office Allowing Microsoft Licence Validation through an Internet Block policy

[SJ98]

We've got Office 365 in our school, which authenticates the licence through an Internet connection.

We have an Internet block policy, and when this is in place on a student, they cannot use office applications as it says they do not have a licence.

 

We use Sophos to block Internet and for our firewall

Does anyone know what we must do to get it to authenticate on this policy? We feel we'll need to unblock a link of sorts, but we just aren't sure what!

[BKGarry]

I am actually dealing with this at the moment, with a Sophos XGS, I have just ended up installing Office 2024 LTSC on the student machines with a KMS server to activate it.

[TechMonkey]

Does Sophos just cut the banned pupils off completely?

On Smoothwall banned pupils are just a group that you can assign, or block, against. This allows you to create effectively a walled garden that the little scallywags have to play in.  We have allowed M365 services but banned everything else for them.

[SJ98]

I wasn't even aware that there was a 2024 - we have been on 2019 for ages and then just moved onto 21 and 365

 

It does just cut them off. We just don't know where we would find something that would still block Internet, but allow the licence to validate.

[pete]

The other option is to try device-based licensing.  The office install still needs to check in, but it's only every 90 days.

 

Ask your reseller for sufficient licenses to be added to your 365 tenancy (they're free if you've got Office via an EES or A3).

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-apps/licensing-activation/device-based-licensing

[SJ98]

Just coming back to this.

I managed to sort this by literally listing as many office/Microsoft connected domains into a separate InternetBlock allow policy and this kicked it all in.

 

Thanks all to the suggestions and support!