Dynamics 365 Team Member License Changes

Dynamics 365 Team Member License Changes – the party’s over… Well, not over but being scaled back. Team Member licenses for Dynamics 365 are a light-use license providing access to only main areas of the product – Account, Contact, Activities etc. Users with Team Member licensing are not supposed to be able to use sales, marketing or customer service-specific functionality.

Microsoft left this mostly to the honor system but due to overuse of this basic license they are now readying the preverbal hammer.

Here’s Microsoft’s official statement –

To better assist customers with use right compliance and tailored role experiences, we introduced the new Team Member apps as part of this release. For model-driven apps in Dynamics 365 (Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation), this team member experience is now provided in the product through a set of designated apps. The designated apps are as follows:

• Customer Service Team Member
• Sales Team Member
• Project Resource Hub

Once the license enforcement is turned on starting April 1, 2020, users assigned the new Team Members license, purchased on or after October 1, 2018, will ONLY be able to access the Team Member apps and will no longer be able to access any other apps such as Customer Service Hub, Sales Hub, Project Service Automation or any other custom apps.

What does this mean? If you have Team Member licensing you need to evaluate what specific features each user is currently using in the system and plan for either transition to the new “app” required for Team Member users (which will restrict the functionality to only that allowed for this license type) OR if you find they are using areas they should not (and will not) be entitled to, you will need to map these users to the proper higher-level license.

Because the users don’t know any better, they are just clicking and using the system and are not aware they are overstepping the rights of a Team license. This makes engaging with these users important so you can inventory what they specifically use (Leads, Opportunities, Cases just to name a few) that will disappear when these new “apps” rollout.

We Can Help

Our team has worked with Dynamics 365 for 17 years and know the licensing model upside down. Schedule a call with us to discuss your licensing and how this change will impact your company.

With the changes made to the Dynamics 365 licensing model in October last year, you also may be overpaying for licensing. We offer a free licensing analysis to determine if you can save money by moving some licensing to one of the levels introduced last year. FOr example, we have found customers paying $95 per user/month for a Sales Enterprise when all they really needed was a lower-level license. We were able to save these companies a significant amount of money every month without giving up anything they are using in the product.

Let us know if we can help.

About the Author: David Buggy is a veteran of the CRM industry with 18 years of experience helping businesses transform by leveraging Customer Relationship Management technology. He has over 16 years of experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM/365 and has helped hundreds of businesses plan, implement and support CRM initiatives. To reach David or call 844.8.STRAVA (844.878.7282) To learn more about Strava Technology Group visit www.stravatechgroup.com