If you have recently renewed your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA), you should verify that the correct licenses are available. At The SAM Club, we have encountered problems in the past where the license quantities were not entered correctly. This article discusses a different problem that we noticed after an EA renewal that started on 1st January 2024.
Microsoft is phasing out the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) from April 2023 and switching to the Office 365 Admin Portal (MAC). You can read our previous blog for more details, which also pointed out a difficulty with finding out the licenses owned.
The new EA can be seen in the MAC by those who have been given access. Note the administration in providing access to users still has to be done through the VLSC.
However, we observed issues with the licenses that are displayed as available in the MAC. The client renewed 700 x M365 E3 & 15 x Office 365 licenses, but the license summary showed only 705 x Office 365.
When we checked the orders for the contract, we could see the accurate M365 E3 license counts that matched the Customer Price Sheet (CPS).
But when we looked at the licenses that could be assigned to end users, the number was only 697 instead of 715.
How can the MAC be so wrong in three different places?
The SAM Club does the necessary checks for our clients when licenses are bought and renewed to make sure orders are processed correctly. When we find issues like this, we contact the relevant people to make sure the details are fixed. This is crucial because at some point the licenses from the old agreement will not be counted in the license number, which could lead to data loss or a problem where a random user is unable to work.
If you want to know more about our comprehensive software asset management service, please email us at [email protected].
