Microsoft is moving very fast towards power platform, that means business applications are app based and users use what they consume. Microsoft has recently changed the licensing model which lets organizations to purchase licenses based on the app they want to use. A few important questions arise…
- How to licence with base and attach licenses when there are same functionalities spread across the platform? For example, Purchase orders can be created from Accounts payable as well as Procurement and sourcing.
- How to license when you have custom security roles that does not match with standard roles within applications?
Below are some highlighted steps that can be kept handy to do licensing.
Security role and user Subscription License (SL)
- When you assign Security Roles to users, you then know what user SL those users require.
- Customers can assign multiple Security Roles to one user, in which case the highest user SL type required covers all the user rights.
- Financial reporting Designers require a Finance USL and Financial reporting Viewers require a Team Member USL
- Admin rights apply across Finance, Supply Chain Management, and Commerce applications. For example, if you have a Finance license, you have the admin rights for Finance, as well as Supply Chain Management, and Commerce applications.
- Activity and Team Members use rights are included in the full user licenses and those rights are cross-application. A Finance user has Activity level access to Supply Chain Management and Commerce and Team Members level access to those workloads.
Base and Attach license
- Full user SL needs to be licensed with base license.
- Base license of users can be derived on what menu item is user accessing and where it is present.
- If a user is accessing menu items that are present exclusively in both Finance and SCM, then user needs to be licensed with base + attach
| Finance | Accounts payable Accounts receivable Budgeting Cash and bank management Cost accounting Expense management Financial reporting Fixed assets General ledger and Financial reporting Project management and accounting Public sector | If user is accessing any menu item under the defined modules, and user has SL type as “Operations” then user would need Finance base. |
| SCM | Asset management Cost accounting Cost management Inventory management Master planning Procurement and sourcing Product information management Production control Sales and marketing Service management Transportation management Warehouse management | If user is accessing any menu item under the defined modules, and user has SL type as “Operations” then user would need SCM base. |
Security role and their related menu items
How to check license type of security role including custom security roles?
- Users having Access license type as “Operations” will require either Finance base or SCM base depending on menu items defined in above steps
- Users having Access license type as “Team members” only will require Team members license
- Users having Access license type as “Activity” only will require Activity license
You can use license estimator too
Custom security roles and its licensing
- When customizing, it is important to remember that the license required is determined by the highest-level Menu Item to which that individual has access.
Custom security roles scenarios
Assigning Multiple Roles to a Single User
The straightforward way to customize which actions a specific employee may perform in applications is by assigning multiple roles to that employee. For example, an employee could be assigned both the Customer Service Rep and the Field Technician roles and could therefore perform actions associated with both roles. In this case, the employee would still only need a single user SL. Since the Customer Service Rep role is designated at a higher user type level (full user SL) than the Field Technician role (Team Members), the employee would only need the Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, or Human Resources user SL to perform actions associated with both roles.
Changing Menu Items Associated with a Role
Another way to customize what actions users may perform is by changing which Menu Items are associated with a role. For example, if a customer wants everyone who is assigned the Field Technician role to be able to also approve posting of service orders (which is designated as a Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, or Human Resources user SL level action), then they can customize the role to include the “Approve posting of service order” Menu Item. Because the required SL is determined by the highest-level action the user may perform, all users assigned to the Field Technician role would then require a full user SL.
Changing Menu Items Associated with an Individual
Further, customers may assign specific actions to specific users. Following the example above if the customer has 20 employees assigned to the Field Technician role and wants to allow only five of those employees the ability to approve posting of service orders, they may assign the “posting of service order” Menu Item to those five individuals. Those five individuals would then require a full user SL, while the remaining 15 employees assigned to the Field Technician role would require the Team Members user SL.
Vaibhav Sharma 