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O365 E3 licensing and Citrix, and F3 licenses

Martin Bailey-Wood 1 Reputation point
2020-09-03T14:20:31.12+00:00

Our organisation has a mixed bundle of O365 licenses: E3, E1 and F3 on a 30/30/40 split. I can find reference E1, E3, E5 & F1 in various docementation punlished by Microsoft but I can find no reference to F3. Is F3 the same as F1 or E5 under a different guise?

Furthermore we have a large number of users who access on Citrix. It is my given understanding that Citirix users are required to access a shared activation mode to be able to access Office 365 Apps for Enterprise and that thjis is available on O365 E3 licenses only, ergo all Citrix users are required to have an E3 license. I am however being told by our technical teams that this is not required as we have VDI installations of Windows 10 on our desktops therefore negating the need for Citrix users to require E3 licenses becasue they will not need to access O365 apps. I have to confess that this does not sit well with me for two reasons: if this were the case why would you give Citrix users O365 accounts, secondly I am not sure what the legality is of that in Microsoft's eyes and thirdly would this not require licensing for both Win10 and O365 if that were the case?

Office Management
Office Management
Office: A suite of Microsoft productivity software that supports common business tasks, including word processing, email, presentations, and data management and analysis.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Emily Hua-MSFT 27,556 Reputation points
    2020-09-04T05:38:18.557+00:00

    @Martin Bailey-Wood ,

    Like Microsoft 365 F1, F3 is also more apply for desk-less workers which means they do not include Office desktop apps, but F3 has more features than F1. More information of Microsoft 365 F3, please refer to the links below.
    Office 365 plan options
    Microsoft 365 and Office 365 platform service description

    Starting in Summer 2020, commercial customers can use Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (device) to assign a Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise license to a Windows 10 device instead of to a user.
    This device-based license is designed to simplify management of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise on devices shared by many users. Anyone that signs in and uses that device can use Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise to create and edit documents.
    But this needs to meet some conditions, such as the Windows 10 device must be Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) joined or hybrid Azure AD joined.
    More related information, please refer to "Device-based licensing for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise".

    If you could not meet the specified requirements for device-based license, in my opinion, you need to use shared computer activation for Microsoft 365 on Citrix.
    To use shared computer activation, the Microsoft 365 plan needs to include Microsoft 365 Apps, in your case, E3 is OK.
    Besides, Microsoft 365 apps with shared computer activation is user-based licensing, users need to log in their own accounts to activate Office.

    At last, as we are mainly responsible for general issues of Office desktop applications on Q&A, for issues related to license requirements for Windows 10 and Microsoft 365, I would suggest you contact Microsoft to have a confirmation. Thanks for your understanding.

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