Office365 to Microsoft365

[Tony-CILT]

Hi, I have A3 and A1 Office365 licenses but want to make use of conditional access and other features which are in the Microsoft365 product and not in the Office365 products.

Does anyone know or have experience of moving from Office licenses to Microsoft what the SKU is or process.

I currently have added an Azure P1 30 day. to get the features I need right now so the clock is ticking.

Tony

[Rob_D]

When we moved from A1 O365 to A3 M365, it was as simple as upgrading our subscription to the new licenses, deploying them to the users and taking the old ones off. We made it easier by changing the subscription during our renewal.

If you're moving from OA3 to MA3 then you might need to build in a some overlap to avoid anyone loosing access (your reseller can probably advise on this).

Edited March 27, 2025 by Rob_D

[Tony-CILT]

3 minutes ago, Rob_D said:

When we moved from A1 O365 to A3 M365, it was as simple as upgrading our subscription to the new licenses, deploying them to the users and taking the old ones off. We made it easier by changing the subscription during our renewal.

If you're moving from OA3 to MA3 then you might need to build in a some overlap to avoid anyone loosing access (your reseller can probably advise on this).

Sounds easy Rob , Thank you. do you happen to know the SKU p/n you went to?
Id love to avoid falling in a black hole and a load of questions and answers and just say buy this "xxxxxx" from our reseller.

[Rob_D]

I don't have  PN listed anywhere, it just comes up as "Microsoft 365 A3 for Faculty (Annual Subscription)".

 

But I really would recommend a dialogue with your reseller as there might be issues with removing the old licenses from your subscription mid term, and you don't want to wind up paying for both the old and new licenses if you can help it. 

[Tony-CILT]

yes agreed want to avoid overlapping too much. I'll just have to go in the tile description.

its just that confidence that they know what I want and how to get it.

(40 years in IT and 25 as a Ms reseller i can perhaps see the potential black holes)

 

[Space_Munkey]

We bought MS-A3 last year for mainly Conditional access and Intune. The network managers intention was to move away from O365 A1 to full MS365 A3, 365 apps etc.

 

We just had to renew our server CALs too, which includes desktop licensing. Our reseller told us that we wouldn't be able to purchase barebones devices and build with our own image if we don't renew the desktop licensing.

 

So now we have A3 as our main user licensing, but desktop licensing also - it also includes the desktop versions of office, which we now realise we will need for exam accounts / devices that are blocked from internet access, so probably a good thing we have both (SLT haven't mentioned anything ... yet!)

 

In terms of moving users from O365 to MS365, it was just a simple transfer of licensing in the 365 Admin Center, however we had to do it over a holiday due to needing to allow the O365 licensing some time (24-48 hours) to fuly remove from users and then we were able to add the new A3 licensing without conflict errors.. We did this via security groups.

Once applied, we could then configure our conditional access policies and begin playing with InTune.

[Tony-CILT]

thanks space munkey all good info.
still waiting on a price for M365 licenses from my reseller !!  before I do anything

[supportman]

We just bought extra P1 Licenses for Full Time Staff count. Think it was about £600 extra.

 

Seems to include conditional access which I urge everyone to enable for UK geographical only filters on office 365 logins. Basically stopped hacking our accounts completely.