Azure AD Group Based Licensing in Education. Will this apply to Staff, Students and Alumni?
Please note that I have previously posted this as a ‘reply’ to the announcement of the feature https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Azure-Active-Directory/Azure-AD-group-based-license-management-for-Office-365-and-more/m-p/57595#M304 - I apologize if this is some sort of cross posting breach. Greetings all, My question is specifically in regards to end user licensing in the Education Sector, which is needed to use Azure AD Group Based Licensing. Going by Source 1, all users who inherit a license via the group based licensing model will need an Azure AD Basic license (not Azure AD Free). Going by Source 2, this will change once the functionality reaches GA. Once this happens, "it will be included in Office 365 Enterprise E3 and similar products." As Education licensing differs from the standard Enterprise E3, will this functionality be included at no cost for Student and Alumni licensing? As you can imagine, a large University will have hundreds of thousands of Alumni and tens of thousands of Students. Having Education E3 include the Azure AD Basic licensing / eligibility for Azure AD Group based licensing for $0 will help for Staff, but if Azure AD Basic licensing is not included for Alumni and Students, the Education sector will not be able to afford to use this awesome functionality. Can someone please provide clarity, and preferably a link to a valid Microsoft site, on how Azure AD Group Based Licensing and Azure AD Basic will apply to Staff, Students and Alumni. Source 1 - Link - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-licensing-whatis-azure-port... Features – During public preview, a paid or trial subscription for Azure AD basic or premium editions is required in the tenant to use group-based license management. Also, every user who inherits any licenses from groups must have the paid Azure AD edition license assigned to them. Source 2 - Link - https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2017/02/22/announcing-the-public-preview-of-a... It contains the following statement: "While group-based license management is in public preview you will need an active subscription for Azure AD Basic (or above) in your tenant to assign licenses to groups. If you don’t have one, just sign up for an Enterprise Mobility + Security trial. Later, when this functionality becomes generally available it will be included in Office 365 Enterprise E3 and similar products."PLC Groups spanning many schools
I wonder if anyone can shed light on this scenario for the use of PLC groups? In South Africa schools are required to be part of clusters. The Grade 12 teachers of these schools are part of subject clusters. Usually there is one teacher per school belonging to such a cluster. The schools are independent of each other. There may be 10 to 15 teachers belonging to a cluster where they commonly share resources and work together on assessments. What would be the best way to implement a PLC in this scenario? It would seem that a PLC would be an ideal tool for such a cluster. The challenge is who "owns" the PLC? Ideally it should be in "neutral space". Do I create a PLC as part of our school/organisation and then invite the others to join in? How would a PLC operate across institutions? With our particular cluster there is currently just a mailing list to which the teachers opt in and a common DropBox space where we share files. Would one create a new "virtual organisation" that spans these institutions, with common "ownership" and invite different subject groups to make use of this? I don't have any authority in this matter - I'm just an educator who sees how PLC's can fill a need in this case. It will have to be tried out before one can recommend it on a wider scale.Happening now! Office 365 Groups AMA!
We hope you join our 'Ask Microsoft Anything' AMA! The AMA is happening now, Thursday, April 13, 2017 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT in the Office 365 Groups AMA space. Add the event to your calendar and view in your timezone here. An AMA is a live online event similar to a “YamJam” on Yammer or an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit. This AMA gives you the opportunity to connect with members of the product engineering team who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback. We hope to see you there!
