Set-PlacesSettings

You can use Set-PlacesSettings to turn Microsoft Places features on or off, for your tenant or for a subset of users in your tenant.

Make sure to launch PowerShell7 as an Administrator, and connect to the Microsoft Places node using Connect-MicrosoftPlaces.

The rest of this document focuses on two sets of parameters within the Set-PlacesSettings cmdlet:

  1. Feature Parameters: Utilized to selecting the features available in your tenant.

  2. Scope Parameters: Utilized to identify the users that have access to the features made available in your tenant.

Syntax

Feature

Set-PlacesSettings
 [-AllowInConnectionsList]
 [-EnableBuildings]
 [-EnableHybridGuidance]
 [-EnablePlacesWebApp] 
 [-PlacesFinderEnabled]
 [-SpaceAnalyticsEnabled]

Scope

Set-PlacesSettings
 [-<Feature Parameter>]
   ['Default:True']
   ['Default:False']
   ['Default:[scope value],OID:[OID]@[TID]:[scope value]']

Caution

The Set-PlacesSettings might list additional parameters via Get-Help that are not covered in this article. These parameters are not supported.

Feature Parameters

- AllowInConnectionsList

This parameter controls whether users can be added to other users' list of collaborators.

By default, this is ON for all users in your tenant.

-EnableBuildings

This parameter controls whether users can see buildings in Work plans, Workplace presence, Places finder, and other parts of the Microsoft Places experience.

By default, this is ON, but only works if you've configured buildings and floors. This parameter can only be set at the tenant level and doesn't support other scoping parameters.

When on, users can set their work location to a specific building and filter by building in Places Finder. When off, users can only set their location to "in office" or "remote" and they won't be able to use Places finder.

Tip

This setting allows you to control whether users in your organization can set their work plan to a specific building. There’s a different setting to control whether users can make their work location visible to other users. To learn more, please review the documentation for mailbox calendar configuration.

-EnableHybridGuidance

This parameter controls whether users can create workgroups to view members' work plans, and create in-person day guidance for workgroups.

By default, this is ON for all users in your tenant.

 -EnablePlacesWebApp

This parameter controls whether users can access the Places app, on the web or inside Outlook, Teams and in Microsoft 365 app.

During the Preview, this setting is OFF for all users in your tenant, but will be default ON when we reach general availability as described in.

-PlacesFinderEnabled

This parameter controls whether users can access Places finder and book individual desks.

By default, this is OFF for all users in your tenant, to allow you to manage the transition from Room finder to Places finder. You might want to turn this on (and thus enable the new Places finder experience) for a subset of users before enabling it for everyone.

Keep in mind that Places finder also requires a Teams Premium license. We recommend turning on PlacesFinderEnabled for all users in your tenant ('Default:True'), to ensure that all users licensed for Teams Premium see the new experience. For more information, see: Turn on Places finder.

-SpaceAnalyticsEnabled

This parameter controls whether users have access to Analytics.

By default, this is OFF for all users in your tenant.

We recommend turning this on for admins and real estate and facilities managers, as this gives them access to data-driven insights for effective space management.

You need to enable buildings separately, as described in Set up space analytics.

Scoping Parameters

After reviewing the individual parameters, consider which feature you would like to have control over. In example, if you wanted to control the Places core features which can otherwise be enabled by default, you would follow these steps with -EnablePlacesWebApp & -EnableBuildings.

Enabling a feature for all users

To enable a feature for everyone in your tenant, set the Default value to True. Here's an example showing how Places Finder can be enabled:

Set-PlacesSettings -PlacesFinderEnabled 'Default:true'

Disable a feature for all users

To disable a feature for everyone in your tenant, set the Default value to False. Here's an example showing how Microsoft Places Finder can be disabled:

Set-PlacesSettings -PlacesFinderEnabled 'Default:false'

Limit feature access

To limit feature access to a select group of users, the Default value must be set to either True or False. Additionally, an Object ID (OID) value must be provided to identify the users that will be either included or excluded from the default value and your Tenant ID (TID). The string to be passed for each of the parameters must be one string concatenated by commas in the format 'Default:[scope value] and OID:[OID]@[TID]:[scope value]'.

Here's an example of how Places Finder can be disabled for everyone except a specific group of users:

Set-PlacesSettings -PlacesFinderEnabled 'Default:false,OID:53612aff-a481-41c1-970b-2ca512e6ae53@ef2a97524-022c7-4bab7-8a8c-bc2c4756201c:true'

Here's is an example of how Places Finder can be enabled for everyone except a select group of users:

Set-PlacesSettings -PlacesFinderEnabled 'Default:true,OID:53612aff-a481-41c1-970b-2ca512e6ae53@ef2a97524-022c7-4bab7-8a8c-bc2c4756201c:false'

Note

A maximum of 20 OIDs can be used when limiting feature access.

Troubleshooting

Are there any prerequisites to using this command?

  • Ensure that you're running the latest version of Microsoft PowerShell 7.

  • Ensure that you're running the latest version of the Places PowerShell client. You can force the install of the latest version using:

Install-Module -Name MicrosoftPlaces -Force

Do I need certain permissions to run Set-PlacesSettings?

Yes. You need to be assigned permissions before you can run this cmdlet. You must have both the Exchange MailRecipients role and the Places TenantPlacesManagement role. For more information permissions, see Management prerequisites.

How do I find the OID for a Security Group?

Through Microsoft Entra admin center, extract the ID of the desired group

To find the OID of a security group through Graph which would also provide the TenantID, run the following command:

Install-module Microsoft.Graph.Groups
Connect-MGGraph -Scopes "Group.Readwrite.all"
Get-MgGroup -Filter "DisplayName eq 'Intune Administrators'" | Select-Object -Property ObjectID

To find the OID of a mail enabled security group through Exchange Online run the following:

Connect-ExchangeOnline
Get-DistributionGroup '<Security Group Name>' | Select-Object -Property ExternalDirectoryObjectId