As I revised for the MB2-715 exam (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Online Deployment) I am creating blog posts detailing all aspects of my revision. I hope these posts will aid anyone who is also revising for this exam. In this posts I will review licensing options.

The skills measured statement that refers to licensing is shown below;

From the skills measured we can see that you’ll need to be aware of the various editions of Dynamics 365 and how each one is licensed. Plus an awareness of when each edition / license will be required. I admit Microsoft Licensing can be complicated to understand! I hope to portray the basic concepts within this post, however you should refer to the Microsoft licensing guides for more detailed information. Also be aware that these details are subject to change and you should therefore consult the latest guides for current information.

Note:
A revised licensing guide was published in July 2017. The MB2-715 certification was created prior to those revisions. I will therefore attempt to keep this information high-level and hopefully applicable to the questions we might expect. (Although obviously Microsoft could ask us anything!)

Editions

Dynamics 365 is available in two editions. Business and Enterprise.

Enterprise is aimed at complex organisations that require the full feature set of Dynamics 365. Typically these will be organisations of 250 (or more users.) As I mentioned in my earlier post, Dynamics 365 is much more than just “CRM”. The Enterprise edition can include finance and operations packages that are based on Dynamics AX. (An Enterprise scale ERP platform.) The Enterprise edition also includes dual use rights, meaning it can be deployed Online or On Premise. Although you should be aware that some features are only available to Online users. There is no minimum number of users for an Enterprise plan unless you include the finance / operations elements. (AX). When using AX the minimum number of users is 20.

The Business edition is aimed at smaller / less complex organisations, typically with 10 to 250 users. With a maximum user limit of 300. The financials for the Business edition are based on Dynamics Nav. (An initiative that was previously referred to a Project Madeira.) The Business edition is cloud only.

Dynamics 365 is licensed on a named user basis. The subscriptions may differ based on the users role. Users may be licensed for a single application or have a plan which includes access to multiple applications.

Subscription Model – Business Edition

With the business addition two subscription licenses (SLs) are available;

1. Full user – providing full access to the application.
2. Team member – supports basic processes and light tasks. (team members mainly consume data.)

SLs cannot be shared between users but each user can access the application using a variety of methods / clients. (Mobile, web client etc.)

SLs apply to internal users. Access by external users does not require an SL license. An external user is someone who isn’t an employee, onsite contractor or onsite agent.

Subscription Model – Enterprise Edition

Like the Business edition the Enterprise edition has a concept of Team Member licenses and full users.

Team Members could represent a large percentage of users in a business. They consume data and complete light tasks but do not use the full application functionality.

Full users work with the full functionality of the application. These might be your sales people, financial controllers, customer service representatives etc. Full users will be licensed to use a single Dynamics 365 application or will have a Dynamics 365 Plan license.

Plans are grouped under the headings of “Customer Engagement” and “Unified Operations”. (FYI: Previously known as Plan 1 and Plan 2.)

As the diagram below suggests users can purchase a team member license, one of three plans or an application.

Dynamics 365 Plan – Provides full access to all applications. Across customer engagement and operations. (Formerly known as plan 2)

Unified Operations Plan – Provides full access to all operations / financials.

Customer Engagement Plan – Provides access to all of applications that help build and support customer relationships. (Formerly known as plan 1)

Rather than purchasing a plan you can purchase a single application. For example, Field Service. Generally this is the cheaper approach if the user only needs access to that one function. But as soon as they need access to two or more applications then a plan will be the more cost effective approach. Microsoft do however offer tiered pricing for large deployments. Customers who qualify will receive a lower price per user.

PowerApps and Microsoft Flow capabilities are included in all the Dynamics 365 applications and Dynamics 365 for Team Members subscriptions so that users can create, modify and use mobile apps based on Dynamics 365 data. Dynamics 365 Business and Enterprise edition Plans include PowerApps Plan 2, which provides users full create and run capabilities across data sources including the ability to model business data in the Common Data Model (CDM).

Note:
Device and Activity licenses for Operations support additional scenarios. Device licenses maybe cost effective when multiple users access Dynamics 365 from a single device. Activity licenses are aimed at heavy users of the application but who do not require the user rights of a full user.

Pricing

I hesitate to mention pricing, as it is obviously subject to change. But having an appreciation of typical costs may help you appreciate when particular licenses would be beneficial. (Obviously refer to Microsoft for details of current pricing.)

With the Enterprise edition application licenses are often $95 each. Whilst the customer engagement plan, giving access to all of the engagement apps is $115 per user per month. Hopefully you can see that the Customer Engagement Plan will therefore often offer the best value for money.

For Enterprise team member licenses are currently $8 per user per month. Meaning this license is relatively cheap. But don’t forget that its functionality will also be limited.

The Dynamics 365 Plan license, giving total access to all of customer engagement and operations is currently $210. Whilst the Unified Operations Plan is $190.

With the Business edition, full users are $40 per use per month. And a Business edition team member license is $5 per user per month.

Instances

Each customer will typically have one tenant. Within that tenant you can have a number of instances. There are two types of Dynamics 365 instance. Production and non-production (often called sandbox).

One sandbox and one production instance are provided with your first purchase of a Dynamics 365 license.

Additional instances can be purchased for a monthly fee.

Storage

Space is obviously important, large organisations may have large storage requirements!

By default a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement subscription will provide 10Gb of storage. Then an additional 5Gb of storage is automatically added for every 20 full users. (Team member licenses do not contribute to this increase.)

The amount of extra “free” storage is capped at 30Tb.

Customer engagement and Unified Operations storage are not shared.

Additional storage can be purchased in 1Gb chunks. Up to a maximum of 5Tb of extra storage.

Portals.

The Dynamics 365 Portal provides you the capability to extend your Dynamics 365 for Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, or Project Service Automation scenarios into cloud hosted web portals.

One portal is included with any Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Plan subscription, per tenant, shared across all Customer Engagement Applications. A Customer Engagement Plan Business Application subscription is required to administer and configure the portal. Each portal may only be associated with one instance. (Or put another way, you get one “free” portal as long as you’ve got at least one Plan subscription.)

The capacity included is 1 million page views per month. Additional capacity can be purchased in incremental blocks of 500,00 views per month.

Obviously there is potentially a lot more detail! If you need to investigate licensing in detail please refer to Microsoft’s pricing guides. But hopefully I have covered the key aspects of licensing, to help support your revision for MB2-715.