Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management licences are not simply assigned by job title. The licence a user needs depends on the security roles they hold. Over time, roles accumulate, people change jobs, and organizations end up both under-licensed (a compliance risk) and over-licensed (wasted spend). Licence governance brings the two back into line.
How licensing follows security
In Finance and Supply Chain Management, each security role grants access to menu items and actions. Microsoft classifies that access into licence levels such as Team Members, Activity and full application licences. A user's required licence is driven by the highest level any of their roles needs. Users who need full access to several applications typically hold one base licence and attach licences for the others.
This means a single extra role can change a user's required licence, and its cost.
Common problems
- Under-licensed users: a role was added for a one-off task and never removed, and now requires a full licence the user doesn't have.
- Unlicensed access: users hold roles in Finance and Operations but no corresponding licence in Microsoft 365.
- Over-licensed users: people who changed jobs, left or no longer use the system still hold full licences.
- Seat mismatch: more licences purchased than assigned, or more assigned than purchased.
Designing roles with licensing in mind
- Build roles around real jobs, using the fewest roles possible.
- Check the licence impact of every new or changed role before it goes live.
- Keep read-only and approval-only roles at lower licence levels where possible.
- Document why each custom role exists and who owns it.
Segregation of duties
Licence reviews are a good moment to check segregation of duties too. Conflicting combinations, such as creating vendors and approving payments, should be blocked or formally accepted with mitigating controls. Finance and Supply Chain Management includes segregation of duties rules to help detect these conflicts.
A periodic review process
- Snapshot users, roles and assigned licences.
- Compare the licence each user requires with what they hold.
- Classify each user: compliant, under-licensed, unlicensed, over-licensed or needs review.
- Decide for each violation whether to change the licence or the role.
- Record decisions and repeat quarterly, and before every licence renewal.
Putting a price on it
Attach monthly prices to each licence type so the review shows the cost of fixing shortfalls and the savings from removing unneeded licences. That makes the conversation with finance and IT much easier.
Our extension
Our License Management extension compares the licences users' security roles require with the licences assigned in Microsoft 365 and the seats you've bought. It applies base and attach logic, classifies every user, shows purchased versus assigned versus required seats, and turns gaps into monthly cost. It reads security data without changing it.
Next step
Send a licence management enquiry. As a Microsoft Indirect Reseller (CSP), we can also help adjust your licence mix after the review.