Choosing Opkalla as your new Microsoft 365 Cloud Service Provider (CSP) will require new license provisioning. If you are new to the Microsoft 365 environment, license provisioning may be foreign to you. No worries. We manage all licensing issues for you so that there is no disruption in your service.

Still, understanding Microsoft 365 licenses is important. So let's take a few minutes to discuss license provisioning and what it means. Bear in mind that all Microsoft 365 users must be properly licensed to have legal access to the software.

What is License Provisioning?

In the software licensing realm, provisioning refers to the process of assigning licenses to organizations or individual users. Microsoft provisions licenses for all its products, including both Microsoft 365 and its industry leading operating system. Provisioning can be somewhat complex with Microsoft 365 because there are so many services and applications included in the suite.

The suite operates on a user-based model. This means that each user must have a license to access Microsoft 365 applications and services. Licenses are assigned to accounts within an organization's cloud environment.

In addition, a single user license provides for the installation and activation of Microsoft 365 apps on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Apps include well known titles like Word and Excel.

How Licenses Are Assigned

Microsoft 365 licenses are assigned by administrators from within the cloud environment, also known as the Microsoft 365 tenant. As a Microsoft 365 CSP, Opkalla would manage license assignment for you. Licenses are assigned directly through the admin center or by using PowerShell scripts. Furthermore, a given license grants explicit access to only those apps and services applicable to it.

Microsoft offers a variety of licenses to meet different needs. Examples include Microsoft 365 Business, Enterprise, and Education. It is up to administrators to determine the most appropriate license based on organizational or individual need.

You should know that administrators can add and remove licenses as needed. Should your company bring on several new employees needing access to Microsoft 365, HR doesn't have to worry about license provisioning. Your CSP admin would handle it. If you were contracted with Opkalla, provisioning the new licenses would be our responsibility.

Likewise, administrators remove licenses when individuals leave an organization. Removal of a license revokes that user's access to the previously available apps and services.

How License Activation Works

License provisioning assigns licenses to various individuals within an organization. But the licenses are not automatically active. They need to be activated by each user before apps and services can be accessed. Fortunately, activation is as simple as logging on to the individual account.

Signing in for the first time triggers an automated licensing process managed directly by Microsoft. Activation is nearly instantaneous in most cases. There is no need for further action once a license has been activated.

Microsoft 365 Group-Based Licensing

One last thing to note is that Microsoft does offer group-based licensing for Microsoft 365. Under the group licensing model, licenses can be provisioned for larger groups rather than individuals. Any individual added to a licensed group automatically receives the group's assigned licenses. Access is revoked when an individual leaves the group.

License provisioning can be somewhat complicated if you are not familiar with how the system works. One of the benefits of choosing Opkalla as your Microsoft 365 CSP is that we manage license provisioning for you. To learn more about Microsoft licensing and our related services, please contact us at your earliest convenience. We are here to help you get the most out of Microsoft services and products.