Use Premium license to sign in to environment with Essentials licenses

Enabled for	Public preview	General availability
Admins, makers, marketers, or analysts, automatically	-	Apr 5, 2024

Business value

In some Business Central configurations, users who have Premium licenses also need to access companies that use only the capabilities available for the Essentials license. This avoids duplicating users to match Business Central's requirement of not mixing Essentials and Premium licenses within the same environment.

Feature details

In general, Business Central doesn't let you mix different license types within the same company. If you're using the capabilities that the Essentials license provides, up until 2024 release wave 1, users with a Premium license couldn't sign in. This is counter-intuitive, given that the capabilities of the Premium license also include the capabilities of the Essentials license. Currently, Essentials and Premium users can't coexist in the same environment. The license with the most capabilities determines the experience.

With 2024 release wave 1, a Premium license user can sign in to a company where the User Experience field is set to Essentials on the Company Information page. However, the Premium user can't use any of the features that the Premium license provides. This doesn't work in the opposite direction. Users who have an Essentials license can't sign in to a company where the User Experience is set to Premium on the Company Information page.

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