What entitles one particular user to the services a subscription offers. Each product licence is made up of several service plans (one per app or service), and before giving it to someone an admin has to record that user's usage location.
Also called license.
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In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Licence in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Chat message roles
Labels on chat messages: instructions go under system, the person's input under user, the model's previous answers under assistant, and results returned by a called tool under tool (or function).
- subscription
Entitlement bought for a product under VCF 9.0 licensing, carrying a set capacity. Where active ones share the same site, unit and product, their capacity is combined into licences, which are then allocated to vCenters.
- Service plans
Each licence bundles several apps and services; these are those components, and an admin can switch any of them on or off for a given assignment.
- App protection policy
A set of Intune rules on managed apps that safeguards organisational data, for example by demanding a PIN or preventing copy-paste and save-as into personal apps. It works whether or not the device is enrolled.
- Usage location
A user attribute that exists only in the cloud (AD sync doesn't supply it) and is required before a licence can be assigned directly. Group-based licensing once required it too, but now defaults to the tenant's location.
Related terms
- Analyst
A reasoning agent built by Microsoft that comes alongside Researcher for people with a Microsoft Copilot licence, and writes and runs code to work through raw data such as multiple spreadsheets. Agent settings don't govern it, because it belongs to the core Copilot Chat experience.
- Conditional Access insights and reporting
Using sign-in data sent to a Log Analytics workspace, this workbook estimates what all your Conditional Access policies, report-only ones included, would do together over a chosen window between 4 hours and 90 days. It needs an Entra ID P1 licence and a role of Security Reader or above.
- Copilot pay-as-you-go billing
Charges selected Copilot services, for example SharePoint agents and agents in Copilot Chat, to a connected Azure subscription based on use. Admins configure it with billing policies, and the people using those services then don't need a Copilot licence.
- Defender for Endpoint Plan 2
The top Defender for Endpoint licence, part of Microsoft 365 E5. On top of everything in Plan 1 it brings endpoint detection and response, automatic investigation and remediation, vulnerability management, threat analytics and in-depth file analysis.
- Disconnected mode
Offline licensing option for VCF Operations: with no internet link, you move registration data, licence changes and usage reports to and from the Business Services console by hand as files.
- DTU model
Purchasing model for Azure SQL with Basic, Standard and Premium tiers and the licence bundled in; reserved capacity and Azure Hybrid Benefit aren't available.
- Dynamic membership group
A group, either security or Microsoft 365, where a rule on user or device properties decides who belongs, adding and removing people automatically. You can't add anyone manually, and a Microsoft Entra ID P1 licence is needed for every distinct member.
- Embed in SharePoint Online
Shows a report, or one visual from it, inside a modern SharePoint Online page by way of the Power BI web part; the link comes from File, Embed report in the service. Access rules and RLS continue to apply, and anyone viewing it needs a Pro or PPU licence, except when that content is hosted on F64 (or larger) or Premium.