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Assign or unassign licenses to a group in the Microsoft 365 admin center

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If you have security groups, mail enabled groups, or Microsoft 365 groups, you can assign or unassign licenses for those groups on the Licenses page in the Microsoft 365 admin center. We refer to this as group-based licensing.

Note

Some Microsoft services aren’t available in all locations. Before a license can be assigned to a user, the administrator must specify the user’s location setting. For group-based licensing, any users without a specific location inherit the location of the tenant. If you have users in multiple locations, we recommend that you always set the user location as part of your user creation flow. For more information, see Add users and assign licenses in Microsoft 365.

Before you begin

  • You must be at least a License Administrator or User Administrator to assign licenses. Currently, Group Administrators can’t assign licenses. For more information, see Microsoft 365 admin roles.
  • In addition to the steps described in this article, you can also use the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK to assign or unassign Microsoft 365 licenses to groups. For more information, see Set-MgGroupLicense.
  • Group-based licensing doesn't currently support nested groups (groups that contain other groups). If you assign licenses to a nested group, only users in the first-level group are assigned licenses.
  • When you assign or modify licenses for a large group, like 100,000 users, it can affect performance. In certain high load situations, it might take a long time to process license changes for groups or membership changes to groups with existing licenses.

Limitations of group-based licensing in the Microsoft 365 admin center

  • You can assign licenses to a maximum of 20 groups at a time.
  • When you select Reprocess to resolve issues with group license assignment, the feature attempts to reprocess licenses up to a maximum of 20 users at a time.
  • The lists of users who were and who weren't successfully assigned licenses are paginated lists that display 999 users at a time. You must scroll to the bottom of the list to load the next set of users.

Assign licenses to a group

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center as at least a License Administrator.
  2. Go to the Billing > Licenses page.
  3. On the Subscriptions tab, select the product that you want to assign licenses for.
  4. On the Licenses page, select the Groups tab, then select Assign licenses.
  5. In the details panel, search for the group that you want to assign licenses to, then select the name from the Suggested groups list.
  6. To assign or remove access to specific items, select Turn apps and services on or off.
  7. When you’re finished, select Assign, then select Close.

Verify that the license assignment is finished

After you assign licenses to a group, you should check to make sure that the licenses were successfully assigned. The Groups tab on the License details page shows the status of the task for each group you assigned licenses to. You can use this page to find groups that have errors that must be resolved. For more information, see Find users with license errors in the group.

  1. In the admin center, go to the Billing > Licenses page, and select the product that you assigned the group to.
  2. On the Licenses details page, select the Groups tab. The Status column shows the license assignment status for each group. The following list describes the group statuses:
    • All licenses assigned: The licenses were successfully assigned to every person in the group.
    • In progress: The licenses are still being assigned to some members of the group.
    • Errors & issues: There was an error in assigning licenses to at least one member of the group.

Manage group-based licensing errors

This section tells how to identify if users have licensing errors. It describes the different types of errors that can happen during group license assignment, and includes steps for how to resolve the errors.

Find users with license errors in the group

  1. In the admin center, go to the Billing > Licenses page.
  2. On the Subscriptions tab, select the product that you want to view licenses for.
  3. On the Licenses page, select the Groups tab.
  4. Select a group with the Error status. The side panel opens and contains two tabs:
    • Successfully assigned lists all users to whom licenses were successfully assigned.
    • Actions needed lists all users for whom errors occurred during license assignment. The Licenses page. column indicates the problem encountered.
  5. To fix an error, see the following sections for steps to resolve specific issues.

Not enough licenses

Issue: There aren’t enough licenses for all members of the group. You can either buy more licenses or free up unused licenses from users and groups.

Note

You must be at least a Billing Administrator to buy more licenses.

Resolution: Buy more licenses.

  1. Select the check boxes for users without licenses. You can select up to 20 users at a time.
  2. Select Purchase license.
  3. In the dialog box, select Yes to confirm that you want to buy licenses for the selected users.
  4. In the Manage product licenses side panel, select Buy, then select Done. The new licenses are automatically assigned to the selected users. You can also select Reprocess to manually assign the licenses.

Resolution: Free up unused licenses. You can use the Licenses page to see which users and groups are using which licenses, and then unassign the licenses.

  1. In the admin center, go to the Billing > Licenses page, then select a product.
  2. To unassign licenses, select either the Users or Groups tab, then select the check boxes of the users or groups to unassign licenses from. The list on the Users tab includes users who have licenses assigned directly or through one or more groups.
  3. Select Unassign licenses.
  4. In the Unassign licenses box, select Unassign.
  5. On the Groups tab, select the group with the error.
  6. In the details pane, select the Actions needed tab.
  7. Select the users who are missing licenses, then select Reprocess.

Conflicting service plans

Issue: One of the products specified in the group contains a service plan that conflicts with another service plan already assigned to the user via a different product. Some service plans can't be assigned to the same user as another, related service plan.

Resolution: Remove conflicting service plans.

  1. On the Actions needed tab, select the user’s check box, then select Edit user.
  2. In the user details panel, make changes to the assigned licenses and apps to remove conflicting plans.
  3. Select Save changes, then close the details panel.
  4. Select Reprocess to reattempt license assignment.

Missing dependent service plans

Issue: One of the products assigned to the group contains a service plan that must be enabled for another service plan in another product to function.

Resolution: Make sure that the required plan is still assigned to users through some other method, or that the dependent services are disabled for those users.

  1. On the Actions needed tab, select the user’s check box, then select Edit user.
  2. In the user details panel, select or deselect one or more licenses or apps to remove conflicting plans.
  3. Select Save changes, then close the panel.
  4. Select Reprocess to reattempt license assignment.

Duplicate proxy address

Issue: If you use Exchange Online, some users in your organization might have the same proxy address value. When group-based licensing tries to assign a license to such a user, it fails and displays a Proxy address violation issue.

Resolution: To view more details about this message, select the user’s check box, then select View error details. For more information, see Proxy address conflict when adding an email address in Exchange Online.

User usage location not specified

Issue: Some Microsoft services aren't available in all locations because of local laws and regulations. Before you can assign licenses to a group, each user must have the Location property specified.

Resolution: Update the user's location.

  1. On the Actions needed tab, select the user’s check box, then select Edit user.
  2. In the user details panel, select a location from the Select location drop-down list.
  3. Select Save changes, then close the details panel.
  4. Select Reprocess to reattempt license assignment.

Other

Issue: Refers to all other technical issues related to group based license assignment.

Resolution: To view more details about this message, select the user’s check box, then select View error details.

Unassign licenses from a group

  1. In the admin center, go to the Billing > Licenses page.
  2. On the Subscriptions tab, select the product that you want to unassign licenses for.
  3. On the Licenses page, select the Groups tab.
  4. Select the check box next to the group that you want to unassign, then select Unassign licenses.
  5. In the pop-up window, select Unassign.

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