Category Archives: Uncategorized

Partner Quotes added to Get Licensing Ready Exams

Partner Quotes is the latest module to be added to the Get Licensing Ready set of exams.

This tool is for partners to prepare quotes for their Enterprise Agreement customers and means that they can prepare a preliminary CPS for a standard quote quickly and easily.

It supports complex agreement structures too and speeds up the process, and accuracy, of generating the required paperwork for customer sign-off.

Check out GLR here: https://GetLicensingReady.com.

Exam 74-678 sample Software Assurance questions available!

This is the final part in our series of questions to help you check out whether you know enough to pass the 74-678 exam.

Each test is a random 20 questions on all of the different SA benefits – do you know which ones meet which customer needs and the programs that they’re available through?

Take a test here: http://bit.ly/74-678, and don’t forget to register if you want to know when all our other resources are released.

Overview of the Changes to the October 2014 Volume Licensing Product List

This month it’s Office 365 that dominates the changes to the Product List but there are some interesting changes to the Windows Rental Rights too, just to keep the balance.

New Office 365 SMB Plans

  • Three new Office 365 Plans aimed at the small and medium sized business are available both through the customer portal direct from Microsoft, and also through Open and Open Value Volume Licensing programs, for up to 300 users
  • Office 365 Business includes the Office applications and OneDrive, Office 365 Business Essentials includes Lync, Exchange and SharePoint Online Services, as well as OneDrive, and Office 365 Business Premium includes everything. This is the official availability announcement: http://bit.ly/1D3c0mU
  • There’s confirmation on page 55 about what happens to product key redemption for Office 365 Midsize Business – this product is available until 30 September 2015, after which time unredeemed subscriptions may be used for a successor product

From SA USLs

  • This is the third successive month that the From SA USLs have featured and this time it’s the turn of Project and Visio. It’s confirmed on page 50 that there’s From SA USLs available for Visio Pro for Office 365 as well as Project Pro and Project Online with Project Pro for Office 365, all only available through an EA
  • There’s also new wording added on page 10 for customers who bought Office 365 suites before 1 August 2014 – they’re allowed to renew into From SA USLs at their next Enrolment renewal

Windows Rental Rights

  • The main news here is that Windows Rental Rights have been expanded to include consumer editions of Windows. The table on page 24 shows that Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 7 Home Premium are now qualifying operating systems but there is a restriction for non-Pro versions of Windows – devices may only be rented to individuals for non-commercial use

Other news…

  • There’s a slight name change in the Office 365 Plans mentioned on page 9. A3 and G3 are no more – apparently we should now all refer to them as Education E3 and Government E3, with the commercial offering being Enterprise E3
  • See page 59 for some perhaps overdue confirmation that a user with an Enterprise Mobility Suite USL may access and use the relevant Online Services on up to five devices
  • Power BI for Office 365 is re-categorised as an “Other Online Service” on page 9, which makes it eligible for a one-year subscription in the table on page 42
  • And it’s farewell (at last!) to Exchange Server 2007 Standard for Small Business which means that all that’s left of the Small Business products is Small Business Server 2011…

Sales and Licensing Webcasts

There’s a series of Sales and Licensing webcasts running out of the US over the next few weeks.

Join them for sessions on the MPSA, Microsoft Payment Solutions, and the Enterprise Mobility Suite: http://bit.ly/1xxpbto.

74-678 Program Licensing Revision Questions Available

Exam 74-678 sample program licensing questions available! This is the third in our series of questions to help you check out whether you know enough to pass the 74-678 exam. Each test is a random 20 questions on all the licensing programs aimed at large organisations including the MPSA and the Server and Cloud Enrolment.

Take it here: http://bit.ly/74-678, and don’t forget to register if you want to know when all our other resources are released.

Updated MVLC Guide

Customers buying through the MPSA need access to the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center (MVLC) and there’s an updated (September 2014) guide.

The previous guide was written at the time of the Windows Azure Active Directory Preview Portal and so all the processes and screenshots are (nicely) updated for the new Azure Management Portal. There’s also a useful new table on MVLC roles and permissions on pages 19/20 and one on AAD admin roles and permissions on page 31.

If your job involves accessing or teaching people how to use MVLC then the instructions in Appendices A and B are worth a read. Get it here: http://bit.ly/1vIzfze.

74-678 Licensing Tools & Resources Revision Questions Available

This is the second of our sets of questions to help you check out whether you know enough to pass the 74-678 exam. See if you’re up to scratch on the Product List, PUR, VLSC and all of the other key tools with 10 questions randomly chosen from our big bank of questions.

We reckon you should be aiming to get at least 70% correct and you can try it out here: http://bit.ly/74-678. Don’t forget to register if you want to know when all of the other resources become available.

74-678 Product Licensing Revision Questions Available

Exam 74-678 sample product licensing test questions available! The first of our resources to help you to prepare for and gain the new Microsoft Volume Licensing accreditation are here. One of the key areas you’ll be tested on is the licensing of the Microsoft products and our sample questions will help you to see if your knowledge is up to par.

There’s a big bank of questions and you’ll get a random 20 questions each time you take the test. Good luck!

Find it here: http://bit.ly/74-678.

Office on Demand to be Retired

Microsoft announce that Office on Demand will no longer be a part of Office 365 ProPlus subscriptions from November 2014.

Read the full post (http://bit.ly/1yvU59H) and get an overview of the alternatives: Office Online, Shared Computer Activation, and Azure RemoteApp.

Overview of the Changes to the September 2014 Volume Licensing Product List

I do like to find a theme in the updates to the Product List but I’m stumped this month – there’s a host of Quite Interesting changes but no real theme to them, so here they are – in all of their smorgasbord glory…

Shared Computer Activation

  • Technically, Office 365 ProPlus has been updated from 1 September 2014 to enable it to run in an RDS environment, whereas previously customers had to use Office Professional Plus 2013 software to enable this scenario. There are a couple of interesting licensing changes with this, the first being that if Office 365 ProPlus is indeed deployed in an RDS scenario with Shared Computer Activation it no longer counts as 1 of a user’s 5 installations. And the second is that Office 365 ProPlus can be deployed either on a dedicated physical hardware server or using Azure Platform Services
  • The full wording is on page 51 where it’s also confirmed that these rules apply for Visio Pro for Office 365 and Project Pro for Office 365. If you’re interested in knowing how the Shared Computer Activation works technically then this TechNet article is a good resource: http://bit.ly/1s9EOX4

MPSA Licensing Manual

  • Software Assurance was added to the MPSA starting on 1 September 2014 and it’s confirmed on page 62 that the rules governing SA in the MPSA are detailed in the MPSA Licensing Manual rather than in the Product List. You can get this useful document here: http://bit.ly/1s4V5yE

From SA USLs

  • The From SA USLs were new last month so see August’s Product List entry if you want an introduction to these SKUs. What’s new this month is that Subscription EA customers are also eligible for these transition licences. This is slightly bizarre since the From SA USLs are for customers who have fully paid up licences, but there’s a new rule for the subscription world that states that you’re eligible for these licences if the qualifying Subscription Licence was purchased at least three years prior to the purchase of the From SA USL. See page 54 for the full wording

Azure in the Server and Cloud Enrolment

  • A customer can sign an Azure-only SCE or have it as an additional service in, for example, an SCE that was signed with the SQL component. There’s wording added to page 43 that states that as part of the SCE, customers who have not ordered Microsoft Azure Services as part of their SCE will receive an activation email from Microsoft inviting them to provision Azure under their enrolment without a Monetary Commitment. There’s then further wording on page 44 that confirms that these customers will be invoiced quarterly for their consumption of the Azure services

Azure Active Directory Basic USL

  • This is the only new product added this month so worth a mention purely on those grounds, and it joins its more sophisticated elder brother Azure Active Directory Premium