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Microsoft Frontline Worker License
My F3 shortcut in Excel stopped working, all other F3 shortcuts seem to be working fine, but when I press F3 I only get a beep from the computer. I am using Excel as part of an Office 365 for business subscription (MSO 16.0.8) 64bit, and a Samsung laptop (note that the shortcut never failed to work on this computer before). Microsoft 365 F3 Empower your frontline workforce to achieve more. Equip frontline workers with powerful and intuitive tools that deliver a connected and secure experience. Transform business processes with customized apps and workflow automation to save time and money. Office 365 F3 is designed to enable Firstline Workers to do their best work. Office 365 F3 provides easy-to-use tools and services to help these workers easily create, update, and manage schedules and tasks, communicate and work together, train and onboard, and quickly take in company news and announcements. Take the Tour Watch Demo. 10 For Office 365 Government G1, G3, and F3, Targeted release and the Office 365 for business roadmap apply; however, there may be some differences or delays for specific service updates due to compliance requirements. 11 Not yet available in Office 365 Government offerings, but coming soon.
Original KB number: 2826047
Problem
An Office 365 F plan user tries to set up a mail account for Exchange Online in Microsoft Outlook 2010 or Microsoft Outlook 2013. However, the user's Outlook profile isn't automatically set up. Instead, the user gets the following error message under Searching for your mail server setting in Outlook:
An encrypted connection to your mail server is not available.
Click Next to attempt using an unencrypted connection.
This error message is displayed even though the user entered his or her email address and password correctly on the Auto Account Setup page of the Add New Account Wizard in Outlook.
Cause
This behavior occurs if the user is trying to connect Outlook to Exchange Online by using Exchange Autodiscover. Office 365 F plans don't support using Outlook to access mail in Exchange Online through an Exchange connection.
Solution
To work around this behavior, do one of the following:
- Use Outlook Web App to access mail in Exchange Online.
- Set up Outlook to access mail in Exchange Online through a Post Office Protocol (POP3) connection. For more info about how to do this, see Set up a POP3 or IMAP4 connection to your email in Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013.
More Information
For more information about Office 365 F plans, see Office 365 F1.
If Office 365 users who aren't F plan users get this error message, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:
2404385 Outlook can't set up a new profile by using Exchange Autodiscover for an Exchange Online mailbox in Office 365
Still need help? Go to Microsoft Community.
Office 365 F3 Vs E1
I've gone deep on G-Suite since it first came out, same with 365. I prefer 365 for any organization except K-12 education (extremely clear win for Google), but that's really a separate discussion.
F3 is in no way 'clunky', it's geared at mobile workforce and filled a gap that many needed filled. By mobile workforce, consider one example such as a foreman for a plant, constantly traveling around and working with their workers to stay lined out on repairs and upgrades with many plants (plants in their field might be concrete, power, refrigeration, milk, etc).
This foreman is mostly on a phone and tablet, and communicates a few times a day via email. They don't reference a lot of old email because it's on-the-fly communication and the company hasn't adopted instant messaging so email is the preferred contact method, also for the fact that they don't have time to stop and chat over IM and results don't have to be instant, 24 hours is fine. This is important info because the mailbox doesn't need to be large, but other criteria are licensing apps on mobile devices; in more rare instances where they use much larger, less portable devices such as a laptop, they need access to apps, and web apps would be fine for that.
Everything I just described is the 'Firstline Worker' (F1, F3).
Microsoft Office 365 F3
Office 365 F3
EOP2 is just a mailbox, albeit a gigantic 100GB mailbox. It can be used with mail apps or web mail. It's used when someone just needs email, and a lot of it (otherwise they'd get a 50GB EOP1).
If you ask the question 'do they NEED office apps, really anything beyond email?' and the answer is yes, go with F3. If not, go with email.
If you say 'yes, they need apps, but 2GB mailbox is not enough and archiving to get around that is clunky', then neither license is recommended and you need something else such as Microsoft 365 E3 (assuming you need Enterprise since you mentioned F3 instead of F1... 301 users and above). If you had well below 300 users I'd recommend Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials, gives you web apps and a 50GB mailbox... No mobile apps though), or Microsoft 365 Business Standard if they need desktop/mobile apps/larger 50GB mailbox (formerly Office 365 Business Premium).