Enable Microsoft Places Preview

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Steps described on this page are only required during the Microsoft Places Preview. This page will be removed once we reach General Availability.

Step 1 - Opt In

Microsoft Places enhanced features require additional enablement. Fill out the Places Preview Additional Features Opt in Form to get started.

Note

  • After opting in, it can take up to 1 week for your tenant to be granted access to enhanced features.
  • The DeployPlaces script described in step 2 assumes that you've already been granted access to enhanced features, and will return errors otherwise. If this happens, wait for the confirmation email from the Microsoft Places and run the script again.

Step 2 - Install and run DeployPlaces

After you receive email confirmation that your tenant is enabled for enhanced features, it's time to deploy Microsoft Places Preview. To do so:

  1. Open PowerShell 7 as an Administrator

  2. Run Install-Script -Name DeployPlaces to download the latest DeployPlaces script

  3. Run DeployPlaces to deploy Microsoft Places to your tenant.

During the Preview, Microsoft Places relies on mail-enabled Security Groups to determine which users have access to core or enhanced features, whether they can see the new Places Finder experience in Outlook, and access Spaces Analytics. The DeploySpaces script can create new Security Groups for you (recommended), or you can use your custom SGs.

Selecting Y when prompted will create the following Security Groups:

Experience / Feature Group Name Group smtp address
Core features Places Users [8C8BF34B-6BB8-4441-A911-3A990C9D838B] placesUsers@contoso.com
Enhanced features Places Advanced Users [8C8BF34B-6BB8-4441-A911-3A990C9D838B] placesAdvanced@contoso.com
Space Analytics Places Analytics Users [8C8BF34B-6BB8-4441-A911-3A990C9D838B] placesAnalytics@contoso.com
Places Finder Places Finder Users [8C8BF34B-6BB8-4441-A911-3A990C9D838B] placesFinder@contoso.com

If you select N you'll need to enter the Display Name of the Security Group you plan to use for each feature set. Here's an example of the output you'll see:

Do you want to use the default group display names for Places?
Enter [Y] for Yes or [N] for No: n
Please enter the display name of the group you want to use for Places Users: [Example1]
Please enter the display name of the group you want to use for Places Advanced Users: [Example2]
Please enter the display name of the group you want to use for Places Analytics Users: [Example4]
Please enter the display name of the group you want to use for Places Finder Users: [Example5]
Creating a security group - Places Users
Creating a security group - Places Analytics Users
Creating a security group - Places Advanced Features
Creating a security group - Places Finder Users
Adding Places Advanced Feature Users to the Places Users group
Adding Places Analytics Users to the Places Advanced Features group
Adding Places Finder Users to the Places Advanced Features group
Places Security Groups have been created.
Installing Places Module
Connection has been successfully established. You can execute your commands now.

Microsoft Places feature sets will be enabled and mapped to the Security Groups that you selected:

Searching for group - Example1
Found Group Example1
Enabling Places Web App
WARNING: The settings are read from a cached storage for upto 12 hours.
Subscription name Tenant
----------------- ------
               [Foo]
Update completed successfully. To check the information updated please use the next cmdlet which reads updated values of settings from store.
Get-PlacesSettings -ReadFromPrimary
WARNING: The settings are read from a cached storage for upto 12 hours.
PlacesAdvancedFeatures set to True
Enabling Places Advanced Features for the tenant
Looking for group - Example2
Tenant being used - 5a3dd66b-d094-4bbc-b6c7-78ae9f5f2db3.TenantId
Enabling Advanced Places features
Update completed successfully. To check the information updated please use the next cmdlet which reads updated values of settings from store.
Get-PlacesSettings -ReadFromPrimary
WARNING: The settings are read from a cached storage for upto 12 hours.
Enabling the group that can see Places Analytics
Looking for group - Example4
Update completed successfully. To check the information updated please use the next cmdlet which reads updated values of settings from store.
Get-PlacesSettings -ReadFromPrimary
WARNING: The settings are read from a cached storage for upto 12 hours.
Enabling the group that can see Places Finder
Looking for group - Example5
Update completed successfully. To check the information updated please use the next cmdlet which reads updated values of settings from store.
Get-PlacesSettings -ReadFromPrimary
WARNING: The settings are read from a cached storage for upto 12 hours.

Note

New Security Groups may take up to 24 hours to be reflected in your tenant and used in Microsoft Places.

Step 3 - Add users to Security Groups

You'll need to add users to Security Groups to give them access to the corresponding Microsoft Places features. You can use any of the following methods:

Note

It may take up to 24 hours for membership changes to be reflected in the Microsoft Places experiences.

Note

  • Previous versions of this documentation referred to a Places Mobile Users Security Group. This group is no longer used, as the Microsoft Places mobile application is no longer part of the Preview. The documentation has been updated.