Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) is Microsoft’s flagship cloud subscription service that combines the power of productivity and collaboration of traditional Office apps, with the scalable nature and affordability of the cloud, and comes with a slew of additional apps and services for individuals, families, businesses, large enterprises, charities & educational institutions.
So, exactly what apps & services does Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) Include? and what subscription plans is each app or service available for?
In addition to all the traditional Office Apps (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, OneNote…etc), available online (through a browser) or to be installed on your devices (if your subscription plan allows it), Microsoft 365 offers a slew of personal, familial, and business-grade productivity & collaboration apps & services, the number of which depends on your subscription level.
Here is a complete list (from all subscription plans) of all apps and services included in Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365):
Office Online (Formerly Office Web Apps)
Microsoft offers free web versions of their classic Office products Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. In addition to other free productivity and collaboration apps & services such as: Calendar, To Do app, Forms, Sway, Contacts, Power Automate (ex-flow), OneDrive and Skype.
Microsoft also added recently a free version of Teams to their free plan. All you need to take advantage of all of these is a Microsoft Account, and you’ll be set.
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Latest Office Client Apps
Available for: all paid M365 subscriptions except “Microsoft 365 Business Basic”.
These are the latest desktop & mobile versions of the premium Office Apps: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access (PC-only), Publisher (PC-only) and Outlook. This is not a one-time purchase of a specific version’s license, this is a continual license to download and use the most up-to-date version, with no extra cost whenever a newer version drops, you just download it directly from your membership homepage.
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft 365 comes with professional ad-free mailbox, accessible on the web (Outlook Web App), and through any email client, including the Windows 10 Mail, or Outlook (the Outlook Desktop App is available for all subscriptions except “Microsoft 365 Business Basic”).
Microsoft 365 Mail allows you to easily set up a custom email domain instead of a generic outlook.com one, with up to 50 GB of email storage as well as support for email encryption.
Skype
Skype is a multi-platform app that allows you to have free online calls, messaging, affordable international calling to mobiles or landlines and instant online meetings.
While it is accessible & free to use by everyone (even non-M365 subscribers), only “M365 personal” & “M365 family” subscription plans come with a free 60 minutes for international phone calls per month.
There was a version specific to businesses, called Skype for Business, but it has been replaced by Microsoft Teams.
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
OneDrive / OD4B
While OneDrive can be used for free with a Microsoft account, the free tier only has 5GB of storage. OneDrive under a Microsoft 365 subscription comes with 1TB of cloud storage to store, sync and share your personal files.
Note that OneDrive is the product for individuals & families, and there is a different product that is more feature rich for Businesses & enterprises called OneDrive for Business (OD4B).
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a unified team collaboration tool in Microsoft 365 that was exclusive to business & enterprise subscription plans, for corporate team collaboration & communication; now, it is also available for personal & family subscription plans as well, an there is even a lighter version accessible for free to everyone (even non-M365 subscribers).
It was supposed to be the direct competitor of Slack, but if the current trend – of phenomenal MS Teams growth – continues, Slack might be in trouble, and won’t be able to compete much longer, especially in the larger enterprises/organizations space where Microsoft has the dominant market share.
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft Editor
Microsoft Editor is an AI tool that helps you correct your writing. It is meant to replace services like Grammarly – a powerful writing tool that works anywhere on the web. Microsoft Editor is an “AI-powered service” that works in more than 20 languages. It works in Word and Outlook, and there is an extension for Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge as well, to use it on any website.
You can use a free version with a Microsoft Account, but there are more advanced features available in Microsoft 365 subscription plans.
Available for: Everybody with a Microsoft Account or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft Family Safety
Microsoft Family Safety is an app for iPhone and Android meant for digital health and physical safety, that will help you manage your kids’ screen time across Windows 10, Android, and Xbox. It comes with a location-sharing notification system as well, so you get notified for instance when one of your kids reaches / leaves school, and when they leave / reach home…etc.
Additionally, this app helps you steer your kids away from certain apps & content that you feel is not age appropriate as they browse the web.
Available for: M365 Family subscription plans.
Microsoft Stream
Microsoft Stream is a corporate video sharing and streaming service, that allows people in an organization to upload, view, share and comment on videos securely. It enables the sharing of recordings of classes, meetings, presentations, training sessions, or any other videos that might aid a team’s collaboration.
Microsoft Stream gradually replaced the previous Office 365 Video service, and it is meant for enterprise private video streaming & sharing, and not for individual streamers or content creators.
Available for: Microsoft 365 enterprise subscription plans.
Exchange Online
Exchange Online is the hosted version of Microsoft’s Exchange Server messaging platform. It provides the cloud back end to a centralized system for your organization’s emails, messages, calendars, and tasks. It is meant for medium size businesses and larger enterprises.
Exchange Online comes with a slew of features included, such as:
- Advanced security capabilities: Encryption, anti-malware and anti-spam filtering protects the mailboxes.
- Data safeguards: DLP (Data Loss Prevention) policies prevent your organization’s users from mistakenly sending sensitive data & information to unauthorized individuals. Additionally, the redundancy of servers at a global scale, and the powerful disaster recovery capabilities make Exchange Online the undisputed leader in safeguarding your data.
- Reliability: Microsoft guarantees a +99.9% uptime.
- e-Discovery: available for a few select subscription plans, and runs across Exchange Online, SharePoint Online & Microsoft Teams from a single interface in the eDiscovery center.
- Security across devices: you can create a list of approved mobile devices, enforce PIN lock, and remove confidential company info from lost phones.
- Easy Maintenance: Automatic patches decrease the time and effort of maintenance.
- Universal accessibility: supports all major browsers and all devices.
- Seamless Microsoft FastTrack migration: Microsoft FastTrack for Microsoft 365 is a customer success service designed to help you easily migrate to M365.
- In-place archive: so users can keep all important data in one place.
- Outlook integration: familiar user experience with offline capabilities.
- Multi-Geo Capabilities in M365: for global data residency with per-user data location controls in Microsoft 365
- IT-level phone support: available 24/7.
Available for: all Microsoft 365 for Business subscription plans except “Microsoft 365 Apps”, and for all Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans.
SharePoint Online
SharePoint Online is the cloud-based version of SharePoint Server, that helps organizations share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to seamlessly collaborate across the organization, with a powerful search engine, and workflow capabilities, all of which are customizable & extensible through different development models and APIs.
SharePoint Online powers the file storing & sharing capabilities of OneDrive for Business (OD4B) and MS Teams -behind the scenes-, and is in many ways a cornerstone product of the M365 business & enterprise suites.
Available for: M365 for Business (except Microsoft 365 Apps) & M365 Enterprise subscription plans.
Power Apps (part of the Power Platform)
Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, data platforms and connectors, that provide a rapid application development environment to build custom apps to meet your business needs. it allows you to build responsive apps in hours (days if complicated) -not weeks- with little to no code; apps that easily connect to data, use Excel-like expressions for business logic, and run on the web, iOS, and Android devices.
You can purchase Power Apps or any of the Power Platform products directly, or through the enterprise subscription plans of Microsoft 365.
Available for: all Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans.
Power Automate (ex-Microsoft Flow & also part of the Power Platform)
Power Automate (formerly MS Flow) allows you to implement task & workflow automation between your favorite services, directly in your apps and with little to no coding skills. Power Automate can be used to automate business processes, configure & send automatic notifications, move data between apps & services on a schedule, and even automating tasks on your own device.
Power Automate connects to hundreds (300+) of popular apps and services, and can be purchased directly, or as a part of a M365 Enterprise subscription.
Available for: all Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans.
Power BI Pro (also part of the Power Platform)
Power BI is a collection of self-service business intelligence software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. it allows you to unify data gathering & warehousing from many sources to create interactive & immersive reports and dashboards that provide actionable insights and drive business results.
Power BI Pro contains a desktop app, an online SaaS, and a mobile app for windows, iOS & Android. it is a self-service version centered on modern cloud BI; for big data capabilities though, advanced data analytics and hybrid reporting, you might want to consider the premium version (not included in any M365 subscription plan).
Available for: only Microsoft 365 E5 subscribers.
Microsoft Planner
Microsoft Planner is a Kanban solution that simplifies task management for teams, and allows you to manage tasks in cards & on boards, it is supposedly a competitor to Trello. It can also be used to manage an event’s data, attaching documents with tasks, brainstorming ideas and tracking project advancements.
It is available for all M365 Enterprise subscribers, as well as M365 for Education plans.
Available for: all Microsoft 365 Enterprise & M365 Education subscription plans.
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is an online surveys & polls generator tool, to collect feedback and organize events. It allows you to create quizzes and questionnaires, and to invite people to respond to them, with built-in analytics on the responses. It can be used just as a form builder that fills a list / data source with user data.
Microsoft Forms is supposedly a competitor / an alternative to Google Forms, with pretty much the same functionality and features.
Available for: everyone with a Microsoft account or a M365 subscription for business or enterprise.
Microsoft Sway
Microsoft Sway is a presentation tool that allows you to generate web based interactive reports, stories and presentations. It is an easy to use digital storytelling app, the interactive content generated can be viewed on any browser, and you can easily share it with your team mates or clients by simply sending them an invitation link.
The main differences between Sway & PowerPoint (the classic MS presentation tool):
- Sway is web-based, meaning you quickly create and share your content from any browser and on any device.
- While PowerPoint is the king of slide decks that need a presenter, Sway creates shareable interactive content (reports, stories, presentations, newsletters…) that need no presenter.
- Sway supports way more embedded types of content, and content sources.
- the basic Sway is free to use for any Microsoft account holders.
- Sway offers centralized administration & analytics across your organization (in case of a M365 subscription).
Available for: Everyone with a free Microsoft account, but you get more content sources & premium features with a Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Education subscription plans.
Delve
Delve is a Microsoft-Graph-powered cloud-based service, that allows users to find & discover relevant information across integrated Microsoft products by pulling user content from Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft OneDrive for Business, Microsoft SharePoint and Yammer.
Delve puts forward relevant content and information tailored to each individual within the organization. It is powered by the MS Graph, an intelligent fabric (a Graph API) that applies machine learning to map the connections between people, documents / content and interactions that occur across Microsoft 365.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise & Education subscription plans.
Project
Project is a flexible enterprise project portfolio management (EPM & PPM) software, it is composed of 3 products: Project for the web, Project Online & Project Online desktop client. Although under a M365 subscription you get a lightweight version of “Project for the web” with limited features, and you’ll mostly be using Project Online and its desktop client.
Project Online is the cloud subscription version of Project Server, which was built on top of SharePoint Server (SharePoint Online in our case).
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise & Education subscription plans.
Yammer
Yammer is an enterprise social networking service acquired by Microsoft in 2012, and added to the enterprise M365 plans, and it is used for private communication inside large organizations. Only individuals with approved email addresses may join their respective networks corresponding to their internet domain.
Yammer is the social layer spanning across Microsoft 365, with built-in integration with the rest of M365’s apps and services. It allows you to connect and engage with you coworkers inside the organization, so you can discuss ideas, share updates, and network with others around the globe.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise & Education Subscription plans.
MyAnalytics
Formerly Delve Analytics, MyAnalytics is an application designed to help employees and their managers gain actionable insight into how company workers spend their time, with the goal of task optimization for more efficiency.
It summarizes your work patterns and lets you learn ways to work smarter, by improving your focus, well-being, network, and collaboration.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise (E3 & E5 only) subscription plans.
To-Do
As its name would suggest, To-Do is a task management software (duh!) that allows you to track your progress on the different to-do lists that you and your teammates share, it is available for users on their smartphones, tablets & computers.
It is free to use for anyone with a Microsoft account, and more features are available for M365 subscribers with built-in integration with the rest of the apps and services.
Available for: Everyone.
MileIQ
MileIQ is a mileage tracking and reporting app that works on the background while you drive, your miles are automatically logged and recorded creating a complete record of all your tax deductible and reimbursable mileage, since it allows you to differentiate personal drives from business drives.
It is highly customizable, and gives you detailed reports and insights at your fingertips, with an advanced dashboard accessible from your laptop, tablet and/or smartphone.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscribers.
Bookings
Bookings allows you to manage your clients’ bookings & and schedule your appointments. It integrates with your staff’s Outlook calendar to avoid double bookings, which also gives you the possibility to conduct your appointments virtually via Skype or Teams.
Bookings has customization options built-in, which are designed to answer a variety of scheduling needs, including across services & departments, and conducting both internal and external meetings.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans.
Microsoft Lists
Microsoft Lists is a Microsoft 365 app that helps you create advanced lists (similar to those in SharePoint) to track information and organize your work inside your organization. You can use it to track issues, manage inventory, build out event agendas, report status, manage FAQs, and business trip approvals etc…
You can create a new list from MS Lists’ homepage or directly from Microsoft Teams based on one of several templates (8 templates available as of this moment), you can use that list afterwards in SharePoint, Teams, or as a data source for a PowerApps app, or as a part of a Power Automate Workflow.
Ms Lists has built-in integration with the rest of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, and all lists are accessible through MS Lists Home on the web, or through the MS Lists mobile app.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans
Kaizala
Microsoft Kaizala is a secure messaging and work management mobile app for collaboration among users inside and outside of organizations.
It offers the ability to send and receive instant messages, coordinate tasks, and submit invoices. and It is meant to be a sort business version of Whatsapp with team collaboration & task management features.
It differs from MS Teams in that the users of Kaizala only need a phone number to start using it for free, it is meant for transient workers that you don’t want to add to the corporate hierarchy, as opposed to Teams that requires its users to be authenticated via a Microsoft Account, or Active Directory.
Available for: anyone with a phone number and for free. But you’ll need a Kaizala pro subscription or a Microsoft 365 Business Basic subscription to access the premium / pro features.
Whiteboard
Microsoft Whiteboard is a free-form, digital canvas where people, content, and ideas come together. You can use Whiteboard for brainstorming ideas & collaborating with your team, whether your team is in the same place or in multiple locations.
Team members can work collaboratively and in real-time using their own devices, since Whiteboard is available as a mobile app on Android / iOS, as a Windows 10 app, and as well as a web app.
Available for: to use the Windows 10 or iOS apps, you must sign in with a Microsoft account (Outlook, Hotmail, Live, Xbox, etc.) or a Microsoft 365 account (personal, work, or school). To use the web app, you must sign in with a work or school Microsoft 365 account (after your administrator has enabled the service).
Workplace Analytics
Microsoft Workplace Analytics uses data from everyday work in Microsoft 365 to help you connect collaboration patterns to business outcomes.
It provides you with actionable insights that would help you discover opportunities to optimize business processes and identify patterns and behaviors that lead to success, and measure the impact on business outcomes throughout a continuous cycle of discovery and change.
It also allows you to manage the shift to remote work (if your organization so chooses), by gathering insights from your most powerful internal data-sets.
Microsoft Workplace Analytics differs from MyAnalytics in that the latter focuses on increasing personal productivity for teams and individuals, while the former deals with analyzing company wide patterns at a higher level, in order to improve them and then measure the business impact of your optimizations.
Available for: Microsoft 365 for Enterprise subscription plans.
InTune
Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service that focuses on mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM). It allows you to control how mobile phones, tablets, and laptops are used within your organization, and to configure specific policies to control applications.
Intune also allows the safe implementation of a secure BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Devices) strategy, and making sure your organization’s data stays protected, while isolating organization data from personal data.
Intune is part of Microsoft’s EMS Suite (Enterprise Mobility + Security) and it integrates with Azure Active Directory (AAD) for access control. It also integrates with Azure Information Protection for data protection.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans & Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Azure Information Protection
Azure Information Protection (AIP) is a cloud-based solution that enables organizations to classify and protect files, documents and emails by applying labels. Labels can be applied: automatically by administrators using rules and conditions, manually by users, By a combination of both, where administrators define the recommendations shown to users.
These labels are used for classification, and optionally for protection, by using the Azure Rights Management service (Azure RMS) to protect your data.
Available for: Microsoft 365 Enterprise subscription plans & Microsoft 365 Business Premium.