Office 365 Business Basic email on Outlook

Question

Hi Team,

We have Office 365 Business Basic license in our organization. We already have MS Office 2021 license in our office PCs. Now we need to configure Office 365 email on our Outlook client. But unfortunately we are unable to setup the same. After entering email account in Outlook client, it asks for password again and again, and never setup the outlook profile.

Our Office365 vendor 'Redington Cloud support' says that Office365 Business Basic can't be configured on Outlook. Is it true? We saw many articles of Microsoft which says that Business Basic doesn't included Outlook app, but it is mentioned no-where that it can't be configured on Outlook client. Please help. We have MS Office 2019 and 2017 on our desktops.

Please see our vendor's reply below:

Answer 1

So this rabbit hole is much more problematic than just what you describe. We have two versions of desktop Outlook. I'll call them Classic and New.

Classic Outlook would let you add a Business Basic account as long as you had any one account added to it that was Business Standard or above or you had an apps license in some other way. Classic Outlook wasn't available to download from portal.office.com unless you had access to a Business Standard or personal account that gave you desktop client access.

As soon as you convert to New Outlook, the basic accounts are flagged as needing to log in. The login generates an error that the basic account cannot be used with New Outlook and your only option is to upgrade the license or remove the account. As you mention, this New Outlook replaces Windows 10/11 Mail. This leaves my basic clients with web mail access only, as soon as they try to upgrade Windows Mail.

The crazy thing is that you can add Gmail and Outlook.com accounts to New Outlook all day. The account that you pay Microsoft for versus the outlook.com account that you get free is the one that you cannot add to Windows 10/11 Mail (i.e. New Outlook) any longer. Everywhere I look, there is no official word from Microsoft about this gap in functionality. The idea of combining mail clients on Windows to a singular Outlook client is fantastic. The execution at the moment leaves all of their Business Basic users without a usable desktop client.

To make matters worse, sometimes New Outlook will accept a Business Basic account and let it work. I have multiple clients where this is the case. Needless to say, the policy surrounding this is not in line with customer needs and needs to change.

Answer 2

All -

FWIW, I just got confirmation from Microsoft Support that they are not permitting cheaper paid email accounts on new Outlook. No reason was given. My colleagues and I have put in a feedback request here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/2f7925cb-3a80-ee11-a81c-000d3ae46fcb  - anyone encountering this problem should consider upvoting that item.

Answer 3

Well said @Derek.

In order to work around this issue on my desktop, I ended up using the free version of Spark, ditched anything "new Outlook".

New Outlook works fine on my laptop on which I had never used Windows Mail before and then added Business Basic accounts to it.

Hopefully Microsoft can sort through this mess and just let it all "get along".

Answer 4

Now that Windows Mail has the option of "try the new Outlook", is there a differentiation between the Microsoft 365 Apps Outlook (for desktop) and the Windows Mail replacement? I have several work accounts that use a Business Basic license (so no desktop Outlook, I understand that) but they are working in the Windows Mail replacement Outlook. However, there is one account that refuses to connect to the Windows Mail/Outlook app. Do we call them apps? Clients? this terminology is just so confusing. One can't even describe issues unless the absolute correct wording is used.

Answer 5

I am user just like you.

Yes, Business basic doesn’t include desktop version but account should be configured in desktop application because it is exchange online service license.

How many users are facing this issue?

Try to check result or get possible solution information for fixed issue via Sara tool https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/about-the-microsoft-support-and-recovery-assistant-e90bb691-c2a7-4697-a94f-88836856c72f#ID0ED6=Outlook