Contracts Frequently Asked Questions

You can see the Contracts list if you're a valid Volume Licensing (VL) user. You're a VL user if you meet one of the following requirements:

• You're listed as a contact for the agreements in a legal Volume Licensing Program form. Contact types include Primary Contact, Notices Correspondent, Online Access Contact, Software Assurance Manager, Online Services Manager, or Subscriptions Manager.
• You're an Administrator with access to the agreements.

A Licensing ID identifies the program level at which orders can be placed by an organization. It can represent any of the following:

• Enrollment (Enterprise or Select programs)
• Agreement (Open Value program)
• License (Open License program)
• Public Customer Number (PCN) (Select Plus program)

Entitlements and site permissions are determined by the Licensing IDs available to your organization.

Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) license information is managed in the Microsoft Business Center. No MPSA information is displayed in this contracts list. To learn more about the MPSA, see Microsoft Products and Services Agreement.

A Licensing ID is displayed only if the user who is signed in has permission to view the Licensing ID details. Permission to view a specific Licensing ID on behalf of your organization is granted if you meet one of the following criteria:

• You're listed as a contact for the agreements in a legal Volume Licensing Program form. Contact types include Primary Contact, Notices Correspondent, Online Access Contact, Software Assurance Manager, Online Services Manager, or Subscriptions Manager.
• You're Administrator with access to the agreements.

For more information about Volume Licensing permission roles and their allowable actions, see the Permissions FAQ.

Recently purchased licenses are typically displayed in the list within 10 hours of Microsoft receiving your order from the Microsoft partner. Delays of a few days to a few weeks can occur if your partner delays forwarding the purchase order to Microsoft. Licenses display in the summary when the Coverage Start period for the order is met for all programs except Open License.

The following data is available in the contacts list:

If you see an "Organization not approved" message, it means your organization is not yet ready to use Microsoft products and services because the review is incomplete. Until this review is complete, the License ID isn't displayed in Volume Licensing > Contracts, and you can't access software downloads or volume licensing keys or manage user access to the contract. Please use the Help & Support option to contact our support team.

The License Summary displays real-time Volume License entitlements per Microsoft product family and version for all active and inactive Licensing IDs in your permission set. The License Summary displays purchase information related to traditional Microsoft Volume License programs beginning in 1994. These programs include, but are not limited to, Open, Open Value, Select, Select Plus, and Enterprise. Licenses purchased under the MPSA program are not included in the VLSC Relationship Summary and can be viewed separately in the Microsoft Business Center.

Access and create the License Summary

1. Sign into the Microsoft 365 admin center.
2. Go to Billing > Your products > Volume licensing > Contracts.

Filter the Licensing IDs for display in the License Summary

1. Use the check boxes to select the License IDs to be included in this summary.
2. Select Create License Summary. The License Summary is generated only for the selected Licensing IDs.

A License Entitlement represents your right to install and use software products as detailed in the license agreement.

The Effective Quantity is the number of license entitlements per product and version with upgrades. It's used to determine whether your organization has license shortfalls or surpluses by product and version.

The Active SA Quantity is displayed in the License Summary. It represents the number of licenses covered by Software Assurance (version upgrade protection) across all Microsoft Volume License programs. The Active SA Quantity includes all types of Software Assurance, including:

• License and Software Assurance (L&SA)
• Software Assurance (SA)
• SA Step-Up

The license summary is intended to show the licenses your organization is entitled to deploy and use. If the Effective Quantity in the generated license statement is shown as zero, it means that your organization isn't entitled to use the license under the terms of the set of licensing IDs selected for that statement. If the Active SA Quantity is shown as zero, it means that the licenses under the set of licensing IDs used to generate the statement don't have any valid or active Software Assurance coverage.

This may be for a number of reasons. Microsoft Volume Licensing organizes products into three pools:

• Full licenses acquired through OEM or Retail purchases are not visible to Microsoft volume licensing admin center.
• Licenses may have been ordered separately from their underlying base license (for example, Maintenance, Upgrade Advantage, or Software Assurance).
• You may not have a complete list of Licensing IDs: Full licenses may have been acquired under Licensing IDs you do not have permissions to view.
• Licenses purchased in a very recent order with your Microsoft partner may not yet be processed by the Microsoft Partner.

No. The License Summary only displays licenses acquired by your organization through Volume Licensing programs.

No. It's not possible for Microsoft to provide a list of product deployment details in the License Summary. The License Summary shows you the software your organization is entitled to install and use, but not what is currently deployed.

A License Pool groups licenses by product type. Microsoft Volume Licensing organizes products into three pools:

• Applications (for example, editions of Microsoft 365)
• Systems (for example, versions of the Windows operating system)
• Servers (for example, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and Windows Server)

Occasionally, Microsoft Volume Licensing offers a promotion where purchase of a specific product entitles the customer to the use of another product. Promotions are typically conditional on active Software Assurance or Upgrade Advantage coverage on the purchased product. For example:

• A customer purchases one license for Exchange Server 2016.
• The transaction has active Software Assurance or Upgrade Advantage coverage during the offer.
• Microsoft offers a promotion for one license of Skype for Business Server with a purchase of Exchange Server 2016.

The License Grant is what entitles, or "grants," the customer to use the promotional product. In the example above, the customer is granted the use of Skype for Business Server.

For more information about License Grants, see the Microsoft Product Terms.

License Grants are reflected in the Contracts list and in Downloads & Keys. In the products list, products received from License Grants are shown with an asterisk (*) to indicate that they weren't part of the original purchase.

To contact support by phone or by Web Form, see Contact Us. Microsoft responds to Web Form submissions within 24 hours.