Assign Skype for Business licenses
Important
Skype for Business Online operated by 21Vianet in China will be retired on October 1, 2023. If you haven't upgraded your Skype for Business Online users yet, they will be automatically scheduled for an assisted upgrade. If you want to upgrade your organization to Teams yourself, we strongly recommend that you begin planning your upgrade path today. Remember that a successful upgrade aligns technical and user readiness, so be sure to leverage our upgrade guidance as you navigate your journey to Teams.
Skype for Business Online, excluding the service operated by 21Vianet in China, was retired on July 31, 2021.
This article gives you tips about assigning licenses to your users for features like Audio Conferencing, Phone System, and Calling Plans. It also provides scripts for assigning licenses in bulk.
Important
See Skype for Business add-on licensing for information about what licenses you need to buy and how to buy them - depending on your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 plan - so users get Audio Conferencing, toll-free numbers, and the ability to call phone numbers outside your business.
Phone System and Calling Plans: Tips and scripts for assigning licenses
What you need to know before assigning Audio Conferencing, Phone System and Calling Plan licenses
Using on-premises PSTN connectivity for hybrid users? If so, you only need to assign a Phone System license. You should NOT assign a Calling Plan.
Latency after assigning licenses: Because of the latency between Microsoft 365 or Office 365 and Skype for Business Online, it can possibly take up to 24 hours for a user to be assigned a Calling Plan after you assign a license. If after 24 hours the user isn't assigned a Calling Plan, please Contact support for business products - Admin Help.
Error messages: You will get an error message if you haven't purchased the correct number of licenses. If you need to buy more Calling Plan licenses, choose Buy more.
Next steps: After you assign Calling Plan licenses to your users, you will need to get your phone numbers for your organization, and then assign those numbers to the people in your organization. For step-by-step instructions, see Set up Calling Plans.
How to assign a Phone System and Calling Plan license to one user
The steps are the same as assigning a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license. See Assign or remove licenses for Microsoft 365 for business.
How to assign Phone System and Calling Plan licenses in bulk
Install the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant for IT Professionals RTW. Don't have the module installed? See Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant for IT Professionals RTW to download it.
Install the Windows Azure Active Directory module. Don't have the module installed? See Manage Microsoft Entra ID using Windows PowerShell for download instructions and cmdlet syntax.
Once you get the modules installed, use the Windows PowerShell command prompt and the following syntax to assign the licenses to your users:
This example assigns an Enterprise E3 license along with a Phone System and a Domestic Calling Plan license.
The name of the licenses or product names in the script are listed in italics text (see Phone System and Calling Plan product names or SKUs used for scripting, after the example).
#Create a text file with a single row containing list of UserPrincipalName (UPN) of users to license. The MSOLservice uses UPN to license user accounts in Microsoft 365 or Office 365. #Example of text file: #user1@domain.com #user2@domain.com #Import Module ipmo MSOnline #Authenticate to MSOLservice. Connect-MSOLService #File prompt to select the userlist txt file. [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms") | Out-Null $OFD = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog $OFD.filter = "text files (*.*)| *.txt" $OFD.ShowDialog() | Out-Null $OFD.filename If ($OFD.filename -eq '') { Write-Host "You did not choose a file. Try again" -ForegroundColor White -BackgroundColor Red } #Create a variable of all users. $users = Get-Content $OFD.filename #License each user in the $users variable. #Use MCOPSTN1 for PSTN Domestic Calling and MCOPSTN2 for Domestic and International Calling. for each ($user in $users) { Write-host "Assigning License: $user" Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $user -AddLicenses "companyname:ENTERPRISEPACK " -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $user -AddLicenses "companyname:MCOEV " -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $user -AddLicenses "companyname:MCOPSTN1 " -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }Phone System and Calling Plans product names or SKUs used for scripting
| Product name | SKU part name |
|---|---|
| Enterprise E5 (with Phone System) |
ENTERPRISEPREMIUM |
| Enterprise E3 |
ENTERPRISEPACK |
| Enterprise E1 |
STANDARDPACK |
| Skype for Business Online Standalone Plan 2 |
MCOSTANDARD |
| Phone System |
MCOEV |
| International Calling Plan |
MCOPSTN2 |
| Domestic Calling Plan (3000 min US / 1200 min EU plans) |
MCOPSTN1 |
| Domestic Calling Plan (120 min calling plan) |
MCOPSTN5 |
| Domestic Calling Plan (240 min calling plan) |
MCOPSTN6 |
| Communications Credits |
MCOPSTNC |
Audio Conferencing: Tips and scripts for assigning licenses
What you need to know before assigning Audio Conferencing licenses
Third-party audio conferencing provider: If someone is already set up to use a third-party audio conferencing provider, when you assign them an Audio Conferencing license, they will be changed to use Microsoft as the audio conferencing provider. You can change them back to the third-party provider.
Next steps: After you assign Audio Conferencing licenses, you need to assign an audio conferencing provider. See [Assign Microsoft as the audio conferencing provider].
How to assign an Audio Conferencing license to one user
The steps are the same as assigning a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license. See Assign or remove licenses for Microsoft 365 for business.
How to assign Audio Conferencing licenses in bulk
Download and install Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant for IT Professionals RTW.
Download and install the Windows Azure Active Directory module. SeeManage Microsoft Entra ID using Windows PowerShell for download instructions and cmdlet syntax.
Once you get the modules installed, use the Windows PowerShell command prompt and the following syntax to assign the licenses to your users:
The name of the licenses or product names in the script are listed in italics text. See Audio Conferencing product names or SKUs used for scripting for all of the product names.
This example assigns an Enterprise E3 license along with an Audio Conferencing license.
#Create a text file with a single row containing list of UserPrincipalName(UPN) of users to license. The MSOLservice uses UPN to license user accounts in Microsoft 365 or Office 365. #Example of text file: #user1@domain.com #user2@domain.com #Import Module ipmo MSOnline #Authenticate to MSOLservice Connect-MSOLService #File prompt to select the userlist txt file [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms") | Out-Null $OFD = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog $OFD.filter = "text files (*.*)| *.txt" $OFD.ShowDialog() | Out-Null $OFD.filename If ($OFD.filename -eq '') { Write-Host "You did not choose a file. Try again" -ForegroundColor White -BackgroundColor Red } #Create a variable of all users $users = Get-Content $OFD.filename #License each user in the $users variable foreach ($user in $users) { Write-host "Assigning License: $user" Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $user -AddLicenses "companyname:ENTERPRISEPACK " -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $user -AddLicenses "companyname:MCOMEETADV " -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }
Audio Conferencing product names or SKUs used for scripting
| Product name | SKU part name |
|---|---|
| Audio Conferencing |
MCOMEETADV |
| Skype for Business Online Standalone Plan 2 |
MCOSTANDARD |
| Enterprise E1 |
STANDARDPACK |
| Enterprise E3 |
ENTERPRISEPACK |
| Enterprise E5 (without Audio Conferencing) |
ENTERPRISEPREMIUM_NOPSTNCONF |
| Enterprise E5 (with Audio Conferencing) |
ENTERPRISEPREMIUM |
Communications Credits
What you need to know before assigning Communications Credits licenses
Enterprise E5 customers: Even if your users are assigned Enterprise E5 licenses, we still recommend that you assign them Communications Credits licenses.
Next steps: After you assign these licenses, you will need to get your phone numbers for your organization, and then assign those numbers to the people in your organization. For step-by-step instructions, see Set up Calling Plans.
How to assign a Communications Credits license to one user
The steps are the same as assigning a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license. See Assign or remove licenses for Microsoft 365 for business.
How to assign Communications Credits licenses in bulk
Take a look at the sample script for assigning Audio Conferencing licenses. Update it with the info for assigning Communications Credits licenses.