Licensing Advent Calendar – Day 8 – Over-licensed users

Day 8 of the advent calendar. I got some reactions wondering how it is possible to write 24 posts about Dynamics 365 licensing. Honestly, I was also having a doubt myself. The idea of an advent calendar is having small presents every day. For that reason, I try to divide all topics into smaller posts. Today is a post about over-licensed users.

Over-licensed users

On both the User License Consumption reports available in PPAC and LCS, in the top of the report, you can find a tile called Over-licensed users.

In case the tile has a count, you can click on View details. You will get a list of users and some details why they are over-licensed.

In the screenshot, e.g. David has two licenses, where only one is required. Nova has only access to a sandbox environment. The other two users don’t have security roles in any environment.

The report shows in case an assigned license is fully obsolete. E.g. for sandbox environments, there is no license validation. When looking at the details for David, then indeed the Human Resources license is not required and this license can be removed from the user.

Limited functionality

The current version of the over-licensed users has a limited focus on different scenarios. Already reported to Microsoft is the fact that in case a user needs e.g. a Team members or Operations – Activity license where a base license is assigned, the report is not reporting them.

In case you are using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement or the Power Platform, you should check for more over-licensed scenarios manually. E.g. when you are using Dynamics 365 Project Operations with the core deployment type, project managers will maybe not have access to the project management and accounting features in Dynamics 365 F&O. Although this section is reporting that the user doesn’t need a license, the license is required.

The report will also not report the scenario where a sales manager has a Supply Chain Management license and a base Dynamics 365 Sales Professional. According to the licensing terms, the Sales Professional Attach license can be used in case a user also has, e.g., Supply Chain Management. This licensing concept was explained on Day 3 – Dynamics 365 Licensing.

Some Power Platform use right is included in Dynamics 365 licenses. E.g., when a user has Dynamics 365 Finance, the user can also create and run Power Automate flows in the context of Dynamics 365.The report does not look into other Dynamics 365 or Power Platform licenses that might not be required.

There is more…

During the Advent period, each day in December, I will share some thoughts and tips related to the Dynamics 365 user license enforcement. If you have questions about this topic, feel free to contact me via LinkedIn, the comments section below, or the contact form on this blog. I will then either update one of the planned blogs for the coming 24 days or answer questions in a new post.

Dynamics 365 Licensing Enforcement Advent Calendar

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!