Dynamics 365 Licensing Changes written and researched by Lee House and Debbie Altham, respectively
DISCLAIMER All information contained herein is based on information provided to its partners as of July 2019. Information is subject to change based on conditions and business decision of Microsoft. Sikich has no control over this information and can only state that it is accurate as at the day of publishing.
Microsoft Announced in July 2019 that there will be Microsoft Dynamics 365 licensing changes effective October 1, 2019. This pricing will have an immediate impact on any clients that are currently on month to month agreements through a CSP agreement. For any account that is on a yearly or multi year agreement, these price changes will be of impact at the time of contract renewal.
The table at the following link represents Base and Attach License fee SKUs (all information contained in this is based on published Microsoft License Fees).
For your convenience, we’ve also compiled a table comparing the Licensing Models before and after October 1, 2019.
Microsoft is moving from selling Dynamics in plans (bundles) to an a la carte selection of apps.
Currently customers have the option of purchasing the Customer Engagement Plan, Unified Operations Plan, or Dynamics 365 Plan licenses, receiving all the associated Business Applications for one price per user per month. Effective October 1, 2019, Customer Engagement Plan, Unified Operations Plan, and Dynamics 365 Plan SKUs will be removed from all price lists. Additionally, Finance and Operations will be split into individual applications – Supply Chain Management and Finance. All remaining Business Applications will continue to be available. This change will enable customers to purchase suitable core workload application(s) for individual user needs going forward. Core workload Business Applications are Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, Supply Chain Management, Finance, Retail, and Talent.
Yes, effective October 1, 2019, the plan SKUs will be removed from Volume Licensing (EA, EAS, EES, SCE), Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA), Microsoft Online Subscription Program (MOSP/Web Direct), and Cloud Solution Provider Program (CSP) price lists.
Microsoft continues to evolve its offerings with the introduction of Mixed Reality and AI products (Sales Insights, Customer Insights, etc.) with the goal to empower customers to customize (mix and match) their licensing. What this means to the customer is “choice,” customers are encouraged to evaluate their business requirements, determine their specific needs, and purchase only those applications required.
The Base license is the first Business Application that is purchased at the standard price. Every full user must have a Base license and, may require a second Base license if, for example, Talent (not available as an Attach license) is required. When purchasing multiple Business Applications, the qualifying Base license must be the higher priced license.
Attach licenses are the additional license application(s) purchased at a flat price of $20 per Customer Engagement application or $30 per Unified Operations application. Each Attach license can only be assigned to a user with the prerequisite Base license. If a user doesn’t have the required Base license, the admin will not be able to assign the Attach license
Base and Attach licenses are identical in their core capabilities and are only differentiated in price. For example, if the customer wants both Sales Professional ($65) and Customer Service Enterprise ($95), they will need to purchase the Customer Service Enterprise SKU as their Base license and the Sales Professional SKU as their Attach license.
Core workload Business Applications:
Non-core workload applications:
Except for Talent, Project Service Automation, and Marketing, customers may mix and match Customer Engagement (CE) and Unified Operations (UO) Business Applications to meet each of their users’ departmental needs. The only restriction is that customers must purchase the higher priced Business Application as the Base license. For example, if a user needs both a Customer Engagement and Unified Operations application the Unified Operations license must be the qualifying Base license as it is the higher priced license. Note, customers who require Project Service Automation and multi-applications, may purchase Project Service Automation as the Base license and add qualifying Attach licenses as needed.
New customers: No impact. They will be buying from the new price list.
Existing customers: There is no change to customers’ existing agreement. They can true up seats at anniversary as required. At renewal (beginning October 2019), customers must renew on the new Attach construct. They must have a qualified Base license for each user and assign the additional Attach licenses to their multiple application users as required.
Existing customers: There is no change to customers’ existing agreement. They can true up seats at anniversary as required.
At renewal (beginning October 2019), customers must renew to on the new Attach construct. They must have a qualified Base license for each user and assign the additional Attach licenses to their multiple application users as required.
At renewal (beginning October 2019), customers must renew to on the new Attach construct. They must have a qualified Base license for each user and assign the additional Attach licenses to their multiple application users as required. Base and Attach license will be offered with a From SA SKU.
No, since programmatic volume discounting was only available for Customer Engagement Plan, these SKUs will cease to exist once Customer Engagement Plan SKU are removed from the price list effective October 2019.
A Base license is a prerequisite to have multiple applications for a user. If a customer’s Base license is cancelled, that user’s Attach license(s) will stop working. To be able to use the existing Attach license, customers will need to:
Only users with a qualified prerequisite Base license are eligible to have an Attach license(s). However, if a customer purchases an Attach license for a user by mistake, they have three options:
Yes, Supply Chain Management, Finance, and Retail have a 20-user minimum purchase requirement.
No, the following combinations may be used to meet the minimum purchase requirements for Unified Operations.
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