Query on Licenses

Question

Hi all,

I have two isolated tenants: one Production and one Sub-Production. Both tenants have Microsoft 365 E5 licenses assigned.

I created an on-premises AD security group that is synced to Microsoft Entra ID. I then assigned the Microsoft 365 E5 license to this group in Entra ID, so that any user added to the on-prem AD group automatically receives the E5 license.

In the Sub-Production tenant, when I sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center and navigate to Billing → Licenses → Microsoft 365 E5, I see two tabs: Users and Groups. Under the Groups tab, I can see my synced on-prem AD group.

However, in the Production tenant, when I follow the same steps, I only see two tabs: Licenses and Errors & issues. The Groups tab is not visible.

Has there been any recent change in the Microsoft 365 admin center UI or behavior that could explain this difference between tenants? Please guide me. Moved from: Exchange Online

Answer 1

Dear @Roger Roger,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Based on your description, I understand your experience when the Microsoft 365 admin behaves differently across tenants, especially when you are trying to maintain consistency between Production and Sub‑Production environments.

In this case, recently, Microsoft recently changed the licensing UI in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Therefore, differences in UI rollout stages, backend service updates, or regional deployment timing can definitely lead to the kind of discrepancy you are seeing.

For more information:

• Identify and resolve license assignment problems for a group in the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal
• Assign or unassign licenses to a group in the Microsoft 365 admin center
• What is group-based licensing in Microsoft Entra ID?

To ensure this is thoroughly investigated and not caused by a tenant‑specific issue, I strongly recommend that you create a support ticket directly with Microsoft Support. The support team will be able to check the backend configuration of your Production tenant, confirm whether the new licensing experience has been fully deployed, and identify whether there is any service‑side anomaly affecting the visibility of the Groups tab.

You can open a ticket from the Microsoft 365 admin center: on the bottom right side of the page, select Help & support.

For more information and instruction, please follow this article: Get support for Microsoft 365 for business

Please understand that as forum moderator, my primary goal is to provide helpful guidance and support through general troubleshooting steps. While I don’t have access to internal systems or test devices required to resolve backend issues, I truly appreciate your understanding of these limitations. I genuinely hope the information I share helps guide you in the right direction, and I'm always here to assist as much as I can within my scope.  

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions or if I misunderstand anything, please feel free to reach out.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. I'm looking forward for your reply.

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Answer 2

The difference in the visibility of the Groups tab between your Production and Sub-Production tenants in the Microsoft 365 admin center could be due to several factors, including differences in tenant configurations, permissions, or potential updates to the admin center UI that have not been uniformly applied across all tenants.

1. Tenant Configuration: Ensure that both tenants are configured similarly in terms of licensing and group management settings. Sometimes, specific features may be enabled or disabled based on the tenant's setup.
2. Permissions: Check if the account you are using to access the Production tenant has the necessary permissions to view group-related information. Different roles may have varying access levels.
3. Recent Changes: Microsoft periodically updates the admin center interface and functionality. It’s possible that the Groups tab is being rolled out gradually or is temporarily unavailable in one of the tenants due to maintenance or updates.

To resolve this issue, you might want to:

• Verify the permissions of your admin account in both tenants.
• Check if there are any notifications or messages in the admin center regarding updates or changes.
• If the issue persists, consider reaching out to Microsoft support for clarification on the UI differences and any potential changes that may have occurred recently.

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References:

• Managing new services added to products
• Administration in a tenant