A picture says more than words – User license consumption report reimaged
When Microsoft announced the user license enforcement, initially, a lot of partners and clients were lost. There was hardly any information available about the correct number of licenses. In between, Microsoft “changed the rules” by deprecating old license calculation logic available within the Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations application. This logic contained errors, and a new calculation was introduced, which is running in the Power Platform Admin Center, outside of Dynamics 365. The new logic contained some issues, but Microsoft is working hard to get those errors resolved. Next to solving the calculation issues, Microsoft is taking feedback using a private preview group and support. You might have noticed that filtering on PPAC wasn’t working quite well. This is something that was reported, but takes time to fix and roll out to all clients. While reviewing the V2 version of the report, I also provided an idea to improve the visibility of the new report. I’m happy that Microsoft picked up the idea, which is now available on the Power Platform Admin Center (PPAC).
Update September 25, 2025: The license enforcement has been postponed and will now follow contract renewal or anniversary dates. Read more here: LinkedIn Post.
User license consumption V2
In my previous blog post, I mentioned that Microsoft would introduce a new version of the license reports. See: Dynamics 365 F&O license enforcement status – July 2025
The V1 version was hard to understand and caused a lot of confusion. Here is a screenshot how what it looked like before August 2025.
The V2 version of the report was grouped by product license, and it provided better functionality to take actions. It starts with two tiles: Total users and Users with unassigned licenses. Continuing to see the details, you get a list of users missing one or more licenses.
In case you are an administrator, you can also click on Manage licenses, where you will be taken to the M365 admin portal.
During the review, I thought this was a huge improvement compared to the first version, but it was missing information about the total acquired licenses. In addition, per SKU, there is a lot of text, and you need to read all the text to know which line belongs to a base or attach license. E.g. when you look at Finance base, the purchased and assigned and unassigned details are split by a row with Finance attach. By summing these number, you can calculate the total acquired Finance base licenses.
I was thinking of another visualization, like assigning licenses to users on the M365 Admin portal. I quickly created a mockup and sent the next proposal to Microsoft.
The idea was to have a focus on each SKU in a single line. You can then see the assigned licenses, purchased and available, also supported with a graph. Also, each SKU highlights the total number of users requiring a license. This was also confusing, as Microsoft intended to list the number of missing licenses, where we all thought (including me) that it was the total required licenses.
Reimaged view available on PPAC
I’m happy that Microsoft took this feedback seriously, and the reimagined look is now available on PPAC. You can follow the next link, which will open the report for your tenant: https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/billing/licenses/financeAndOperations
Today, sometimes the new and sometimes the old look is presented. In case you want to ensure to open the new look, you can use the PPAC preview URL:
https://admin.preview.powerplatform.microsoft.com/billing/licenses/financeAndOperations
With a new label for the total users (Users with unassigned licenses), it is now clear that it is about missing license assignments. This presentation of the report has fewer words, and for that reason, I think it is way better to read and understand it.
The new look isn’t implemented (yet) on LifeCycle Services (LCS).
In addition, there is a new Summary button available. This will copy the summary in text format to your clipboard. My first thought was that some Copilot magic was added, but it will give you the text similar to the previous view of this report.
You can read more about the new report and how to use it on Microsoft Learn: View license consumption for finance and operations apps – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
There is more…
At this moment, still, a lot of clients are not fully prepared and are looking for additional help. I compiled a list of resources available online to help you with this topic.
Microsoft Learn
Simplifying License Management for Dynamics 365
View license consumption for finance and operations apps – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Dynamicspedia
Help! User license enforcement in Dynamics 365 F&O
Dynamics 365 F&O license enforcement status – July 2025
Other blogs
D365FSC License Enforcement Overview – Alex Meyer
Updated D365FSC User Licensing in 10.44 – Alex Meyer
I do hope you liked this post and will add value for you in your daily work as a professional. If you have related questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to use the Comment feature below.
That’s all for now. Till next time!
You can read more about the new report and its option on Microsoft Learn: View license consumption for finance and operations apps – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay
Thanks for the informative article! When we say ‘Assigned’ and ‘Available’ licenses from the PPAC report, is it in the context of licenses purchased or licenses being consumed by users? There may be a case that purchased license count is different than what users are actually consuming and hence the confusion. And is this count based on new license types per role that will be enforced starting November or based on current license types assigned to roles?
Hi Pawan,
The graph visualization shows number of assigned licenses compared with the total acquired licenses. E.g. in the screenshot for SCM 9/10. In that case, there is 1 license available. The big number shows the number of users missing the specific license. E.g. 37 without a license assigned. In that case, you have only 1 left and should acquire additional licenses.
Note that there are no new license types. There is a new calculation logic which fixed issues with the legacy license calculation. They now take the Dynamics 365 licensing guide as source of truth. However, there are some other challenges introduced with the new calculation. The counts on the PPAC report are showing actual assigned licenses and missing licenses. This is all based on the new calculation logic.
You can review the contents of the roles on the Licenses usage summary page in the Dynamics 365 F&O application. You can read more about how to use that form on another blog: Dynamics 365 F&O license enforcement status – July 2025
Hi Andre,
Thanks for sharing this!
Hope you can share some lights regarding below
There were some actions such as “approve purchase order” and “approve timesheet” were under the “Team member” license last week, now it is reported under “Project Operations” license since 7th Sept.
Based on the Sept Microsoft License guide, it is highlighted these duties still under “Team member”. Does Microsoft just change the license model without updating their license guide? and increase license calculations without notifying D365 finops clients?
It became a catch 22 when Microsoft make some objectives as “not entitled”, then system admin remove or downgrade those “Write” to “Read” objects, the PPAC reports still not showing most accurate license.
Would you recommend even using the default Microsoft security groups it will make license easy to manage and under compliance? It would be great if Azure AD Groups associated with these M365 license groups, sync to D365 finops automatically.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,
Thank you,
Yuan
Hi Yuan,
Thank you for your comment and concerns. There is no change in policies for the privileges Approve purchase orders and Maintain project timesheet approvals. The license guide is correct. In my environment, these privileges are reported as Team member as intended. Maybe it is stating correctly Team member again. If not, I suggest reviewing your security settings. Probably more access is granted than intended by the standard permissions?
Hi Andre,
I noticed that with the recent changes, the Export functionality has been modified. In the earlier version, even though it lacked detail at the interface level, the exported file contained more useful information, including environment, environment type, and security role. What it was missing was only the breakdown into attach vs. base licenses.
In the current version, however, the export appears to provide only the user and license information (last checked around two weeks ago). As Microsoft will be using PPAC as the source of truth, it would be very helpful to retain as much detail as possible in the export.
For example, several of our customers share a tenant, and consequently, all licensing details are aggregated. This means that three environments can be merged together with all users, making it difficult to differentiate without the environment field as a filter.
In addition, the security role information in the earlier export was very valuable for us. Alongside the PPAC export, we leverage the Security Governance feature in our customer reviews to analyze and optimize license consumption. The role information in the earlier export supported this by highlighting where to focus. While not a complete picture, it provided a clear starting point by highlighting which security roles were contributing to license consumption. This allowed us to focus our analysis and make the job of license optimization more efficient.
Could you provide some insight on this?
Was this reduction in detail an intentional change, or can we expect further improvements to the export option?
Is there perhaps an alternative path to obtain the same level of information, which we may have overlooked?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Marika,
I also miss the details as provided in earlier exports. I don’t know what exactly you mean by customers sharing a tenant. What is the situation? Anyway, assuming you talk about various environments, all details are visible in each distinct environment on the License Usage Summary page. The reports on PPAC and LCS do show the summary for all production environments for the same tenant. You can read more about the License Usage Summary page on some of my other recent blog posts.