Using office 365 on machine with multiple users

Question

We have a number of workstations that run office 2019 H&B and one that is running Office 365. All are domain-joined.

Staff have to rotate thru certain roles - for example, if the employee who is the receptionist is ill, another staff member will log onto the PC at the reception desk with their own account so that they access the resources they would normally.

When this happens we have to go thru the validation of the Office 365 license - in the last two weeks we've had to "re-validate" 3 times because other staff have had to use this particular PC.

1. Are we using office in breach of the license?
2. If not how do we avoid having to have all 120 staff validate every time they sit at this machine?
3. If we've "licensed/validated/Registered/Activated" the product incorrectly, how do we, what is the process step by step that we should have followed?
4. Do we have to have a MSFT account for every employee just to use office on this device?

Forgive me for posting this if it has been done before, but searches and the results yielded did not answer my Q. T.I.A.

Answer 1

Thanks Mia,

Sorry but that doesn't make any sense to me what you are saying we need to do. Can you provide step-by-step instructions? It sure has become very very complicated for the sake of an office license. Do MSFT not want SMB's to use Office, should we have chosen something else.

Answer 2

Dear Ozemail,

Thanks for writing back to us.

No, shared activation is not possible by one Office 365 license, it needs to meet all the requirements started in the article shared in my first reply.

In this situation, you can ask the users to use the Office for the web with their one account linked to the one-time purchased Office apps. Or you can create a shared user account (a user account can be shared with everyone) and assign license to it, so every user who access that laptop can use that account.

Sincerely,

Mia | Microsoft Community Moderator

Answer 3

Thanks Mia for the information.

I am assuming that Office 365 is aimed at the consumer and not business based on this. We had Office 2019 but the software vendor stated they only support Office 365.

I guess each time a staff member has to man the reception desk (including lunch breaks or when the receptionist goes to collect snail mail from the post office) that we will have to call IT to "move the license" as crazy as it sounds. Our mistake for falling for the advice of the SW vendor.

I had a look at the Shared Computer Activation - is this possible with just one license of Office 365? or do we have to subscribe to additional software

Answer 4

Dear Ozemail,

Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you. 

Per the description shared, I understand the concerns at your end and here is the information about your concerns:

1. Are we using office in breach of the license? No breach because you are removing the license and assigning to the different user.
2. If not how do we avoid having to have all 120 staff validate every time they sit at this machine? To use the Office apps as a shared source, we need to use the Shared Activation, please refer to this article for requirements: Overview of shared computer activation for Microsoft 365 Apps - Deploy Office | Microsoft Learn
3. If we've "licensed/validated/Registered/Activated" the product incorrectly, how do we, what is the process step by step that we should have followed? Changing the license between the users is up to the IT admin of the Office 365, so I believe the re-validation you are following is correct.
4. Do we have to have a MSFT account for every employee just to use office on this device? If the user want to be assigned the license, he can be either internal user or external user, but they need to be part of the Office 365 Organization.

I hope the above information will clear your concern and if there is any misunderstanding, please feel free to post back to us.

We look forward to your response. Thanks for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Mia | Microsoft Community Moderator