-space license called Teams Shared Space (a rename of the old Teams Shared Devices license).

It's $8.55 per license, per month, paid annually. One license covers up to four desks plus one extra space, such as a meeting room, common-area phone, Teams panel, or hotdesking device. So you license the spaces you manage instead of every employee.

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Here's how the new license requirements break down:

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For most teams this is a win, because most have far more employees than bookable desks. The exception is a company with few premium users but a lot of bookable spaces, which can end up paying more under the new model.

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Watch out: Microsoft's own pages disagree on the name

On the US Places page, the pricing block is headed "Microsoft Teams Enterprise, $8.55," but the features under it (bookable desks, four desks plus one space, desk-level analytics) are the Teams Shared Space feature set, and the same page's FAQ calls it the Teams Shared Space license. The Canadian page hasn't been updated yet: it still sells Places through Teams Premium at CAD $13.60 per user, per month. Confirm the figure with your Microsoft contact before you budget.

Microsoft Places core features

Five things make up most of what people touch: booking, floor maps, work plans, the admin portal, and analytics. Here's how each one holds up day to day, and where the licensing line falls.

1. Microsoft Places desk booking

Booking works across New Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Outlook on the web, and the Places app. You get interactive floor maps, the ability to see where colleagues are sitting and grab a desk nearby, partial-day and multi-day reservations, delegation (so an assistant can book for someone), and admin-configurable check-in with automatic release of unclaimed desks.

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One thing to get right for budgeting: booking rooms and desk pools needs no extra license, while booking a specific named individual desk requires a space license.

Each individual desk is set to one of four modes, which is how admins control how a desk behaves:

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• reservable: can be booked in advance or on the spot
• drop-in: on the spot only, no advance reservation
• assigned: tied to one person, out of the shared pool
• unavailable: locked out for maintenance or any other reason.

There's also automatic pairing for physical desks. Once a desk's peripherals are registered, plugging in a laptop checks the user into that desk and books it for the day, so the reservation reflects who's actually sitting there. As of mid-2026 this works with monitors and audio/video devices, with docking stations and webcams listed as coming soon.

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Two things to know before you lean on it for data:

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• Setup is heavy. You turn it on in PowerShell and map each monitor's unique ID to a desk, one by one, and new desk accounts take 24 to 48 hours to show up.

• It's opt-in per person. Each user is asked to allow the auto check-in and can decline, with no way to enforce it. If a chunk of staff say no, those desks send no check-in signal, so the occupancy data might come out patchy rather than complete.

2. Microsoft Places floor plan and map

Booking works without maps, but adding floor plans gives the best experience. The catch is the workflow (and it's a real one!).

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There's no drag-and-drop map editor. Maps have to come in Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF), the format Apple built for mapping the inside of malls, which means every wall and desk needs a real-world coordinate, not just a spot on the page.

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In practice you convert CAD drawings into a set of GeoJSON files (one each for the building, footprint, levels, rooms, desks, and so on), match every room and desk to its Exchange resource, and upload the package through PowerShell.

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A few specialists on Microsoft's partner list, like Mappedin and Pointr, do this conversion and charge for it (Mappedin's plan, for example, runs about $200 per map, per month, and one map can cover multiple floors), and Microsoft itself recommends using a partner.

Every time a desk or room moves, you re-upload the whole plan. It works, but it's an engineering job, and it's usually the most painful part of a Places rollout.

3. Work plans, presence, and the Places card

Employees set a weekly work plan so colleagues can see who's planning to be in. The Places card shows, right from the calendar, who's coming in on a given day, with a quick way to reserve a desk or a room. Work location can also update automatically when someone connects to corporate Wi-Fi or a supported peripheral.

Places also helps with schedule coordination: for in-person events, you can send an in-person meeting invite, let attendees RSVP as in-person or remote, and get team guidance on the best days to come in.

4. Microsoft Places admin portal and delegation

In August 2025 Microsoft launched the Places Management web portal, a visual interface that replaced most PowerShell scripting for managing buildings, floors, rooms, and desks. It's open to Global admins, Exchange Online admins, and a dedicated Places Admin role. To spread the load without handing out tenant-wide rights, there are two delegated roles for local teams:

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• a Building Administrator role for managing specific buildings and their floors
• a Desk Administrator role for managing desk modes, assignments, and peripherals on specific floors

Two limits keep this from being fully self-service. The portal isn't on mobile and doesn't support batch upload, so large multi-building rollouts and bulk changes still fall back to PowerShell, and some tasks (like managing the individual desks inside a pool, or tenant-wide settings) live in PowerShell regardless.

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And anywhere you scope access to a group, it has to be a mail-enabled security group. Use a standard one and the setting silently won't apply.

5. Analytics

Places analytics combines intent (what people said they'd do through work plans and reservations) with actuals (what sensors, badge swipes, and network signals say happened).

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The point is the gap between the two. If a floor is booked at 80% but only ever 45% full, that's your case for giving back space or rebalancing teams. With that organizational-level space data, real-estate and facilities teams can make strategic decisions about which spaces to keep. It’s the most useful thing the analytics give you, and it's also the part that needs sensors and the right licenses to work, which I'll come back to.

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Feature and license summary

Eight gaps worth knowing before you commit

Places is good at coordinating people and booking spaces inside the Microsoft world. It was built as a coordination layer, and that scope shows up in predictable places once you push past desks and rooms. These are the 8 I'd flag before you commit:

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• 1. Exchange Online dependency. In hybrid setups, users with on-premises mailboxes can't access the Places app, Finder, or work plans at all. They're limited to Room Finder until their mailbox moves to Exchange Online.

• 2. No native occupancy sensors. Places can read signals from third-party sensors to feed analytics, but it doesn't make sensor hardware or connect to building systems on its own. The hardware and integration are on you.

• 3. No built-in visitor management. Guest sign-in and host notifications come from third-party partners in the Teams marketplace, not from Places.

• 4. IT-heavy configuration. Setup runs through Exchange, PowerShell, RBAC roles, and IMDF maps. Where other platforms give workplace or HR teams a self-service admin panel, Places mostly keeps configuration with IT.

• 5. Booking rules live in Exchange. Every desk and room in Places is an Exchange calendar, so booking policies are managed by the Exchange admin, usually IT. A few rules are in the UI, but anything more complex is set in PowerShell.

• 6. Microsoft-only by design. The value is highest when you're all-in on Microsoft 365. Mixed environments or Google Workspace shops get far less out of it.

• 7. Per-space cost and slow changes. Orgs with lots of bookable spaces can pay more under the new model, and assigning a desk license can take 24-48 hours to take effect.

• 8. No non-desk assets. Places covers desks and rooms only. Smart lockers, parking, and other shared assets sit outside the model and have to be managed elsewhere.

Three ways to use Places, and how to choose

There's no single right answer. It depends on how Microsoft-committed you are and how far your needs go beyond desks and rooms. Three sensible paths:

Option 1: Places core only

No added cost · included with most M365 licenses

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Work plans, presence, Places Finder and Explorer, interactive maps, and booking of rooms and desk pools. Good when the goal is to see who's in and grab a room or a pool seat. You give up individual named-desk booking, auto-release, and occupancy analytics.

Option 2: Places + Shared Space licenses

$8.55 per license, per month · up to 4 desks + 1 space

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Adds individual desk booking, auto-release, and occupancy analytics on the spaces you license, all still fully Microsoft-native. The right fit for Microsoft-committed companies whose needs stop at desks and meeting rooms.

Option 3: A dedicated workplace platform

Closes the eight gaps

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Where Places stops: native visitor management, occupancy sensors, smart lockers, self-service admin for workplace teams, richer booking rules, multi-site management, and integrations beyond Microsoft. A platform like elia covers these natively. The choice when the workplace is more than rooms and desks, or when several offices and policies need managing in one place.

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A few alternatives worth a look

If the eight gaps above are dealbreakers, or you're not all-in on Microsoft 365, these are the platforms I'd shortlist (they all work natively inside the Teams interface, too!). Each does more than Places in at least one area where Places is thin.

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• elia. Software and hardware in one system: desks, rooms, visitors, smart lockers, and occupancy sensors, with a self-service admin panel for workplace teams instead of PowerShell. The closest fit when the office is more than desks and rooms.

• Robin. strong interactive floor plans, team neighborhoods, and deeper workspace analytics than Places, with AI desk suggestions based on team schedules. A common pick for teams that want richer booking inside the Microsoft world.

• deskbird. a Switzerland-based all-in-one covering desk and room booking, parking, and visitor management, with strict EU data handling. A strong pick for teams that want EU hosting.

• OfficeSpace. built for enterprise real-estate teams: scenario planning, move management, and asset tracking on top of booking. Good when you're managing large floor plans and reshuffles, not just daily seats.

• Skedda. lightweight space booking with per-space, unlimited-user pricing. A good option when you mainly need to book desks and rooms and want predictable cost without a big rollout.

The bottom line

The April 2026 change makes Microsoft Places more accessible than it's ever been. For coordinating hybrid days and booking rooms inside Microsoft 365, it's solid and easy to roll out.

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But measured against the three jobs Microsoft set for it, it’s a mixed bag:

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• coordinating in-office days is where Places is strongest
• connecting people in person, it handles fine
• real occupancy and utilization insight only shows up once you've added sensors and space-analytics licenses

My read, plainly: it's a coordination layer that does desks and rooms well and stops there. If your workplace also needs visitors, sensors, lockers, custom policies, or several sites managed together, plan to pair Places with a dedicated platform, or lead with one, instead of expecting the native tooling to stretch that far.

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If that sounds like your office, see what elia does in a quick demo, no PowerShell required.

Methodology

This guide draws on Microsoft's official Places documentation on Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Support, the January 2026 Teams and Places licensing announcement and its customer FAQ, and the Microsoft 365 Message Center notices covering the April 1, 2026 changes, cross-checked against independent licensing analyses published between January and April 2026.

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Pricing reflects publicly listed figures at the time of writing and can vary by agreement and region. Confirm current pricing with your Microsoft licensing contact.

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