Sean Wallbridge
Office 365 gives you the ability to switch your plan, generally so that you can move up to a bigger, more comprehensive plan. If you have no need to change then you probably don’t need to read any further. However, there is a situation that has come up where you might need to switch plans even if you have no need for “bigger, better, faster”.
The situation is caused by the fact that Microsoft has re-aligned the Office 365 plan offering, specially so in the small to midmarket space. The former Small and Midsize Business Plans have been replaced by Office 365 “Business” plans. If you were on one of the older plans, your tenancy will hum along quite happily until you decide you need to add another subscription and that’s when you’ll find out that you have to change plans. There’s nothing to be alarmed about, Microsoft has actually made the process fairly painless.
The process is described clearly here and it runs quite smoothly. There is no interruption is service to your users while the switch takes place although access to the admin portal is suspended during the process. The new plan will necessitate a change to your billing and Microsoft very clearly outlines the changes that will be made and when they will be made to your account. In many cases there won’t be much of a change at all other than the name change to the plan as it show up on your billing statement.
I migrated a customer today from one of the old plans to the new Office 365 Business Premium plan and the process worked exactly as Microsoft described (yay!!!).
So, fear not if you get the message that you can’t add a subscription without changing the plan, it’s not that hard to do!