[ms office - o365] Office 365 A1 Plus Licensing

[DavR]

Does anyone know the current best route to get A1 Plus licensing enabled in Office 365?

 

We have the basic O365 A1, and some O365 ProPlus licensing from our OVS, on our tenant, it's my understanding that we should be able to combine this to get O365 A1 Plus. We should be eligible by my reading.

 

I've tried O365 support, I've tried Volume Licensing support, and no-one seems to even understand the question. I've emailed [email protected] as suggested in this thread on the subject, but they didn't even reply.

 

I'm not going mad am I? O365 A1 Plus is a real thing, isn't it? I read it on the Internet, it must be true....

 

I'm not even getting into the device based activation quagmire, I'm only really getting O365 up and running for people to use at home at this point....

 

Any pointers really appreciated!

[sparkeh]

Persistence.

 

I had the same issue and it only took persistence to have the ticket escalated to someone who knew about the A1+ that made it happen.

Basically you need to be added to the list of school eligible for the licence but need to get hold of someone who knows how to do it.

 

I'll see if I can dig out my ticket number, that might help.

[sparkeh]

I had this logged under ticket #10764501

This might help them understand how to resolve the issue.

 

Also here is a screenshot of the active licences on our tenant so they can see that the licence exists (I had that thrown at me).

[DavR]

I had this logged under ticket #10764501

This might help them understand how to resolve the issue.

 

Also here is a screenshot of the active licences on our tenant so they can see that the licence exists (I had that thrown at me).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]55480[/ATTACH]

@sparkeh that's really helpful, thank you.

 

Who did you have that call open with, Office 365 support or Volume Licensing?

 

I've repeatedly shared the link to their own FAQ about A1 Plus licensing, you'd think that would be enough for them to go and work it out, but really not. Getting anything done through MS support is always like pulling teeth.... without pliers.

[sparkeh]

@sparkeh that's really helpful, thank you.

 

Who did you have that call open with, Office 365 support or Volume Licensing?

 

I've repeatedly shared the link to their own FAQ about A1 Plus licensing, you'd think that would be enough for them to go and work it out, but really not. Getting anything done through MS support is always like pulling teeth.... without pliers.

Oh yes sorry it was with the 365 support team, they are the only ones that can fix this (despite them telling you otherwise).

 

Working with MS support can just be the worst.

[DavR]

Oh yes sorry it was with the 365 support team, they are the only ones that can fix this (despite them telling you otherwise).

 

Working with MS support can just be the worst.

Blast, and they're the ones that have proved least sane / intelligent out of the two. Oh well.

[DavR]

Blimey. Just had a conference call with the Volume Licensing and O365 support agents at the same time!

 

None of them know how to provision A1 Plus of course.....

[DavR]

Another week or so has passed..... Volume Licensing found the product, seemed to understand the situation, in as much as it is DEFINITELY O365 support's remit..... O365 remain affable, but clueless. Today I had a conference call with the Billing department who believe that it's not even Microsoft's problem, I need to go to a re-seller to buy the product.

 

It's a free product, which we are qualified for, as per Microsoft's own FAQ on the matter

 

I feel like I'm being gaslighted by a major multinational, I'm about a month and a half into this support call. It's so tiring.

[DavR]

I won't bore everyone with the latest painful lack of progress in my case, BUT, I just thought I'd share this gem of a quote that came in an email from Office 365 support:

 

They intentionally restrict A1 Plus and make it really hard to obtain probably because it's such a great plan

 

So there we go. Confirmation that they're making this more difficult than it needs to be, on purpose!

[Ratcliffepg]

I have a call open for this as well [Ticket #:17431779] still waiting for a reply.... have a feeling it may take awhile....

[Ratcliffepg]

Now obtained wasn't too bad at all in the end to get these.

[DavR]

Now obtained wasn't too bad at all in the end to get these.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]55709[/ATTACH]

 

Oh! How did you manage that, do you know?

 

The guy I've got seems perfectly willing to action my request, but entirely clueless as to how.

[DavR]

Now obtained wasn't too bad at all in the end to get these.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]55709[/ATTACH]

 

Congratulations btw @Ratcliffepg, that's no mean feat to achieve

[DavR]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

It's only taken three months, but Microsoft finally granted us our A1 Plus licensing

 

I mean, in another three months we might be moving to the full paid Microsoft 365 licensing, with Office A3, but still. VICTORY!

 

[DavR]

Here's a quick crib sheet to help anyone else who goes down this maze:

 

 

1. Check eligibility from here - essentially, if you have O365 A1 already, and have Office ProPlus through EES or OVS, then you're eligible
   
2. Ensure your Pro Plus licensing is on your AAD tenant; your licensing provider may need to add this for you
   
3. Activate the Pro Plus licensing on AAD tenant, and ensure you can see it on your licensing page
   
4. Visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office and attempt a self-service signup, for some schools this may be enough to activate A1 Plus licensing
   
5. For a lot of people though, it won't, so open a case with Office 365 support:
   
   • Do not allow them to fob you off and say it is a Volume Licensing issue; it is not and VL support cannot help you
     
   • They need to make sure you have the EDU tag on your domain, to denote you are a school
     
   • If the support agent does not know how to provision the A1 Plus licensing for you, they need to escalate it to the AVE team
     

 

[*]When the AVE team have provisioned the licensing for you, you'll need to take one student and one teacher account through self-signup, which should cause the licensing to activate, and appear on your AAD tenant.

 

Do not let support tell you this is an additional product to buy, it is not, or that you need to go through a Cloud Solutions Provider, you do not. Only Microsoft can provision this licensing. I can only echo what others have said, keep fighting your corner, you are in the right. If anyone needs my case ref as an example resolution, go ahead, I was ticket 17138820.

Edited December 9, 2019 by DavR

[Ratcliffepg]

Well done !!!

[hudsen123]

You've got more perseverance than me. Well done! Is there anything we need to do via PowerShell? I've read in a few places that there's a command you have to execute?

[DavR]

I don't think the Powershell side of things is necessary. I do remember running a few Powershell commands (probably reading the same pages as you) but I don't recall what they were, other than they didn't do anything.

[Norphy]

I mostly use PowerShell for the automation of repetitive tasks, such as adding or removing multiple people from groups or to get data out of Office365 into an easily readable format.

 

Day to day, it’s not really used.

[MartinT]

You can also do it through your Microsoft reseller. I 'purchase' Office 365 ProPlus for Students and for Faculty (200 + 100) for zero cost on our Open Value agreement and receive an invoice for zero cost! We use Insight.

[mullet_man]

Out of interest what does the A1 Plus licenses offer.

 

I got them on our tennat a while back but haven't used them as we buy the ProPlus for Staff/Students and that seems to suite our needs. I will get round to applying the A1 Plus licenses though!

[sparkeh]

You can also do it through your Microsoft reseller. I 'purchase' Office 365 ProPlus for Students and for Faculty (200 + 100) for zero cost on our Open Value agreement and receive an invoice for zero cost! We use Insight.

@MartinT No you can't. We are talking about the A1 Plus licence, not the ProPlus licence, they are different and not available from your reseller.

Out of interest what does the A1 Plus licenses offer.

@mullet_man They allow you to licence Office 365 C2R using Device Based Activation.

 

Although according to the blog that lots of us used to get DBA with A1 Plus working, it was deprecated on 1 Dec 2019! (still works here though).

https://sysadminedu.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/step-by-step-guide-to-deploying-office-365-pro-plus-with-device-based-activation-with-sccm/

Edited December 10, 2019 by sparkeh

[mullet_man]

@MartinT No you can't. We are talking about the A1 Plus licence, not the ProPlus licence, they are different and not available from your reseller.

@mullet_man They allow you to licence Office 365 C2R using Device Based Activation.

 

Although according to the blog that lots of us used to get DBA with A1 Plus working, it was deprecated on 1 Dec 2019! (still works here though).

https://sysadminedu.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/step-by-step-guide-to-deploying-office-365-pro-plus-with-device-based-activation-with-sccm/

 

Thanks @sparkeh

 

Am pretty reluctent to go to DBA due to all the issues I've seen here. We use 365 for staff and they activate against the user. Would ideally do it for student devices and use DBA (future project maybe)

 

Thanks.

[MartinT]

@MartinT No you can't. We are talking about the A1 Plus licence, not the ProPlus licence, they are different and not available from your reseller.

They come through our Admin Center licensing panel showing as Office 365 Pro Plus for students and Office 365 A1 for students, so the combination (we allocate both to each student) does the right thing with Teams etc.

Edited December 10, 2019 by MartinT

[sparkeh]

I beg to differ, they come through our Admin Center licensing panel showing as Office 365 Pro Plus for students and Office 365 A1 for students.

@MartinT Correct. 365 ProPlus are requested through your reseller. If you qualify for the A1 Plus licence then it *should* appear automatically. If not then you have to get 365 support to added them in. Your reseller cannot do this, the VL Service Center cannot do this. Only 365 Support can.