UBC faculty and staff can enhance their Microsoft 365 (M365) experience with optional premium services, including additional OneDrive storage, M365 Copilot (Premium), Planner and Project Plan 3, Visio Plan 2, additional email storage, and SharePoint services. These services are offered on a cost-recovery basis: your faculty or department pays the annual subscription cost, with your manager’s approval, through UBC’s established funding processes in Workday.
This page describes what is available and how to request a subscription.
Before you request a service
Premium subscriptions are available to UBC faculty and staff. They are not available to students, contractors, emeriti and guest accounts.
Because these services are paid for by your faculty or department, please have the following in place before submitting a request:
- Manager support. Discuss the request with your manager first. Your request is routed for funding approval, and requests submitted without prior discussion may be declined. Please review the Requestor Checklist for more details.
- A Workday worktag. You will need the worktag that identifies the funding source your subscription will be charged to. If you do not know your worktag, ask your manager or your unit’s finance contact. Please review the Approver Checklist for more details.
Available subscriptions and pricing
The following services are available as annual subscriptions. For current pricing, see the pricing page (CWL login required).
| Service | Available |
|---|---|
| Additional OneDrive storage — 100 GB / 250 GB / 500 GB / 1 TB | April 28, 2027 |
| M365 Copilot (Premium) | October 15, 2026 |
| M365 Planner and Project Plan 3 | October 15, 2026 |
| M365 Visio Plan 2 | October 15, 2026 |
| Additional email storage — 50 GB | October 15, 2026 |
Pricing for all services is available to faculty and staff on the M365 Premium Services pricing page (CWL login required). All prices include applicable taxes.
Additional OneDrive storage
Faculty and staff OneDrive accounts are subject to a 200 GB storage quota. If you need more than 200 GB for business, teaching, or research purposes, you can purchase additional storage in 100 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB, or 1 TB increments. Purchased storage is added on top of your 200 GB quota and applies to your individual OneDrive account.
If your OneDrive usage exceeds your available quota, your account moves to read-only status until usage is brought back within quota — you can still view, download, and delete files, but you cannot upload new files or edit existing ones. For full details on the quota, key dates, and how to review your storage use, see the UBC OneDrive Storage Quota page.
M365 Copilot (Premium)
UBC offers Microsoft Copilot in two tiers. Copilot Chat (Basic) is included with your existing UBC M365 license at no cost. M365 Copilot (Premium) is a paid subscription that embeds AI assistance directly within Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, and can work with the M365 content you already have permission to access — your emails, documents, meetings, and chats — to help you draft, summarize, analyze, and prepare.
Copilot Premium operates inside UBC’s existing Microsoft 365 enterprise environment and respects your existing permissions: it can only surface content you are already authorized to access, and UBC content is not used to train the underlying AI models. See the FAQ below for more on privacy and security.
Note: Please note that Copilot Agents will not be available in the initial release.
M365 Planner and Project Plan 3
Planner and Project Plan 3 adds premium project management capabilities to the Microsoft Planner experience you already use in Teams — including timeline (Gantt) views, task dependencies, advanced scheduling, and resource management — for individuals and teams managing complex projects beyond basic task lists. In addition, this plan also grants you access to the downloadable version of Microsoft Project.
M365 Visio Plan 2
Visio Plan 2 provides Microsoft’s full diagramming toolset — the Visio desktop and web apps — for creating flowcharts, process maps, org charts, network diagrams, and floor plans, with access to the complete library of templates and shapes. In addition, this plan also grants you access to the downloadable version of Visio.
Additional email storage
If you are approaching your mailbox storage quota, you can purchase an additional 50 GB of email storage, added on top of your existing mailbox quota.
SharePoint services
SharePoint sites are available to UBC departments at no cost, with optional paid services for units that need additional storage, automation, or professional support.
| SharePoint | Details |
|---|---|
| Cost | Free. Justification and consultation are required for more than 10 sites. |
| How to request | Through the UBC Self-Service Portal (ServiceNow). |
| Onboarding consultation | Included — up to 2 hours. |
| Basic support | Included. |
| Storage included | 200 GB per site. |
Optional SharePoint services
The following paid services are available for SharePoint sites. For pricing, see the pricing page (CWL login required).
| Optional service | Details | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Additional site storage | Added per 100 GB, per site, per year. Storage is allocated per site and is not pooled — unused storage on one site cannot be applied to another. | Available now |
| Professional services | Hourly services covering site design and build, development of forms and workflows, and support for Power Apps, Power Automate, and Backup. An estimate is provided with a Statement of Work, and work proceeds upon agreement with your department. | Available now |
| Power Automate | Annual subscription per solution, plus professional services for setup and maintenance. | Limited |
| Power Apps | Plus professional services for setup and maintenance. | Coming soon |
| Backup | Details to come. | Not yet available |
How to request a subscription
- Talk to your manager. Confirm the business need and the Workday worktag your subscription will be charged to.
- Submit your request. Complete the request form in the UBC Self-Service Portal. You will select the service you need and provide your funding worktag. You will receive a confirmation that your request has been received.
- Funding approval. Your request is automatically routed to the appropriate worktag manager for funding approval. You will be notified whether it is approved or declined.
- Activation. Once approved, your subscription is created, the annual cost is charged to the approved worktag, and your service is provisioned. You and your manager receive a confirmation and receipt when your subscription is active.
Billing, renewal, and cancellation
- Annual, cost-recovered billing. The full annual cost, taxes included, is charged to the approved worktag when your subscription is activated. Costs are not pro-rated — the annual rate applies regardless of when in the year you subscribe.
- Renewal on your subscription anniversary. Subscriptions must be renewed annually on the anniversary of your activation date. You will receive renewal reminders 60, 30, and 15 days before your renewal date; your manager is copied on the 30-day reminder. If a subscription is not renewed, it ends on the anniversary date and the service is deprovisioned.
- Currently non-refundable and non-transferable. Subscriptions currently cannot be refunded or reassigned to another person, including if the subscriber leaves UBC or changes roles partway through the subscription year. UBC IT is exploring functionality to support license transfers in the future; a timeline has not yet been confirmed.