Allocate Microsoft 365 Licenses using 4 Techniques

Assigning licenses is a crucial task when you use Microsoft 365. Because of this you are able to manage your user accounts and access to other services. But, if you make any mistakes while assigning the license then you may face issues. Therefore, in this article, I am going to explain how you can assign licenses in Office 365.

Office 365 license generally is a subscription that you paid for a plan monthly. There are different types of Microsoft 365 plans with different prices and features. Once you subscribe to the plan you will now access its services and license. The license allows you to use the Microsoft 365 productivity apps, services, and other things. The responsibility of managing the license is of IT admin or global administrators.

Read Also: Compare Microsoft Office 365 Plans & Features

Preparations Before Allocating Microsoft 365 License

Assigning the license is a critical task, so before you go through the process. It is important to take some preparation steps.

• First of all, you must need a valid user account in Office 365. Without any account you cannot assign the license.
• Make sure that the subscription you have purchased or upgrade Office 365 subscription has enough license to assign on all the user accounts.
• The services of Microsoft 365 are region-based. So, you must specify the usage location for each user before allocating the license.
• Each license includes one or more services like Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams, etc. Therefore, ensure that which service you want to enable or disable during the process of assigning the license.

Here are the prerequisites that you must follow. After that follow the below methods to properly assign licenses in Office 365.

How to Assign Licenses to Office 365 User Account? (M365 Admin Center)

The main way to allocate the license from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the Office 365 admin portal using the administrator account.
2. Go to the Billing section and select the Licenses option.
3. Click on the specific subscription, then choose the Assign Licenses button.
4. Select the user who you want to assign the license.
5. Enable the apps and services which you want to assign to the user.
6. Lastly, click on Assign option, then Close the option.

You can use this method to allocate the license to the user account individually. If you want to assign multiple licenses to specific user. Then, follow the steps below.

Allocate Bulk License to User Accounts

1. In the same admin center. Go to the Users option.
2. Select the Active users option. Choose the names of the users you want to allocate the license.
3. Click on the Manage product licenses, then Assign more: Keep the existing licenses and assign more.
4. Under the Licenses section, click on the license which you want to allocate. Then, save the changes.

Assign Microsoft 365 License to Group

You can also allocate licenses to Office 365 groups. For this, you need the Azure Active Directory.

1. Sign in to Azure or Entra ID portal. Go to the Azure Active Directory button.
2. Click on Groups option and + New group button. Select the Security as Group type.
3. Now, provide the group name, description, and select the Membership type.
4. Hit the Create button. After that, I am going to assign the licenses to the Group.
5. In the group’s overview page, select on the Licenses and Assignments.
6. Press the +Assignments option. Then, choose the Microsoft 365 license plan.
7. Configure your service plan options. Click the Assign option.
8. From the group page, select the Members and +Add members
9. Select the users to add in this group.

Using PowerShell to Allocate Office 365 Licenses

PowerShell can also be used to allocate the license. For this, you must have the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. Also, provide appropriate permissions with the module, you just install.

1. First, I am going to connect to the Microsoft Graph PowerShell module: Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.ReadWrite.All", "Organization.Read.All".
2. Now, List all the available license to find SKU ID: Get-MgSubscribedSku | Select-Object SkuPartNumber, SkuId (Note down the SKU ID which you needed later in this process).
3. To assign license to single user provide the user principal name (UPN) or the SKU ID: Set-MgUserLicense -UserId "[email protected]" -AddLicenses @{SkuId = "YourLicenseSkuId"} -RemoveLicenses @().
4. Assigning to multiple licensers to a user, provide the a particular array of SKUIDs: $e3Sku = Get-MgSubscribedSku -All | Where SkuPartNumber -eq 'SPE_E3'
$e5Sku = Get-MgSubscribedSku -All | Where SkuPartNumber -eq 'SPE_E5'
$addLicenses = @( @{SkuId = $e3Sku.SkuId}, @{SkuId = $e5Sku.SkuId} )
Set-MgUserLicense -UserId "[email protected]" -AddLicenses $addLicenses -RemoveLicenses @().
5. Following command is used to allocate license to a group: Set-MgGroupLicense -GroupId "" -AddLicenses @{SkuId = ""} -RemoveLicenses @().

Here are the ways to assign licenses in Office 365. Now, you know how to allocate the license. But, the process is not over. You should also know how to manage your licenses.

Practices After Assigning Office 365 Licenses

Not just assigning, managing the license is also the responsibility of Office 365. Therefore, below are some practices that you must follow.

• Regularly audit which users are using licenses and what services they are using. Also, find inactive users and unused licenses.
• The services the users need only enable those services. This way, it improves the user experience and controls access.
• Monitor the expiration and renewals of your license. This way you can avoid service disruptions.
• When an employee leaves, immediately removes or reassigns the licenses. But, before storing the data.

Pro Tip: Don’t Forget to Protect Data

While you can allocate the Microsoft 365 licenses to user accounts to easily access the services. But, along with this, you have to also consider the data of the user account. Microsoft 365 uses a shared responsibility model where it provides you all the services to do your work. But, data management and protection is your responsibility. Although, you will get data security features and cloud services. But, this is not enough, you need to have a proper way to save your Office 365 user account data.

For this reason, SysTools Office 365 Backup Software would be a great help. By using this software you can easily download your data and secure them. Hence, after assigning the license, backing the data should be needed.

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Concluding Words

Allocating the license is a critical task that you have to carefully do this. That’s why I have provided four ways to assign licenses in Office 365. Each method provides you steps to assign the licence for different user accounts, groups, and multiple licenses to a single user. Follow the steps properly and securely allocate Microsoft 365 license.

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